I-Roy Essentials
Playlist - 15 Songs
Born Roy Reid, Jamaican DJ/toaster I-Roy stood out from his predecessors with both an enthusiastic conversational style and pop-culture references. “Blow, daddy, blow,” he raps over Tommy McCook's cool sax solo in “Sidewalk Killer”, I-Roy's 1972 version of McCook's “Side Walk Doctor”. His voice is lithe and playful on “King Tubby V I-Roy, Pt. 3”—based on Prince Buster's “Take It Easy”—but he could also draw upon late-‘70s reggae “sufferation”, curling his elegantly sympathetic commentary around a keening violin in “Blackman Time”.