Jamaica's nightclub circuit

A Kingston party promoter and club operator known as the "Nightclub King" and "Entertainment Boss." Half of Night Time Promotions with Chris "Gypsi" Cargill through the 1990s, their best-known venture was Cactus, the Portmore club where Carlene was crowned Jamaica's first Dancehall Queen in 1992. He went on to operate Quad, Jamrock Sports Bar, 925 Jerk, and the Asylum nightclub before opening his current venture, Ribbiz Ultra Lounge.

Robert Nesta Marley (1945-1981), the singer, songwriter and guitarist from Nine Mile, St Ann who became the most widely heard voice Jamaica has produced. He formed The Wailers with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh in the early 1960s, moving through ska and rocksteady at Studio One before the group's roots-reggae work with Lee "Scratch" Perry and then the international run on Island from Catch a Fire (1973) onward. Shot at his Hope Road home in December 1976 two days before the Smile Jamaica concert, he played anyway, left for London, and returned in 1978 to join the hands of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on stage at the One Love Peace Concert. He died of melanoma in 1981, aged 36, and was awarded the Order of Merit. His catalogue remains the single largest route by which the rest of this archive reaches the world. He married Rita Anderson in 1966 and had children with several other women during the marriage; Cedella, Ziggy, Stephen, Sharon (adopted), Stephanie (adopted), Robbie, Rohan, Karen, Julian, Ky-Mani, Damian and Makeda are all recognised among his children, several of them Grammy-winning musicians in their own right. His state funeral was attended by Prime Minister Edward Seaga and ranking members of both major political parties, presided over by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with his coffin carried by members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. More than 40,000 mourners are reported to have queued to view the body, and over half of Jamaica's population is said to have lined the roughly 55-mile funeral route from Kingston to Nine Mile, an event Bradley calls, second perhaps only to independence, the largest and most unifying single occasion in the island's history.

A Portmore nightclub that opened in December 1991 and became one of the defining dancehall venues of the 1990s, hosting weekly sound clashes and, in February 1992, the "Uptown vs Dancehall" fashion clash that crowned Carlene the first Dancehall Queen. Run through the decade by Night Time Promotions (Chris "Gypsi" Cargill and Brian "Ribbie" Chung); closed in 2001.

A Chinese-Jamaican-owned nightclub in Kingston, run by Thea Sun's grandfather from the 1940s into the 1970s: a courtyard room with a bar, pool tables and a bamboo fence, its music moving from jazz to disco to dancehall over its run. Weekly open-mic Fridays drew a mixed-race crowd across Kingston's racial lines, and its performers included Ernie Ranglin and, before he was famous, a teenage Bob Marley.

Red Hills Road, Kingston nightclub opened in 1972 by Winston Blake and his brothers as the fixed home of the Merritone sound, becoming one of the city's longest-running music rooms. Capacity of 250-300, with two heart-shaped bars and a collection of abstract paintings; its weekly "Turntable Thursday" was Merritone's signature night for 28 years. Opened when Red Hills Road, not yet renamed Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston, was Kingston's night-out strip of more than six clubs, jerk vendors and street dances, it outlasted every other club on the road; the Blakes closed it in 2002.

A banqueting facility at 160 Hope Road in Liguanea that opens to the public as a nightclub on Thursdays for an older crowd: reggae, calypso and hip hop from the 1960s through 1980s, with the Merritone Disco sound and a cover charge that includes complimentary soup. One of the few Kingston venues that still holds the feel of a 1960s dancehall. Also runs an all-inclusive Sunday brunch with live Jamaican-flavoured jazz. Still operating.

Carlene Smith, crowned Dancehall Queen in February 1992, who turned an informal title into a public role. The title came from a fashion clash, not a dance clash: at Cactus in Portmore, her crew faced four of Jamaica's top models, including the reigning Miss Jamaica, in evening dress against the dancehall styles Carlene's team wore. Press coverage the next day named her Dancehall Queen. As she put it: "It was never a dancehall clash that made me dancehall queen. It was a fashion clash." Her presence in the dance and in the press made the Dancehall Queen a recognised figure with its own style, competitions and international circuit, and the contest that carries the name still runs. Writing in 2000, Stolzoff called her "the original, and still reigning, dancehall queen.".

Kingston's premier nightclub, at the address that formerly held Fiction Night Lounge. "MECA" stands for Marketplace Entertainment Centre for the Arts; fully operational since 2020 under owner Michael Dawson, previously of House of Dancehall. Runs recurring nights including Dolly Sundays (since extended internationally to New York, Toronto and Miami), Stirsdays and Champagne Saturdays, and draws local and visiting celebrities.

New Kingston's first multi-level nightclub, four floors under one roof, each its own room: Oxygen (dancehall to a young crowd), Voodoo ("oldies," reggae through early-1990s dancehall), Christophers (jazz and dining), and Taboo (a basement gentlemen's club). Resident DJs Alric and Boyd played Oxygen through its most popular run. Now permanently closed.

Club in the Cross Roads area of Kingston, opened 23 May 1931, one of two rival society clubs of its era, the other being the Glass Bucket Club in Half Way Tree, first serving white upper-class Jamaicans and tourists in gowns and tuxedos to Vaudeville-style music popular in the United States, then adapting to big-band orchestra. Tom the Great Sebastian took up residency here after moving his dances away from downtown sound-war pressure, keeping an uptown following through the 1950s. Closed in 1967; the site is now the Silver Slipper Plaza.

Jimmy Cliff is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and actor whose career began as a teenager and who became, alongside Bob Marley, the international face of reggae; his 1972 film "The Harder They Come" carried the music to an audience that had never otherwise have encountered it. Before his own career took off, teenage Cliff worked as an A&R scout for producer Leslie Kong alongside the senior singer Derrick Morgan, auditioning voices in West Kingston rum shops. In early 1962, Cliff, himself not yet fifteen, gave the sixteen-year-old Bob Marley his first professional audition and session, after Kong had already turned Marley away once without hearing him. Cliff picked three songs for release: "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", issued under the names "Robert Marley" and then "Bobby Martell" (Kong reportedly disliked how "Robert Marley" looked on a label), and a third, unreleased song called "Terror". In an interview with Bradley, Cliff recalled that ska was still an emerging option when he arrived in Kingston around 1960, but within about a year had taken over the dances even before radio caught up. He credited Prince Buster with changing studio practice industry-wide, as the first to have singers arrive with a complete song, full melody and lyrics, rather than a fragment for the bandleader to structure, giving vocalists far more control over the final arrangement; and he credited Chris Blackwell as the first to build proper wholesale distribution for Jamaican records, in contrast to producers previously supplying single shops by motorcycle courier, with artists gravitating to Blackwell partly because he paid better than most Jamaican producers.

An uptown Kingston nightclub at 52b Molynes Road, one of the venues -- alongside Chocomo Lawn downtown -- that carried ska to an uptown audience in the early 1960s. Carlos Malcolm led the house band; Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, Prince Buster and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires all performed there, with footage surviving from 1964. After it closed as a nightclub it ran on as a lounge, then Keith Young Chin took the site over to manufacture paper cups.

An exclusive Kingston nightclub at 14-16 Trinidad Terrace, above the Treasure Hunt gaming lounge: VIP lounges, a main bar, a champagne bar and a dance floor under mood lighting, and a regular stop for visiting celebrities. Reported as still operating as of the sources checked; no closure is asserted here.

A Half Way Tree Road nightclub in St. Andrew, opened 22 December 1934 under Bob Webster and later run by Joe Abner, one of two rival society clubs of the era, the other being the Silver Slipper at Cross Roads. Like its rival it first served white upper-class Jamaicans and tourists in gowns and tuxedos to Vaudeville-style music popular in the United States, then adapted as tastes moved to big-band orchestra. Sitting at the junction of uptown and downtown Kingston, it was quicker than the Silver Slipper to welcome ska, carrying the music from its downtown roots at Chocomo Lawn to an uptown audience; Tommy McCook of the Skatalites performed there. As centenarian Evelyn Matalon put it, "The Glass Bucket was the place to go on a Saturday night." Later renamed VIP, it eventually closed; the site is now a plaza.

A nightclub at the Sovereign Centre in Liguanea, reputedly the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean during its brief run: the whole basement given over to seven bars, an arcade, restaurants, grottos and a VIP lounge, with television screens set into the floor at the entrance. It closed quickly, poor management cited as the reason. The video for Richie Stephens and Bounty Killer's remake of "Maniac" was shot there, and it appears in a 1995 photo set with Ninja Man and Beenie Man performing.