TAXI Trax by Black Uhuru + Sly & Robbie

Black Uhuru and Sly & Robbie took the Reggae scene by storm in 1977, at a time when Reggae was running out of steam and was on the verge of becoming a caricature of itself. That same year, Punks blew up the established codes in the music industry and Black Uhuru is in many ways Jamaica's answer to that movement: following years of positive vibrations and hope, Black Uhuru represents the disillusioned youths of Kingston's ghettos. Leather clad, in your face, with an attitude, they departed from the lovey dovey image so far bestowed upon Rastafarian Reggae…

Backed and produced by Sly & Robbie, the heaviest rhythm section the universe has ever seen or heard, Black Uhuru screamed and lobbed dynamite sticks in lieu of lyrics. Their concerts were a deluge of fire and brimstone that took no prisoners. Once Sly & Robbie took them under their wing, they sounded hard onstage and in the studio.

For several years, Sly & Robbie worked tirelessly with Black Uhuru, producing singles and albums on their TAXI label. They had firmly established themselves at the forefront of the Reggae industry and after several years backing Peter Tosh, they were ready for new musical adventures where they could experiment at will.

TABOU1, in association with TAXI and Diggers Factory, is proud to release TAXI TRAX, a double album compiling singles released on Sly & Robbie's magnificent TAXI label during that 1977-80 period. Along with Reggae anthems like "Abortion" or "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", TAXI TRAX contains several rarities and singles previously unreleased outside Jamaica: covers of Bob Marley's "Sun Is Shining", Dawn Penn's "No No No" or the unexpected "Aquarius", fully appropriated by Black Uhuru from the 5th Dimension's original.

All in all, TAXI TRAX is filled with sides A and dubs, as well as super rare "Dubplate" mixes, which were miraculously salvaged and restored for this collection. Superstar graphic artist Bruno Tilley designed a cover that mirrors the group's harsh intensity, using Adrian Boot's photographs and liners written by Reggae authority Noel Hawkes, who interviewed Sly and the group (the liners are included below).

TAXI TRAX showcases a long gone sound that mashed up everything in sight at the time. This time capsule is a perfect introduction to the crucial formation that revolutionized Jamaican music in just a few years.

Note: TABOU1.com will release the digital version of this album as an NFT on its soon-to-be-launched NFT platform. 

TABOU1 is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2022. It specializes in "Roots With Quality" Jamaican music. Over the years, TABOU1 has released about a hundred albums by Sly & Robbie, Black Uhuru, U Roy, Horace Andy, Bitty McLean, Gregory Isaacs, Gladiators, Abyssinians, Pablo Moses and many others.

TABOU1 is proud to collaborate with vinyl specialists Diggers Factory on an exciting release schedule over the coming months.

TABOU1 was the first independent Reggae label to sell its music on digital platforms in 2004 and has recently decided to enter the burgeoning NFT space. The TABOU1.com platform will soon offer not only music by major Jamaican artists, but also visual arts NFTs by painters, street artists and photographs.

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Noel Hawke's liners

TAXI + TABOU1 present
Black Uhuru + Sly & Robbie TAXI TRAX

From the early 60's onwards, numerous Waterhouse based vocal groups, such as the Sheradons, the Royals, the Tartans, the Jayes, the Royal Rasses and the (Mighty) Travellers, would meet and harmonize together and hone their craft in the zinc fenced, breeze blocked yards of Kingston 11.

"In those days you had a lot of harmony but there was very limited listening because there was only one radio station in Jamaica… RJR." Roy Cousins

The catharsis of harmony singing was not only a way of alleviating the austere reality of life in the ghetto but was also one of the few legitimate ways out of an unforgiving existence. Many of these young sufferers never travelled any further than Western Kingston while others competed in local talent contests and recorded, with varying degrees of success, for a number of record producers. Black Uhuru, who first came together in the early 70's, would go on to unprecedented worldwide success as the decade drew to a close.

The trio of Derrick "Duckie" Simpson, Euvin "Don Carlos" Spencer and Rudolph "Garth" Dennis had progressed through different line ups and personnel changes before initiating Black Sounds Of Uhuru (Uhuru is Swahili for freedom) in the early 70's and treading the dispiriting round of Kingston's record producers. Their first stop was with Clive Chin at Studio 17, based above the Chin's thriving retail premises on Kingston's North Parade, but the resulting "Going To Zion" would remain unreleased for over 20 years.

"Duckie came up with the name "Black Sounds Of Uhuru"! Big name! (We) just called them Uhuru but nah put it out." Clive Chin

However, the group's interpretation of Curtis Mayfield's "Romancing To The Folk Song" produced by Paul Finlayson-Fuller & George Philpotts for Tommy Cowan's Top Cat subsidiary was released through Dynamic Sounds as "Folk Song" by Uhuru The Sound Of Freedom in 1972 but the record was not a big seller. Don Carlos left the group to embark on a solo career and Garth Dennis joined the Wailing Souls but, resolutely, Duckie recruited Errol Nelson, who had sung with the Jayes and the Royals, on harmonies and a new lead singer, Michael Rose, who had previously released a number of solo singles. These included the essential "Born Free" on Boss For London sound system supremo, Ken "Fatman" Gordon, in combination with Lloyd "Prince Jammy" James (before his elevation to King Jammy) and Vivian "Yabby You" Jackson, "Observe Life" for Lee "Scratch" Perry and Dickie Wong, which was released on Scratch's Upsetters imprint and also on Dickie Wong's Tit For Tat label, and two further outings, "We Shall Overcome" and "Running Around", for New York based Sol Rauch's Key label. For Winston "Niney The Observer" Holness, Michael sang an early version of "Dreadlocks/Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" which was released on Observer in Kingston and in London on Castro Brown's Morpheus label and Charlie Gillett's Oval outlet too.

In 1977 the new incarnation of Black Uhuru began to record at Harry J's recording studio with Waterhouse resident Prince Jammy in the engineer's chair and a variation of Bunny "Striker" Lee's Aggrovators session band that included Lowell "Sly" Dunbar on drums and Robert "Robbie" Shakespeare on bass. Jammy was in the process of establishing his own record label and studio while continuing to work as resident engineer at King Tubby's studio. Although rightly regarded as one of the foremost dub masters Jammy was also an ardent devotee of classic harmony vocalizing.

As Jammy fondly recalls: "Those set of songs with Black Uhuru was my first real set of songs… but I always prefer singers. I prefer singers and instruments: horns and harmonies."

A number of seven inch singles were issued on his nascent Jammy's label, including "(I Love) King Selassie" and "Natural Mystic", before the long playing, "Love Crisis", was released on Jammy's in Jamaica and Count Shelley's Third World outlet in the UK credited to Black Sounds Uhro Toney Ducky Errol (Michael Rose was also known as Toney). There was insufficient room for a band to record at Tubby's premises but Jammy mixed the tracks in the Dromilly Avenue studio where two members of the (Mighty) Travellers contributed to the harmonies. The album "heralded the arrival of a formidable new force in reggae music" and proved to be not only a foundation stone for Black Uhuru but also an important stepping stone towards the next stage in their career. Four years later the set was re-mixed and re-titled "Black Sounds Of Freedom" and re-released on Greensleeves Records in London at the beginning of Black Uhuru's worldwide renown.

Errol Nelson returned to the Jayes and his place was taken by Sandra "Puma" Jones from Columbia, South Carolina, USA who, after graduating from Columbia University in New York, had studied dance with the Chuck Davis troupe before relocating to Jamaica. In 1978 she joined Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus and sang backing vocals on their "Movements" album on Dynamic Sounds. After being introduced by a mutual friend to Ducky she became a full member of Black Uhuru where her ethereal harmonies added an entirely different dimension to the group and their work with Sly and Robbie for their TAXI label would now reach higher heights and deeper depths.


Lowell Dunbar had moved to Waterhouse at the age of six where he gained his "Sly" moniker due to his admiration for the music of Sly & The Family Stone; he also studied the work of local musicians including drummer Winston Grennan, generally acknowledged as the originator of the "one drop" drumming pattern.

"I left school at 15... I was supposed to go on to Kingston College to continue my studies but I told my Mom I wanted to play music. She never tried to stop me and just allowed me to get on with it. To this day I feel that everything I do is for my Mom" Sly's mother sadly passed away the following year and never saw how incredibly successful her son would become.

"I really started looking at music at Channel One. Started to experiment on the drums. To see if we could make the drum dance by itself. I worked African rhythms in and because I was recording so much I could work on developing a sound for reggae. This is reggae. This is the sound. The double drum sound. Jo Jo gave me the freedom to create. I'd sit for hours with Ernest getting the drum sound right. They were really into it and they left me free to play whatever I wanted. We were like one family trying to move the music forward." recalls Sly

The reverberations from the Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time" in 1976 were shattering and Sly's double drum sound would soon be adopted and adapted by every other record producer in Kingston.

"No other Jamaican studio was to have quite the same impact in 1975 to 1976 or exert as much influence on the direction of the music." Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton

While Sly was playing with Skin, Flesh & Bones at the Tit For Tat Club, Robbie would be playing with the Hippy Boys across Red Hills Road in the Evil People Club and, during their breaks, each would go to watch and listen to the other one perform. A mutual admiration began to grow and, in 1976, they played on a session together for the first time for the omnipresent Bunny Lee at Channel One.

"Cornell Cambell's "Stal A Wat" was the first time… I tested out Sly on drums on that session… it's a kind of take-off of "Cherry Oh Baby" but a different sound. One Saturday I went to Channel One with four people: me, Cornell Campbell, Horace Andy and somebody else I can't remember… I said "Sly I'd like you to play 'pon a tune for me". He said "what we a go make over?" and I said "let's lick over "Cherry Oh Baby" in your stepping style. Cornell sang "The Stal A Wat" 'pon it and Jah Stitch deejayed "No Man Can't Dead With The Dread Upon Him Head" 'pon that rhythm too… Sly played the drums, Cornell played the bass… he is an ace bass man too… and Horace played the guitar. I went into the control room and said "the drum is hard. It's the heart of this session" and so I asked Sly if he could do one more session for me "but don't tell me no! I have a John Holt session tomorrow. You'll be playing with Robbie". It was first time Sly and Robbie played drum and bass together. Before that it was Sly and Ranchie (McLean) or Lloyd Sparks (Parks). Robbie was my bass man but I said "no matter. You can work with anybody!" Bunny Lee

The young Robbie Shakespeare was a protégé of Aston "Family Man" Barrett the legendary bass player for the Hippy Boys, Lee Perry’s Upsetters, the aforementioned Aggrovators and latterly Bob Marley & The Wailers. They had first met through Robbie’s brother, Lloyd, who occasionally played in the Hippy Boys alongside Family Man. Guitarist Ronnie ‘Bop’ Williams gave Robbie his first guitar, a six-string acoustic model. Ronnie Bop advised him to take off two strings and use it as a bass but Robbie retained all six strings, used the two extra strings for rhythm, and his unique style was born. His first recording session was on Errol Dunkley’s "You’ll Never Know" released on Sonia Pottinger’s Gay Feet. When Bob Marley recruited Family Man for the Wailers, Robbie became a fully-fledged member of Striker’s Aggrovators who, after initially being derided by Kingston’s musical fraternity as "Bunny Lee and his wrong chord musicians", had become Kingston’s most in demand session band.

Robbie then began to work regularly with the Revolutionaries at Channel One and their partnership flourished for a number of years but the time came when, inevitably, Sly and Robbie felt that they had to move on and branch out on their own.

"After a while with us at Channel One, Sly and Robbie started to produce records for themselves and we figured they were holding back. We can't hold them any further..." Joseph "Jo Jo" Hoo Kim

Robbie's forays into production had been released on his Bar Bell label, often under Striker's auspices, and the TAXI label, which had been inaugurated in 1972 by Sly and Ranchie, now went into overdrive with Sly and Robbie taking over the controls. The first Number One on the Jamaican Charts for TAXI came with Gregory Isaacs' "Soon Forward" in 1978 and after this, there was no looking back…

Sly: "I looked at people like Quincy Jones. We started trying to do the same thing."

Their recordings for TAXI with Black Uhuru began with updates of the Jamaican musical canon on releases including their version of Bob Marley & The Wailers' "Sun Is Shining" (also released on Channel One's Hit Bound subsidiary), "Aquarius" with the Tamlins, a medley of "Aquarius" and "Let The Sun Shine In" from the 1967 musical "Hair", a cover of the oft versioned "No No No" also known as "You Don't Love Me" and their interpretation of the Wailers classic "Let Him Go". Jo Jo had given Sly and Robbie free studio time to work with the group and their perseverance began to pay off when Black Uhuru began recording original compositions such as "Plastic Smile".

"We gave "Plastic Smile" to U Roy on dub and he played it for a year on his Sturgav/Stereograph Sound before Sonic Sounds put it out for us (on their Gorgon Records subsidiary)." (Sly)

Four more essential seven inch releases followed on TAXI during 1979: "Abortion", "General Penitentiary", a new version of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" and the traditional "Shine Eye Gal" which featured a guest appearance from Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on lead guitar. The track was also released as a 12 inch "Disco 45" in the UK on the West London based D-Roy label who followed it up with a faultless long player, "Black Uhuru Showcase" where the vocal tracks were seamlessly segued together with extended dub workouts of Sly & Robbie's powerhouse rhythms. The album was presented in a low key, understated format: it looked like a Disco 45 single… and sold like one too. This seminal set was later released on TAXI in Jamaica, then got distributed by Virgin in the UK and Heartbeat for distribution in the USA. At a time when vocal harmonizing was no longer carrying the swing, the all-encompassing popularity of Black Uhuru was second to none that year. A selection of dub plates mixed for exclusive play on Kingston's sound systems featured in this collection clearly points to their grass roots credibility.

The group's show stopping performance at 1980's Reggae Sunsplash in Ocho Rios proved to be another career milestone. Following the release of the Sly & Robbie produced "Sinsemilla" (also known as "Stalk Of Sensimillia") album on the Riddim Twins' TAXI Records label in Jamaica, Black Uhuru were signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records that year and the worldwide release of the album carried their music and message of freedom all the way from Kingston's Waterhouse ghetto to the international stage.

Their live appearances, backed by Sly & Robbie, were a tour de force and a world tour in 1981 with the Rolling Stones won the group countless new adherents. Their "Anthem" album from 1985, which included the hit single "What Is Life", won the first ever Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album.

Michael Rose then left the group and after a few years away from the music industry, started a successful solo career, releasing "X Uhuru" on TAXI-TABOU1 in 1999. Still, as Sly says: Him leave too soon, Black Uhuru could have been even more successful, like the Fugees, same set up, 2 guys and a female singer, tuff riddims, bad songs…" Meanwhile, led by Ducky Simpson, Black Uhuru has continued to tour the world and release new music relentlessly, with Junior Reid, then Andrew Bees as frontman. TABOU1 is proud to have released "Dubbin' It Live" recorded in 2001 during their triumphant tour in Europe with Sly & Robbie.

Harry Hawke
November 2021

Note: On December 8, 2021, Robbie Shakespeare passed away. This album is livicated to his memory.

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