Mikey Dread

Michael "Mikey Dread" Campbell, born in Port Antonio in 1954, was the broadcaster who forced reggae onto Jamaican radio from inside the state broadcaster, and then became one of its most inventive producers. At JBC in the mid-1970s — where the playlists ran to imported pop while the most potent reggae in the world was being cut a few miles away — he talked his bosses into giving him his own programme and used the four-hour after-midnight slot to play dub almost exclusively.

Dread at the Controls turned the graveyard shift into the most popular hours on the dial. Internal resistance to reggae and deejay culture pushed him out in 1979; he took the name to his own Dread at the Controls label and established himself as a sonic innovator in Jamaica and Britain alike. The thirtieth anniversary of the programme was marked in 2006. He died in 2008.