Horace Andy

Horace Andy (born Horace Hinds, 19 February 1951, Kingston) is a Jamaican roots reggae singer known for his distinctive quavering falsetto. He rose to prominence at Studio One in the early 1970s with "Skylarking" and recorded extensively for producer Bunny Lee, later reaching new audiences through his long collaboration with the British group Massive Attack.

He said he won his Studio One spot by queuing for a Sunday audition and singing "See a Man's Face" directly for Coxsone Dodd, then taught himself further by asking established musicians and singers, Alton Ellis, Leroy Sibbles and engineer Sylvan Morris among them, to show him things between takes. He also said a major practical draw of Studio One was that Dodd, unlike Duke Reid or Byron Lee's Dynamic studio, quietly tolerated marijuana use out of open view, which Andy credits with the relaxed atmosphere that made the studio feel "like a college".

His professional name was assigned by producer Coxsone Dodd, in reference to Studio One's earlier conscious, Rasta-sympathetic singer Bob Andy. A committed Rastafarian, he was for years a regular at the Ethiopian Federation's Sunday meetings on St David's Lane, gatherings also attended by members of the Wailers and other Studio One musicians.

He recalled that his early-1970s turn to protest material drew open scorn, including from his own mother, who dismissed his conscious songs as "fool fool songs", reflecting how unusual it still was for a smooth-voiced pop singer to take on Rasta-identified material at that point.