Hugh "Redman" James

Sound system owner turned producer, and a founding member of the Sound System Association of Jamaica alongside Louise Frazer-Bennett. He grew up in west Kingston in a house with a sound in it, his mother running the set called Esquire, and the education that mattered came from King Tubby, who told him to go and produce rather than stay behind an amplifier.

He took the advice from 1985 and became one of the defining producers of the late 1980s and early 1990s on his Redman International label, employing Steely and Clevie as the rhythm section, cutting at Channel One and Tuff Gong with the engineer Cedrica "Soljie" Hamilton, and distributing through VP Records from 1987. His catalogue runs from established voices, Gregory Isaacs, Sugar Minott, Frankie Paul, Little John, Ken Boothe and Delroy Wilson, to the younger acts he broke, Carl Meeks, Cutty Ranks, Delly Ranx and Thriller U, whose cover of "Careless Whisper" went to number one in Jamaica. His own sound started as Redman International and became Jamrock.