Holy smoke \u2026 the interior of Perry\u2019s studio, as seen in the book Black Ark: Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry. Photograph: Edition Patrick Frey\/Visual Estate of Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry<\/p>\n
Perhaps part of the reason for this\u00a0burst of activity is a desire to truly\u00a0grasp Perry, an artist who is seen\u00a0by many in Europe as reggae\u2019s court jester. Towards the end of his\u00a0life he was often draped in fluorescent clothes, sported dyed red hair and beard, spoke in riddles, and declared himself a \u201cmadman\u201d. A lack of quality control during his last decade didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n
There was also his tendency to turn\u00a0interviews into farce. Krishnan Guru-Murthy famously tried to interview him in 2009. I say try, because he might as well have been talking to a cloud of smoke<\/a>. Perry\u00a0delivered his answers in rhyming couplets while intermittently sticking his tongue out, saying things like: \u201cI kill the devil brain, so that the devil can\u2019t reign.\u201d Jools Holland once asked Perry why he\u2019d placed a toaster on top of a breeze block wall in his Jamaican compound. \u201cIt means that I\u2019m a toaster,\u201d he replied<\/a>, deadpan. (Presumably he was referring to \u201ctoasting\u201d, or emceeing, but he seemed to enjoy implying that he believed he was a small electrical appliance.)<\/p>\n Adrian Sherwood, his longtime collaborator and friend, says Perry revelled in a good wind-up. The pair once sat next to each other at a screening of Volker Schaner\u2019s 2015 documentary, which followed Perry\u2019s exploits over 15 years. Whenever he was shown baffling an interviewer during the film, Perry would turn to his friend. \u201cHe kept elbowing me in the ribs and laughing,\u201d says Sherwood, who believes Perry \u201calways loved mischief\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markHe had an unorthodox way of\u00a0working. But the\u00a0circus stuff? That\u2019s a diversionDavid Katz<\/p>\n Katz tells me that if you want to understand Perry, you need to go back to Jamaica. Born in 1936, Rainford Hugh Perry grew up in Kendal in the north-western parish of Hanover. His father was a dance champion and manual labourer, while his mother practised obeah, a form of west African spiritual healing and \u201cmagic\u201d that was outlawed by British colonists in the 16th century and is still illegal today<\/a> (Perry\u2019s first hit with Marley, Duppy Conqueror, satirised attitudes towards the practice).<\/p>\n Katz\u2019s \u201cstone initiation\u201d on the Thames can be traced back to Perry\u2019s belief in obeah, which he thought provided guidance throughout his life. After working in a quarry as a young man, he claimed that the sound of clashing stones directed him to Kingston (\u201cI go up to King Stone\u201d) where he ended up working for Studio One\u2019s Coxsone Dodd<\/a> as an A&R and handyman. He discovered the Maytals<\/a>, worked with a young Delroy Wilson and had hits of his own, such as Chicken Scratch, which gave him his nickname.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m a toaster\u2019 \u2026 Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry on stage in Chicago, 2015. Photograph: Daniel Boczarski\/Redferns<\/p>\n But it was in his studio, the Black Ark<\/a>, where Perry\u2019s legend grew. Completed in 1973 on the grounds of his house in Kingston\u2019s Washington Gardens, it boasted a rudimentary setup and was attached to an annexe and recording booth. The original mixing desk was bought for \u00a335 in London, the drum kit was reportedly once owned by Ringo Starr, while tracks were assembled on an inexpensive four-track Teac 3340. A Roland Space Echo delay showered Perry\u2019s productions in cascading reverb. What he lacked in cutting-edge gear he made up for in theatrics and ceremony: he blew weed smoke into the desk; poured whisky and urine on some of the equipment; and buried recordings in the garden. Compared with other Jamaican studios, Perry\u2019s was underpowered but his skill meant nothing that came out of his production house was puny.<\/p>\n The artist Edward George, who has demystified the world of reggae via his Strangeness of Dub radio series, says the technical brilliance of Perry is only one dimension of his \u2013 and the Black Ark\u2019s \u2013 greatness. It was also part community centre, part spiritual sanctuary. \u201cThe idea of the Ark was that it would be something through which black people, Jamaicans in particular, could be saved and rescued through music,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n Rastafarians were always welcome at the Ark and the politics of black empowerment flowed through his output. \u201cOn the one hand, it was a production house, but it also had this kind of metaphysical cultural and political aspect to it,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n The open-door policy at the Black Ark made it a chaotic space, open to abuse by hangers on and grifters who\u00a0posed as devout Rastas. Perry initially closed the space to outsiders in 1978. Then there was a botched redesign \u2013 which culminated in him\u00a0throwing some of the faulty equipment into a septic tank. In 1982, after he set a fire to \u201ccleanse\u201d the space, he burned down the control room. Perry maintained he did it intentionally; family members who were present said it was an accident. Either way, the episode brought a tragic end to one of the world\u2019s most important recording studios.<\/p>\n A treasury \u2026 Books, records, videos and equipment, some of which Scratch would bury at Black Ark and his other addresses. Photograph: Edition Patrick Frey\/Visual Estate of Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry<\/p>\n Despite the classic records made at the Black Ark such as Super Ape and Heart of the Congos, some Scratchheads swear that his earlier era as a gun for hire moving between studios was his best. My favourite version of Perry is him as the Black Ark producer, or the \u201cBlack Emperor\u201d as one recent compilation cast him, sprinkling his genius on other people\u2019s songs. Listen to Junior Delgado\u2019s Sons of Slave, a thunderous roots anthem, or his ode to Rasta, Don\u2019t Blame It on I by the Congos, then stick on Leo Graham\u2019s Doctor Demand, where a simple keyboard line and a wah-wah effect on a guitar provide a sparse backdrop. They\u2019re sonic opposites, but all are imbued with Perry\u2019s magic, his own aural obeah.<\/p>\n Sherwood argues that Perry\u2019s antics often mask his genius. \u201cWhat upset me in later years was people marvelling at him as some kind of joke,\u201d says Sherwood. People saw a clown, when they should have seen someone who re-engineered music. From reimagining the studio as an instrument, pushing dub reggae to the sonic limits or inventing sampling, few producers have come anywhere close to matching Perry\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you listen to those records, what he achieved, it\u2019s astounding,\u201d adds Katz. \u201cHe had a very unorthodox way of working and a very unusual approach to life. But the circus stuff? That\u2019s a diversion: the genius is in the music.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mouse on Mars played their album live at Barbican Centre\u2019s Pit theatre earlier this month, there was a single chair that faced away from the band. On it was a miniature shrine to Perry, made up of a \u201cWe Love Bob Marley\u201d mug, an empty bottle of Wray & Nephew rum, some apples and a candle. The group\u2019s vocalist, Louis Chude-Sokei, had visited the site of the Black Ark to take field recordings, which played over the rootsy bass, drums and electronics.<\/p>\n As Chude-Sokei walked around the audience, Jamaican birdsong could be\u00a0heard as he repeated the refrain: \u201cThis is a testament.\u201d It felt like a fitting one to Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry: the\u00a0reggae innovator, the mischief maker, dub\u2019s Black Emperor.<\/p>\n Black Ark: Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry<\/a> is out now (Edition Patrick Frey); Dub Revolution<\/a> by David Katz is published on 2 July (White Rabbit); Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry and\u00a0Mouse on Mars\u2019s album Spatial, No\u00a0Problem<\/a> is out now on Domino Recordings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Katz\u2019s introduction to the\u00a0world of Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry was bewildering. The Jamaican producer had\u00a0been living in London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782376450_973_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n