U-Roy

Ewart Beckford began deejaying on Kingston sound systems in 1961, cutting his teeth on rigs such as Dickie's Dynamic and Sir George the Atomic before joining King Tubby's Hi-Fi in the late 1960s, where his rapid, playful chatting over dub plates built a local following.

His breakthrough came in 1970 when producer Duke Reid had him voice over rocksteady rhythms from the Treasure Isle catalogue. The resulting singles "Wake the Town," "Wear You to the Ball," and "Rule the Nation" simultaneously occupied the top three positions on the Jamaican charts, a feat that established the deejay as a viable lead artist rather than a mere sound-system novelty and effectively launched the toasting genre as commercial music.

U-Roy continued recording prolifically through the 1970s and beyond, working with producers across the island and remaining a touring artist into the 2000s and 2010s, revered by generations of reggae and dancehall deejays who traced their own styles back to his innovations.

He died on February 17, 2021, in Kingston at age 78, days after undergoing surgery. He is remembered as the "Godfather" of Jamaican toasting, an artist whose vocal approach directly shaped the development of dancehall deejaying and, through its transmission via Jamaican sound-system culture in New York and London, the emergence of rap.