Lee Scratch Perry Tribute
A dedication to the great “Upsetter” with selections by local heroes Danny Holloway and Skinny Pablo.
Lee “Scratch” Perry is a world-music figure of near-mythic status. He has been credited with inventing the form of music that became known as reggae, its stripped-down offshoot called “dub,” and the reincarnations of both decades later as drum-and-bass and other dance-club genres. Perry makes records awash in “echoes and distortions, sudden noises and disorienting absences, and they have influenced not only reggae but hip-hop, rock and all sorts of dance music,” wrote Jon Pareles of the New York Times. Since the 1960s he has enjoyed success as a producer and a recording artist, but is probably better known for his wildly eccentric persona and famously bizarre pronouncements to the press. “I am an alien from the other world, from outer space, I don’t have no land, no estate, no property, no house. Not on this earth. I live in space—I’m only a visitor here,” Perry once reportedly said, according to a website devoted to him. “Some people are only here to collect property. I am here with my suitcase to collect only the good brains.”
Lee “Scratch” Perry selections provided by Danny Holloway, a music journalist, DJ, and ex-Island Records producer, along with musician and past Perry collaborator Skinny Pablo.
Rest in peace, Scratch <3
