King Tubby was the Dubmaster. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix that later became ubiquitous in hip-hop, dance and electronic music production
He created the soundtrack for a Jamaican scene with Toasters, prototype rappers, talking, even shouting, to the backdrop of a heavy dub mix of drum and base, the seminal movement that evolved into US hip hop and rap. King Tubby pioneered the role of the mixer who created sound symphonies from tapes sent to his studio by using his mixer as an instrument. His job was to create a version of a song which would get played on a system with artists such as U-roy toasting over it.
Whereas other originators of Dub such as Lee Scratch Perry were producers and recorded with musicians in the studio, King Tubby worked on the recorded products creating a dub version for the DJs and MCs.
King Tubby’s masterpiece was his work with Augustus Pablo King Tubby meets Rockers Uptown which showcases his talent at creating soundscapes with echo reverb and the Carlton Barrett one drop drum lick. Before King Tubby came with his revolutionary approach to the mix, a sound engineer was expected to do little more than connect everything up and make sure it all worked. King Tubby took a giant leap forward, using the mixing board as a vessel for musical expression. His background as an electronics repairman helped him to understand the dynamics of sound. Singer Mikey Dread said that “King Tubby truly understood sound in a scientific sense. He knew how the circuits worked and what the electrons did. That’s why he could do what he did.”
By manipulating frequency signals of the instruments, playing with volume and sound dynamics, adding in echos, delays, reverbs, samples, tape loops, adjusting playback speed, and adding in deep sub-bass parts suited for the sound systems of Jamaica, King Tubby was able to create a hypnotic, ethereal reggae with its own distinctive flavour.
He enhanced the culture of remixing, dub music and the street parties for the Toasters. Toasting developed from the African tradition of Griot storytellers into form of rhythmic chanting and talking over an instrumental beat. Today, we call it rapping. The practices of dub remixes and toasting, along with the Caribbean traditions of sound systems merged to form a coherent musical genre, the foundations of which were brought by Caribbean immigrants to New York in the 70s and 80s.
Dub was born in the chaotic, often violent, impoverished streets of Jamaica, and grew into a global billon dollar industry The influence of King Tubby can be felt in the works of early hip hop pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five who remixed funk singles, adding in bass parts, using samples, and incorporating echos and reverbs. Jamaican Dub and Toasting morphed into Hip-hop and Rap. Kayne West owes a debt to King Tubby.
Politics and guns, police and thieves, a history of killings in a beautiful island that could have been a paradise. King Tubby was murdered at the age of 49, a botched burglary, another casual killing among Jamaica’s music community. May he dub in peace.
Trip Hop
Decades later a white Dread mixed Indian mantras and tamblas with King Tubby inspired dub sounds in a Yoga consciousness vibe. DJ Drez and his wife Niko Marti bring King Tubby to the International yoga scene, rapping in Sanskrit, merging Shanjara dub and Natayana dub into a new genre yoga, sometimes referred to as New Indian Indie.
DJ Drez’s Good Crush Dub Sessions is an exploration into the sound of 1970’s and early 80’s Reggae Dub music from Jamaica and the Jamaican clubs in london such as the Four Aces in Dalston. The bass on the sessions was played by Ronnie McQueen of the legendary roots reggae band Steel Pulse.
DJ Drez stays true to the dub techniques of the remix and manipulating the original track usually through the removal of vocal parts, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, emphasis of the rhythm section (the stripped-down drum-and-bass track is sometimes referred to as a riddim), and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
You can catch him live from April 26-30, 2023 at Riviera Maya, Mexico Bee Fest 2023 (Palmaïa Resort / The House of AïA)
