Who was Jah Shaka? Dub and Reggae Pioneer Reported Dead

Jah Shaka was a dub and reggae pioneer who first gained recognition in the 1970s. He became a household name in the 1970s when his sound system developed a cult. He played a role of himself in the film Babylon which was released in 1980.

He started his career as a collaborator with Freddie Cloudburst – who was a local speaker builder – and was in charge of keeping his sound system in a very good condition to play all the time. He spent years learning how to play records and started building his own record systems.

“When people left Africa for the Caribbean, all they could bring with them was their music, their songs and their memories from home. So, over the years, this is all that people had to keep them together. In the 1950s and 1960s in London, there were house parties – 50, 60 people with only record players. It helped families know other families which was important at that time because the people were so forced to be segregated,” he shared in a 2014 interview.