Little Royal

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, a 13-year-old Earl Lowe started recording at the legendary Studio One after impressing The Skatalites' keyboardist Jackie Mittoo at an audition. Nicknamed Little Roy by Prince Buster in 1969, he scored his first Jamaican Number 1, at the age of 16, with Bongo Nyah, the first big commercial hit to talk directly about the Rastafari movement. He recorded with Lee 'Scratch' Perry and was backed by The Wailers on 1970 single Don't Cross The Nation, before setting up the two labels Tafari and Earth and establishing himself as one of the pioneers of roots reggae. Over the years his classics Black Bird, Tribal War and Prophecy were largely forgotten, but when British producer Prince Fatty convinced the aging Rasta to record an album of Nirvana covers, Little Roy was re-born. Using the cream of London's reggae musicians, Battle For Seattle (2011) turned Kurt Cobain's raging grunge screams into sweetly sung, old time skanks and was critically acclaimed as one of the albums of the year, with the band even performing at the Reading/Leeds Festival and on the Later... With Jools Holland TV show.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.