Prince Buster

Cecil Bustamante Campbell (24 May 1938 - 8 September 2016) came up working for Coxsone Dodd's sound — as security, handling money, sourcing records, then selecting — before building his own, Voice of the People, which within a short time was a genuine rival to both Coxsone and Duke Reid. That progression is the whole apprenticeship system in one career.

In 1961 he produced the Folkes Brothers' "Oh Carolina" on his Wild Bells label, with Count Ossie's drummers on it, putting Rastafari percussion onto a commercial Jamaican record for the first time; it was licensed to Blue Beat in Britain, the label that became synonymous with 1960s ska. "Madness" (1963), "One Step Beyond" (1964) and "Al Capone" — which reached number 18 in Britain in 1967 — followed, along with the Judge Dread records and a long, partly staged feud with Derrick Morgan.

He met Muhammad Ali in 1964 and joined the Nation of Islam, later issuing records on an Islam imprint. The ska revival a decade after his peak took its name and much of its manner from him: Madness named themselves for his record and made their debut single a tribute, and the Specials covered him. He died in Miami. The date of "Oh Carolina" is unsettled: 1960 and 1961 both circulate, and the reference works give 1961.

Buster described how pre-independence radio payola worked against sound-system-affiliated producers: stations required "requests" to justify airplay, but with a glut of American singles to get through, and staff reportedly on record-company retainers, local producers had no realistic way to compete for airtime. In the mid-1960s the American label King Records, prompted by James Brown after he discovered Buster's music on a Jamaica trip, sought the US rights to Buster's catalogue; the deal collapsed over publishing terms, which Buster, by then an outspoken Nation of Islam figure, believed was no accident. In 1967 Philips gave his "Ten Commandments of Man" a US release that debuted at number 35 on the Cashbox chart.