Prince Buster - Six Reasons Why He Was Great
1) Buster brought mento's social commentary into ska. For example, compare 'Industrial Fair' by Alerth Bedasse & Chin's Calypso Sextet here with Buster's 'Independence Song' here and 'Hard Man Fi Dead' here . 2) As Andrew Hickey notes here , Buster was promoting Black nationalism and Rastafarian culture by 1960, at a time when Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid had no interest in it and when Rastafarianism was stigmatized in the mainstream culture. This ties in with Buster's love of Jamaican folk traditions, such as mento, as noted above. 3) Buster was an ambassador for Jamaican music in the UK and US. He was named in the Daily Herald on 22.2.64 and in the Evening Standard (by Maureen Cleave) on 7.3.64. The Blue Beat label, a subsidiary of Melodisc, advertised several of his productions, including 'Madness' and 'Carolina' (the 1960 recording with Rastafarian musicians, voiced by the Folke Brothers) in the Kensington and Chelsea N...