Reggae drumming legend Sly Dunbar dead at 73

Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, the Jamaican drummer whose enactment successful the bushed conception of Sly and Robbie built the backbone of modern reggae, has died. He was 73.

Several Jamaican newspapers, including the Jamaican Observer, reported Dunbar’s decease successful Kingston, and his girl Natasha released a connection to media, including to TMZ.

“As 1 fractional of Sly & Robbie, Sly helped signifier the dependable of reggae and Jamaican euphony for generations. His bonzer talent, innovation, and lasting contributions volition ne'er beryllium forgotten. Sly’s music, spirit, and bequest touched radical astir the world, and we are profoundly grateful for the emotion and enactment during this hard time,” Dunbar’s household said successful a statement.

Born Lowell Fillmore Dunbar successful 1952 successful Kingston, Jamaica, Dunbar was a teen drum prodigy who played connected Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters’ 1969 azygous “Night Doctor” and Dave and Ansel Collins’ LP “Double Barrel,” whose rubric way topped the U.K. singles chart.

After gathering bassist Robbie Shakespeare successful 1972, the brace built chiseled rhythms specified arsenic the insistent “Rockers” groove that bolstered canonical reggae tracks. Their tremendous catalog includes enactment from Peter Tosh (with whom they recorded 5 LPs, including 1977’s influential “Equal Rights”), Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer and Gregory Isaacs.

Dunbar’s drums clasp down specified genre-defining classics arsenic Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves” and The Mighty Diamonds’ 1976 “Right Time,” arsenic good arsenic the 12-inch mentation of Bob Marley’s “Punky Reggae Party.” Locally, Sly & Robbie founded an influential label, Taxi Records, successful 1980 and performed successful the location set astatine Jamaica’s formidable Channel One studio. Dunbar played connected the archetypal victor for reggae signaling astatine the Grammys, Black Uhuru’s “Anthem,” and Sly and Robbie — who released their archetypal LP together, “Sly and Robbie Present Taxi,” successful 1981 — won the 1999 reggae medium Grammy for “Friends.”

Yet they were besides influential successful pushing reggae into modernity, utilizing integer instrumentation connected Chaka Demus & Pliers’ 1993 smash “Murder She Wrote” and grafting their textures into the Fugees’ bestselling LP “The Score.” The pair’s bushed enactment is among the astir sampled successful each of hip-hop, believed to person been utilized connected hundreds of thousands of songs, and ventured good beyond reggae connected sessions with Bob Dylan for 3 1980s LPs on with records by the Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Grace Jones (including the classical “Nightclubbing,”) Sinead O’Connor and Herbie Hancock.

They besides contributed to No Doubt’s 2001 singles “Hey Baby” and “Underneath It All,” and Dunbar’s drumming topped the Hot 100 twice, appearing connected Maxi Priest’s “Close to You” successful 1990 and Omi’s “Cheerleader” successful 2012.