ENTITY · GROUP / CREW / BAND
Folkes Brothers
Well supported
The Folkes Brothers were a Jamaican vocal group known for one record, "Oh Carolina" (1960), produced by Prince Buster and built on Count Ossie's Nyabinghi drumming, one of the first commercial recordings to bring Rastafari drum culture directly into a Jamaican pop record, years before Nyabinghi's influence on reggae was widely acknowledged.
It was the only record they ever made. Its authorship was long contested, and John Folkes, who sang on it, won a lawsuit over the writing credit in 1994.
At a glance
- Confidence
- Well supported
- Sources
- Kevin O'Brien Chang, Reggae Routes, on the session, on John Folkes's authorship claim and on it being the group's only record; Mike Alleyne, The Encyclopedia of Reggae, on the 1960 date and on John Folkes winning a 1994 lawsuit over the authorship of "Oh Carolina"; Les Genies du Reggae (Backstage), on the 1960 release, Prince Buster's production and Count Ossie's drumming.
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"Oh Carolina" and the respectability of Rasta drumming
One side
African/Rasta drumming as cultural affirmation
The other
As disreputable primitivism unfit for radio
When the Folkes Brothers' 1960 single 'Oh Carolina' (produced by Prince Buster) put Count Ossie's Nyabinghi-style Rasta drumming onto a commercial record and Jamaican radio, it became a flashpoint. At a time when Rastafari was criminalized and socially despised, some in the anti-Rasta music establishment and broadcasting rejected the akete drums and chanting as disreputable 'jungle' primitivism tied to the stigmatized burru/kumina lineage; others later argued the record was the first to give the Rastafari movement a measure of mainstream respectability and to bring a suppressed African-derived music into the commercial mainstream. Grounded in the Jamaica Gleaner's 'Music Diaries' column on the drama of 'Oh Carolina' and Heather Augustyn's skabook account.
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Compiled and researched by The Jamaica Music Atlas music desk. The sources that informed it are credited above.
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