Lee Perry Overated?Overfetish-ized?Overexoticized?

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  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    I dont know or cant quantify the influence the Grand Royal issue had. I know i copped it, but the Beastie Boys doing an indepth feature on Perry is probably an indication that he was alraedy becoming more common amongst a certain demographic.
    Where at one time Marley and them were the trustafarian poster children, Perry was/had become the new face of "i keeps it real" ski rack reggae fans.
    I recall living in the East Village and my neighbor was like "dude you got this album?" Pulls out Super Ape and goes into a weeded soliloquy bout how deep Perry is. Relax son.

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    batmon said:
    I recall living in INSERT PLACE and INSERT PERSON was like "dude you got this album?" Pulls out INSERT ALBUM and goes into a weeded soliloquy bout how deep INSERT ARTIST is. Relax son.


    Archetypal record nerd conversation #3.

  • SIRUSSIRUS 2,554 Posts
    pimlicosquirrel said:
    I balled Mad Professors girl.

    did you do it to the sade remix?

  • DeegreezDeegreez 804 Posts
    pimlicosquirrel said:
    I balled Mad Professors girl.

    shut yo mouth ho

  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    lol @ dudes getting hurt over the Grand Royal influence suggestion.

    ask Scratch how many college campus gigs he was doing before that shit compared to after.

    I'm not claiming it did anything for his "legacy" - I'm just saying the hackysack revenue blew the fuck up for him, like Batmon said, he became the new icon for Ras Trent after too many of his "straight" friends became intimate with Marley & Tosh.

  • willie_fugalwillie_fugal 1,862 Posts


    can't remember if i had posted this a while ago in the documentary thread, but i saw this flick on Perry a few months ago, enjoyed it. definitely not overrated--and pretty much every worthwhile artist with a 20+ year career has duds in the catalog.

  • jaysusjaysus 787 Posts
    SoulOnIce said:
    lol @ dudes getting hurt over the Grand Royal influence suggestion.

    ask Scratch how many college campus gigs he was doing before that shit compared to after.

    I'm not claiming it did anything for his "legacy" - I'm just saying the hackysack revenue blew the fuck up for him, like Batmon said, he became the new icon for Ras Trent after too many of his "straight" friends became intimate with Marley & Tosh.

    Or maybe you haterators, these college marley heads were like, hey, who produced this? And saw perry's name there? Fuck the music heads who think they got there first, each and ever one of us got beat to the punch 10 times over.

    You know how i found lee scratch? Looked at the producer on marley albums. suck it.

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    SoulOnIce said:
    lol @ dudes getting hurt over the Grand Royal influence suggestion.

    ask Scratch how many college campus gigs he was doing before that shit compared to after.

    I'm not claiming it did anything for his "legacy" - I'm just saying the hackysack revenue blew the fuck up for him, like Batmon said, he became the new icon for Ras Trent after too many of his "straight" friends became intimate with Marley & Tosh.

    Not hurt but Grand Royal's circulation and influence were comparatively tiny. The Dr Lee PhD track with the Beastie boys was a much bigger factor and his later career success owes more to musicians like Mad Professor and Adrian Sherwood, Perry-scholars/compilers like Jeremy Collingwood and Perry's wife who got him off the weed and drink. His record sales have always been strong and he has toured the college and festival circuit pretty much constantly for the last 20 years.

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    Aw man, I saw that this thread got bumped and was all geeked because I thought I remembered this thread as being the one where Jah Orthodox faux_rillz went off on Whities Who Like Dub Too Much. That must have been a diffrent one. This is/was a decent thread, too, but still.

    This is tangential to the issue at hand, but before I got rid of it because it was mostly shit, I used to have a Terence Trent D'Arby twelve-inch ("Dance Little Sister," maybe?) from like 1986 that had a rambling Scratch mix on the flip, and I always kinda wondered: Who the fuck would have been checking for Lee Perry in 1986? Not that I'm doubting that dude had his adherents then, it just seems like it was a real in-betweeny time for him--post-heyday, pre-On-U affiliation, pre-pre-Beastie sponsorship--and I have no idea what if any broader demographic that remix would have appealed to. Maybe it was just TTD flexing, or maybe my dates are off, I don't know. It's long been a mystery to me, albeit a very low-grade one.

    I was disappointed to find out that Aisha Morrison/Carol Cole's "Unity" was not legitimate vintage Black Ark. That woulda really been some shit for 1979.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    jaysus said:
    SoulOnIce said:
    lol @ dudes getting hurt over the Grand Royal influence suggestion.

    ask Scratch how many college campus gigs he was doing before that shit compared to after.

    I'm not claiming it did anything for his "legacy" - I'm just saying the hackysack revenue blew the fuck up for him, like Batmon said, he became the new icon for Ras Trent after too many of his "straight" friends became intimate with Marley & Tosh.

    Or maybe you haterators, these college marley heads were like, hey, who produced this? And saw perry's name there? Fuck the music heads who think they got there first, each and ever one of us got beat to the punch 10 times over.

    You know how i found lee scratch? Looked at the producer on marley albums. suck it.

    And like the Marley bio Catch a Fire (among others) wasn't readily available long before Grand Royal ever came out.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts

  • hogginthefogghogginthefogg 6,098 Posts
    james said:
    Aw man, I saw that this thread got bumped and was all geeked because I thought I remembered this thread as being the one where Jah Orthodox faux_rillz went off on Whities Who Like Dub Too Much. That must have been a diffrent one. This is/was a decent thread, too, but still.

    I wanna say that it was the I who claimed that, but maybe Old Man Hogg's memory is failing. Studio kinda real cloudy foggy, as I would say.

  • willie_fugal said:


    can't remember if i had posted this a while ago in the documentary thread, but i saw this flick on Perry a few months ago, enjoyed it. definitely not overrated--and pretty much every worthwhile artist with a 20+ year career has duds in the catalog.

    I saw the movie -- thought it was good, but I wanted more Black Ark and pre-Black Ark coverage.

    The filmmaker had a q&a after the screening here in DC. Guess where he said he learned about Scratch?

    Grand Royal magazine.

    Anecdotal, obviously, but you can't really deny the reach of that article / cover story to the young beastie boys fan demographic.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Probably in the top five producers ever, definitely in the top ten.

    People who don't understand that don't understand what music production is.

    His career goes back to the late50's/early 60's when he was a crack A&R person for Coxson Dodd and then Joe Gibbs. His first ever production, "People Funny Boy", may well be the first true Reggae song ever cut.

    Blackboard Jungle was most likely the first real dub album ever (Aquarius Dub is more of an instro album, imo).

    His production, arranging and song writing helped make Bob Marley an international star.

    He had massive hits with numerous singers and groups.

    He did almost all of this on a crappy 4-track machine that was hopelessly out of date.

    What else can you expect from one guy?

  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    meistromoco said:


    The filmmaker had a q&a after the screening here in DC. Guess where he said he learned about Scratch?

    Grand Royal magazine.

    Anecdotal, obviously, but you can't really deny the reach of that article / cover story to the young beastie boys fan demographic.


    VINDICATED!

    haha.

    saying, though. Perry was an icon for decades before Grand Royal, but repops of his shit appeared in my local spots almost overnight after that article. underestimate the influence of the Beastie Boys as Chad's tastemakers of choice in the 90's at your own peril. and that includes the dude who told me to "suck it" hahaha wtf.

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    jaysus said:
    SoulOnIce said:

    Or maybe you haterators, these college marley heads were like, hey, who produced this? And saw perry's name there? Fuck the music heads who think they got there first, each and ever one of us got beat to the punch 10 times over.

    I don't think Scratch is credited on any of the Marley albums in wide dormroom circulation (although he did, apparently, work on some of those Island releases uncredited).

  • Dolo76Dolo76 64 Posts
    really who gives a fuck about overating?

    dude made Chase The Devil.
    Attached files

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    hogginthefogg said:
    james said:
    Aw man, I saw that this thread got bumped and was all geeked because I thought I remembered this thread as being the one where Jah Orthodox faux_rillz went off on Whities Who Like Dub Too Much. That must have been a diffrent one. This is/was a decent thread, too, but still.

    I wanna say that it was the I who claimed that, but maybe Old Man Hogg's memory is failing. Studio kinda real cloudy foggy, as I would say.

    I know I have poasted on that subject at least once, but I won't claim to be the only one. Simon Reynolds published a pretty good essay addressing it. This is perhaps an opportunity for some "90s Trip-Hop Revival" cross-thread action (white people who prefer rap music without black people talking over it-rltd.).

    I actually clicked on this thread with the intent of poasting a rant on the fetishization of Scratch as some sort of mad genius/mystic and only realized that it was a bump when I came across the rant that I had already poasted five years ago.

  • jaysusjaysus 787 Posts
    faux_rillz said:
    jaysus said:
    SoulOnIce said:

    Or maybe you haterators, these college marley heads were like, hey, who produced this? And saw perry's name there? Fuck the music heads who think they got there first, each and ever one of us got beat to the punch 10 times over.

    I don't think Scratch is credited on any of the Marley albums in wide dormroom circulation (although he did, apparently, work on some of those Island releases uncredited).


  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    jaysus said:
    faux_rillz said:
    jaysus said:
    SoulOnIce said:

    Or maybe you haterators, these college marley heads were like, hey, who produced this? And saw perry's name there? Fuck the music heads who think they got there first, each and ever one of us got beat to the punch 10 times over.

    I don't think Scratch is credited on any of the Marley albums in wide dormroom circulation (although he did, apparently, work on some of those Island releases uncredited).


    Yeah, I wouldn't really say anything on Trojan is part of the hackey sack canon.

  • jaysusjaysus 787 Posts
    faux_rillz said:
    Yeah, I wouldn't really say anything on Trojan is part of the hackey sack canon.

    I can accept that.

  • why am i not surprised that white boys wanna give beastie boys credit for sustaining Perry's career?

    perry by dema_reggaenews

  • by the way that movie was a joke. the q & a director dude? clueless. he didn't know who Prince Buster was or how Lee Perry & Buster were connected (which were possibly some of the greatest rocksteady sessions ever recorded). oh and his next project will be on Lil' Wayne or one of those gold teeth rap fags. so there ya go.

  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    picoandsepulveda said:
    why am i not surprised that white boys wanna give beastie boys credit for sustaining Perry's career?


    typical

  • DrWuDrWu 4,021 Posts
    As someone who was listening to Perry as early as the mid 80s, there is no question that the Grand Royal article totally changed the general awareness about Perry for the average record nerd and specifically hip-hop cats. The only people I ever met who knew his work before that we're serious reggae fans.

  • DrWu said:
    As someone who was listening to Perry as early as the mid 80s, there is no question that the Grand Royal article totally changed the general awareness about Perry for hip-hop cats.

    and that's about it.

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    SoulOnIce said:
    picoandsepulveda said:
    why am i not surprised that white boys wanna give beastie boys credit for sustaining Perry's career?


    typical

    ^^^^^GRAND ROYAL-READING WHITEBOY!







    As much as I hate to give the Beastie Boys credit for anything, I have to agree that the GR article greatly elevated Scratch's profile amongst college radio types. It certainly wasn't necessary to legitimize him, but it may have contributed to his music becoming more widely available and put some money in his pocket. I don't really see why this is controversial.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    I started listening to Lee Perry in '81/'82 when I bought a copy of Return Of The Super Ape from the run down used record store in the little upstate NY town I was living in. I had no idea what it was and I looked at it for weeks trying to decide if I should part with $3 for it (a big decision back then). I wasn't even sure it was Reggae.

    I finally pulled the trigger and was of course mind-blown after hearing it. At that time the only other people who I ever met who knew who he was were some hippy reggae heads who knew him from the Bob Marley stuff - none of my rock or soul friends had any idea who he was, but were also mind-blown when I'd play that record for them. I picked up a few other titles here and there over the years, but I just didn't see too many of them.

    Yes, he was a big deal in his time, but There's no doubt that the Grand Royal article revived interest and introduced him to a public he had not reached before, I watched it happen.

  • DrWuDrWu 4,021 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    I started listening to Lee Perry in '81/'82 when I bought a copy of Return Of The Super Ape from the run down used record store in the little upstate NY town I was living in. I had no idea what it was and I looked at it for weeks trying to decide if I should part with $3 for it (a big decision back then). I wasn't even sure it was Reggae.

    I finally pulled the trigger and was of course mind-blown after hearing it. At that time the only other people who I ever met who knew who he was were some hippy reggae heads who knew him from the Bob Marley stuff - none of my rock or soul friends had any idea who he was, but were also mind-blown when I'd play that record for them. I picked up a few other titles here and there over the years, but I just didn't see too many of them.

    Yes, he was a big deal in his time, but There's no doubt that the Grand Royal article revived interest and introduced him to a public he had not reached before, I watched it happen.

    Collecting reggae outside of Miami and NYC before the 90s was brutal. You could find a few good titles on European based labels like Perry's 'Super Ape' but you could go months before finding anything that wasn't a Greensleeves new release or a Steel Pulse joint. I remember the exact moments when I finally caught several of the African Dub series in the wild. It was like the heavens had opened up.

    Does anyone remember what the vocal to Long Sentence is? It has totally slipped my mind at this point.


  • [ I have to agree that the GR article greatly elevated Scratch's profile amongst college radio types.

    Perry was already getting college radio airplay back then as there was no and is no reggae radio station on the FM dial and he certainly was not getting played on rap radio. College radio is the only place he could have been heard on the radio.

    Horseleech said:
    I started listening to Lee Perry in '81/'82

    So did I.

    Horseleech said:
    There's no doubt that the Grand Royal article revived interest and introduced him to a public he had not reached before, I watched it happen.

    again, maybe within the rap world or beastie boys fans and that's about it.
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