Jamaican music films

Perry Henzell's 1972 Jamaican feature starring Jimmy Cliff as Ivanhoe Martin, an aspiring singer navigating Kingston's record business and outlaw economy. The film and soundtrack became a major international gateway into reggae, connecting Cliff's performances with Toots & the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, The Melodians and other Jamaican recordings.

Jimmy Cliff is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and actor whose career began as a teenager and who became, alongside Bob Marley, the international face of reggae; his 1972 film "The Harder They Come" carried the music to an audience that had never otherwise have encountered it. Before his own career took off, teenage Cliff worked as an A&R scout for producer Leslie Kong alongside the senior singer Derrick Morgan, auditioning voices in West Kingston rum shops. In early 1962, Cliff, himself not yet fifteen, gave the sixteen-year-old Bob Marley his first professional audition and session, after Kong had already turned Marley away once without hearing him. Cliff picked three songs for release: "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", issued under the names "Robert Marley" and then "Bobby Martell" (Kong reportedly disliked how "Robert Marley" looked on a label), and a third, unreleased song called "Terror". In an interview with Bradley, Cliff recalled that ska was still an emerging option when he arrived in Kingston around 1960, but within about a year had taken over the dances even before radio caught up. He credited Prince Buster with changing studio practice industry-wide, as the first to have singers arrive with a complete song, full melody and lyrics, rather than a fragment for the bandleader to structure, giving vocalists far more control over the final arrangement; and he credited Chris Blackwell as the first to build proper wholesale distribution for Jamaican records, in contrast to producers previously supplying single shops by motorcycle courier, with artists gravitating to Blackwell partly because he paid better than most Jamaican producers.

"Many Rivers to Cross" is a Jimmy Cliff song from around 1969-1970 that became central to "The Harder They Come" (1972), the Jamaican film and soundtrack that introduced reggae to a wide international audience; the song's gospel-tinged ballad style, distinct from the album's more upbeat tracks, has made it one of Cliff's most enduringly covered recordings.

Ted Bafaloukos's late-1970s Kingston music film starring drummer Leroy 'Horsemouth' Wallace, with real musicians and scene figures including Jacob Miller, Burning Spear, Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth, Dillinger, Robbie Shakespeare and Dirty Harry Hall. Its plot follows Horsemouth's record-selling hustle and stolen motorbike, making the city, studios, record shops and yards part of the cast.

Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace is a Jamaican drummer who studied at Alpha Boys School and became a mainstay of Clement Dodd's Studio One house rhythm sections from the late 1960s, later playing on countless roots recordings with artists such as Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, The Gladiators and Gregory Isaacs. He is widely credited with helping shape the driving 'Rockers' drum style and became a cultural icon starring as himself in the 1978 film Rockers.

Roots singer born 1952 in Mandeville who first recorded for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd before becoming lead singer of Inner Circle, fronting the hit "Tenement Yard" and appearing in the film Rockers; Miller and Inner Circle were preparing a US tour with Bob Marley and the Wailers when he was killed in a Kingston car accident in March 1980.

Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall was a tenor saxophonist trained at Alpha Boys School whose raw, emotive horn sound helped define the Rockers style through work with Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, including Burning Spear's Marcus Garvey (1975) and Peter Tosh's Equal Rights; he also appeared in the 1978 film Rockers.

Gregory Isaacs (Gregory Anthony Isaacs, 15 July 1951 - 25 October 2010), nicknamed the "Cool Ruler," was a Jamaican reggae singer and a defining voice of lovers rock. He co-founded the African Museum label and shop with Errol Dunkley and scored his most famous record with "Night Nurse," the title track of his 1982 album for Island Records. His smooth, plaintive delivery made him one of reggae's most emulated vocalists. He worked as an electrician and cabinet maker before recording for producer Winston Sinclair in the late 1960s and forming the trio the Concords in 1969. When that failed he went solo, and in the mid-1970s launched African Museum to hold artistic and financial control of his own work while continuing to record for GG's, Trojan, DEB, Charisma, Tad's and Jammy's. Love Is Overdue (1973) was his first successful album, followed by In Person, Cool Ruler (1978), Soon Forward (1979) and the internationally massive Night Nurse. His last album, Brand New Me, came out on African Museum in 2008. He died of lung cancer at his London home on 25 October 2010, aged 59, surrounded by his wife Linda and three of his eleven children.

Rick Elgood and Don Letts's 1997 Jamaican dancehall feature follows Marcia, played by Audrey Reid, as she uses dancehall performance, disguise and competition to fight back against exploitation. The film is a key screen document of 1990s Kingston dancehall culture and features Cherine Anderson's early screen role as Tanya. Written by Suzanne Fenn, Ed Wallace and Don Letts and produced by Carl Bradshaw, Carolyn Pfeiffer and Chris Blackwell, the film follows single mother and street vendor Marcia Green as she invents an alter ego, the masked "Mystery Lady," to win a cash dancehall competition and turn her two tormentors — Larry (Carl Davis) and Priest (Paul Campbell) — against each other. Released 10 October 1997, running 98 minutes.

Jamaican actor best known internationally for starring as Marcia in Dancehall Queen (1997), a role that anchors the film's portrait of Kingston dancehall competition, disguise and working-class survival.