Easy Skankin & African Night Fever presents
Live & Direct from Kingston Jamaica
Big Youth
With the Robotiks Band
Plus Easy Skankin DJs
Mixed by the Mad Professor
Friday 15th August
Lewes Con Club
Doors 7.30pm
To celebrate 45yrs of Ariwa records, The Robotiks Band will be joined on stage by Jamaican superstar Big Youth! They’ll be performing their tracks produced by Mad Professor along with their well known hits.
One of reggae's best and most recognizable toasters, Big Youth broke new ground as a DJ in the early '70s with a flowing, chant-like cadence that was equal parts melodic, relaxed, and invigorating. His peak years between 1972 and 1979 spawned roots classics like Screaming Target and Isaiah First Prophet of Old, further solidifying Big Youth's style of applying his infectious vocal approach to heavy social and political lyrical topics. Things slowed down for the DJ in subsequent decades, but he remained active well past his '70s heyday, sporadically releasing new music, like 2005 album Musicology and Beyond the Blue, his 2021 collaborative album with French dub producer Brain Damage.
The marriage of digital production and reggae styles of the '80s didn't bode well for Big Youth, however, and his popularity waned as the new decade began. He continued performing and recording throughout the '80s, '90s, and beyond, further exploring new styles on releases like his jazz-inflected 1985 album A Luta Continua or the digital dancehall riddim of his 1991 single "Chanting." Big Youth's contributions to reggae culture in his early days made him an elder statesman by the 2000s, and he continued releasing songs and albums every so often as collections of his '70s material began cropping up. In 2021, now in his seventies, Big Youth teamed with producers Brain Damage and Samuel Claytonto work on the album Beyond the Blue. Both Brain Damage and Clayton traveled to Jamaica in early 2020 to meet Big Youth and track vocals for the record, and while there, both producers contracted COVID-19. Clayton, who was born in Jamaica and had spent years working in the music industry, died from the disease before the album was completed. Beyond the Blue was released in May of 2021, serving as Big Youth's first album of new material in over a decade.
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