Artist
Lee 'Scratch' Perry
Producer and sonic mystic who built the Black Ark studio in his Washington Gardens backyard in 1971, creating some of reggae's most innovative and chaotic recordings on a four-track machine before burning it down in 1978. Born Rainford Hugh Perry in 1936 in Kendal, Hanover, he claimed his mother's Yoruba traditions and mystical experiences with stones shaped his approach to music. His 1968 single "People Funny Boy" sold 60,000 copies and prefigured reggae's rhythmic signature. He buried master tapes to "season" them, blew ganja smoke into microphones, and worked for days without sleep in his symbol-covered studio. A second fire destroyed his Swiss "Secret Laboratory" in 2015. Died in 2021 at age 85.