Eek-A-Mouse

Eek-A-Mouse was born Ripton Joseph Hylton on November 19, 1957, in Kingston, Jamaica. In the late 1970s he worked as a deejay across several of Kingston's sound systems before recording under a new name, taken from a racehorse he habitually bet on, in 1980.

What set him apart from his toasting-style contemporaries was a wholly original vocal approach: a melodic, scatting 'singjay' delivery, half-sung and half-chanted, often built around invented, nonsense-syllable phrasing. His 1981 album Wa-Do-Dem, recorded with producer Henry 'Junjo' Lawes and the Roots Radics band, became an international breakthrough.

He went on to record for a range of labels through the 1980s and beyond, and his singjay phrasing has been cited as an influence by artists including Sublime and No Doubt. His cultural significance lies chiefly in pioneering a melodic middle ground between straight singing and rhythmic deejay 'toasting' that anticipated vocal approaches later used across dancehall and hip-hop.

Unlike several of his contemporaries, his career has been comparatively free of major public controversy or legal trouble. He has continued to tour internationally into 2025 and 2026, performing at reggae festivals across Europe and North America.