Cutty Ranks

Cutty Ranks was born Philip Thomas on February 12, 1965, in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. He ran away to the streets of Kingston around age eight or nine and began deejaying with local sound systems as a pre-teen, honing the deep baritone and machine-gun delivery that would become his signature. His stage name derived from his early work as a meat cutter in downtown Kingston.

Ranks made his recording debut with "Gunman Lyrics" in 1986, but his real breakthrough came after joining producer Donovan Germain's Penthouse label in 1990, positioning himself as one of the only deejays of the era to seriously challenge Shabba Ranks' dominance.

1991 was Ranks' defining year, bringing the back-to-back albums The Stopper and Lethal Weapon. His anthem "A Who Seh Me Dun" became a dancehall standard, later remixed for hip-hop audiences, and found unexpected late-career reach when sampled on El Chombo's "Dame Tu Cosita" (viral globally in 2018) and Run the Jewels' 2020 album.

Ranks is remembered as a "conscious," cultural counterweight to explicit slackness, having built his career on gun-talk bravado delivered with lyrical discipline. Now in his sixth decade of recording, he continues to perform and record.