ENTITY · GENRE

Dub

Well supported

The remix before the word existed: Jamaican engineers of the early 1970s — King Tubby foremost, with Lee Perry, Errol Thompson and their successors — stripped the vocal from a rhythm and rebuilt what remained live at the desk, drums and bass forward, fragments of voice and horns drenched in reverb and delay. It began as B-side economics and became a form in its own right, and its fingerprints are on remix culture, hip hop instrumentals, jungle, dubstep and every music that treats the studio as an instrument.

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At a glance

Type: genre →
Era: Rocksteady, reggae and dub →
Confidence: Well supported

Connections

Media & sources

Videos

Dub Echoes (2008, dir. Bruno Natal / Soul Jazz Records)

YOUTUBE · rights discovery only · documentary

Soul Jazz Records documentary; community-archived upload; discovery-only embed.

Transcript pending ingestion.

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In stories

Story · ProbableDub and the version

How the B-side and the mixing desk became instruments.

Story · ProbableThe Dub Revolution: How King Tubby and Lee Perry Turned the Mixing Desk Into an Instrument

In the studios of 1970s Kingston, engineers learned to dismantle a finished song and rebuild it as something stranger, launching the version, the remix and the idea of the producer as author.

Story · Well supportedReissue labels and the global archive

Archival labels did not make the music, but they decided which of it the world could hear, and their sleeve notes became the first real scholarship the records ever had.

Story · Well supportedOn-U Sound and the UK dub continuum

How a London label turned King Tubby's mixing-desk science into a post-punk-era sound of its own.

Debate & reception

How people argued about the music — praise, criticism and public debate. See all debate & reception →

debate

Who invented dub: the engineer at the desk or the producer who commissioned it?

A documented question of authorship around the birth of dub, framed neutrally and concerning figures now deceased: one account credits King Tubby, the engineer whose electronics and desk technique made the sound, as dub's creator; another emphasises the producers, such as Bunny Lee, who commissioned and directed the version B-sides. Stated as an open historical debate, taking no side. Sources: Michael Veal, Dub; David Katz, Solid Foundation.

Stance: King Tubby the engineer as creator of dub vs the producers who commissioned and directed the versions