From toasting to chatting: how the deejay took over

The Jamaican sound-system practice of talking, chanting and rhyming over instrumental records through the microphone, developed by 1950s-60s selectors and deejays to hype the dance. It is the seed form from which the recorded deejay style, and later rap, grew.

Winston 'King Stitt' Sparkes (1940-2012), 'The Ugly One', succeeded Count Machuki as deejay on Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat sound and cut early deejay sides including 'Fire Corner' (1969) with Clancy Eccles — a direct bridge from sound-system chatting to recorded toasting.

Jamaican deejay and singer David Scott (1951-2003), discovered by producer Derrick Harriott, whose "Draw Your Brakes" (1972) featured on The Harder They Come soundtrack. His melodic, half-sung toasting also produced "Skank in Bed" and "Musical Chariot." Remembered as an early bridge between toasting and singing.

Ewart Beckford (1942-2021), the deejay who made toasting a recorded form. He had been talking over records on the sound systems for years — with Dickie Dynamic, Sir George the Atomic, and most importantly on Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat — when Duke Reid put him on the Treasure Isle rocksteady rhythms in 1970. The results took over the Jamaican charts, at one point reportedly holding the top three positions at once with "Wake the Town", "Rule the Nation" and "Wear You to the Ball", and the album Version Galore made the form permanent. What he established was that a deejay's voice over an existing rhythm was a record in its own right, not a novelty: everything from Jamaican deejaying to rap descends in part from those sessions. He ran his own Stur-Gav Hi-Fi from the late 1970s, the sound that gave Josey Wales and Charlie Chaplin their start, and recorded into his final years. He was awarded the Order of Distinction and died on 17 February 2021.

Big Youth (Manley Augustus Buchanan, born 19 April 1949) is a Jamaican deejay and toaster who became one of the most influential vocalists of 1970s roots reggae, known for a melodic, chanting, Rastafari-infused style. His 1973 debut album Screaming Target, produced by Gussie Clarke, set the benchmark for deejay albums and helped transform the deejay from party hype-man into a serious social and spiritual voice. He ranks alongside U-Roy, I-Roy and Dennis Alcapone among the foundational toasters whose approach influenced later dancehall and hip-hop.

Winston 'Count Machuki' Cooper (1939-1995) is regarded as Jamaica's first deejay: he began chatting live jive over records on Tom the Great Sebastian's sound in the early 1950s and later became the voice of Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat, directly inspiring U-Roy and the toasting tradition.

Jamaican deejay who began as a champion dancer with the Admiral Deans sound system before toasting on the set from about 1959; his 1966 single "Ska-ing West" is cited among the first deejay records, and he later cut "The Great Wuga Wuga" and worked with Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Clive Campbell, born in Kingston in 1955, who moved to the Bronx in 1967 and carried the sound-system idea with him. The party he deejayed at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in August 1973, extending records' breaks for the dancers, is the standard origin point for hip-hop — a Jamaican export that founded another culture.

Every great Jamaican deejay of the 1960s and 70s served an apprenticeship on a named sound system.

How a Jamaican teenager carried the logic of the dancehall sound system into a South Bronx rec room and helped set hip-hop in motion.

How the sound-system deejay's live talk-over became recorded art.

How Patois travelled from playground stigma to page, pulpit and microphone.