African Roots Act 1

Originally released on the Five Arts label in 1977, then reissued on Wackies in 1980, this album is built on a series of tracks overseen by producer Clive Hunt, most famous for The Abyssinians’ Satta Massagana and Max Romeo’s Revelation Time. Reggae aficionados may recognize these tracks from original recordings by Trinity, Marcia Griffiths, and Pablo Moses, but the dub deconstructions are so thorough that the source material has been transformed. Because the tracks were recorded in a variety of studios and subsequently tampered with by Clive Hunt—not to mention Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes and Lee Perry, who are uncredited but have fingerprints all over these mixes—the album has the patina of a letter that's been passed from recipient to recipient many times, accruing the postage and penmanship of dozens of unnamed senders. Though it wasn't strictly recorded at Bullwackies’ Bronx studio, it has the tone of a Wackies release: skeletal and smoky, with an underlying feeling of death and determination.