I-Roy

Deriving his name, and to some extent his style, from U-Roy, Reid was also heavily influenced in his early career by Dennis Alcapone. With early recordings for Gussie Clarke, Glen Brown, Lee Perry and Bunny Lee, Reid established himself at the forefront of 1970s reggae DJ's. His debut album Presenting I Roy is considered a classic of its genre, and was followed up by a series of strong albums including Hell and Sorrow. Linton Kwesi Johnson dubs I-Roy "the mighty poet" in "Street 66" on the album, Bass Culture. For several years from 1975, I-Roy engaged in an on-record slanging match with fellow DJ Prince Jazzbo, the two trading insults on successive singles, although in reality they were good friends. In 1976, I-Roy signed to Virgin Records with whom he would go on to release five albums. On occasion he would utilise The Revolutionaries as his backing band. Reggae's move to the dancehall era in the 1980s saw I-Roy's popularity decline and although he continued to record, his output was not of the standard that he had set in the previous decade. He died in 1999 of heart failure, at the age of fifty-five.