ENTITY · RECORDING / SONG
"Black Head Chinee Man" -- Prince Buster
Probable
Released on Prince Buster's own Voice of the People label, this record attacked the Chinese-Jamaican producer Leslie Kong, accusing him of profiting from material that rightfully belonged to Black Jamaicans and questioning his standing in the business. It was triggered partly by Buster's belief that Derrick Morgan's Kong-produced hit "Forward March" had lifted one of his own tunes, and it opened a war of words answered by Morgan and Kong with a reply record, to which Buster responded again with further songs including "Thirty Pieces of Silver" and "Praise Without Raise".
Buster framed his stance as political, rooted in his 1962 conversion to Islam and a belief that record-industry profits should stay within the Black community, even as he remained personally friendly with Morgan throughout.
At a glance
- Confidence
- Probable
- Sources
- Lloyd Bradley, Bass Culture (2000/2013), chapter 5.
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