World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Barrington Levy

Artist. Reggae

Active
1977-present
Sunrise
1964, Kingston, Jamaica
Also known as
The Vibes Machine

Barrington Levy began recording as a young teenager and became the leading singer of the early dancehall period, before digital production arrived and while the Roots Radics were still playing the riddims live.

He formed the Mighty Multitude with his cousin Everton Dacres and cut his first sides around 1977, when he was thirteen or fourteen. The partnership that mattered began soon after, with producer Henry "Junjo" Lawes and the Roots Radics as the backing band. Bounty Hunter (1979) was the first album, and "Shine Eye Gal," "Collie Weed," "Shaolin Temple," "Under Mi Sensi," "Here I Come," and "Murderer" followed over the next several years.

The voice is the reason the records last. He grew up on Dennis Brown and Michael Jackson, and Trinity, who gave him his first stage show, told him that the others could not sing like him. Set against the raw rhythms of the Roots Radics, the Rough Guide says, his debut album became the template for the whole genre of dancehall vocalizing, and it signaled a shift in the music comparable to the Mighty Diamonds' debut with the Revolutionaries four years earlier.

"Under Mi Sensi" also gave Wayne Smith the starting point for "Under Mi Sleng Teng," the record that took dancehall digital. He continued to record through the digital era and into the 1990s, and "Here I Come" found a second audience abroad when it was sampled and interpolated by hip-hop and drum and bass artists. Levy still performs.

Last updated November 1, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Barrow and Dalton give "b. 1964, Kingston": Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 251. The birthplace in the text follows Wikipedia, citing Jo-Ann Greene's Allmusic biography: "Barrington Levy," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrington_Levy. Reggaeville and First Avenue also say Kingston; Wikipedia gives April 30, 1964, Clarendon. "Biography: Barrington Levy," Reggaeville, accessed October 8, 2026, https://reggaeville.com/artist-details/barrington-levy/about. "Barrington Levy," First Avenue, accessed October 8, 2026, https://first-avenue.com/performer/barrington-levy/.
  2. Barrow and Dalton call his debut album "the template for the whole genre of dancehall vocalizing" and write that "in the next few years only the all-conquering Yellowman was more popular": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251.
  3. Barrow and Dalton say he had been in "a group called the Mighty Multitudes" and made "a couple of singles that did not sell particularly well": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251. Wikipedia dates the group, formed with his cousin Everton Dacres, to 1977: "Barrington Levy," Wikipedia.
  4. The 1979 singles and the debut album were recorded at Channel One and "produced jointly by Henry 'Junjo' Lawes and New York-based Hyman 'Jah Life' Wright": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251; on the "15-year-old Barrington Levy" and the Lawes sessions, 266. Katz says Lawes recorded him at Channel One with the engineer Scientist and the Roots Radics, and that the Radics' records with Levy "are acknowledged to have kick-started dancehall." David Katz, "Henry 'Junjo' Lawes," Guardian, July 20, 1999, https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/jul/20/guardianobituaries3; David Katz, "Style Scott Obituary," Guardian, October 30, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/30/style-scott.
  5. On Bounty Hunter and its tracks, including "Shine Eye Gal" and "Shaolin Temple," Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 252; on "Collie Weed" as his "best-selling single to date," 261. "Under Mi Sensi" (1984) and "Here I Come" were produced by Jah Screw rather than Lawes: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251.
  6. Barrington Levy, interview by Midnight Raver and Doctor Dread (December 2014), "The Definitive Barrington Levy Interview," Legendary Reggae, October 26, 2022, https://legendaryreggae.com/2022/10/26/the-definitive-barrington-levy-interview.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251.
  8. Katz says Smith adapted "ideas explored in Barrington Levy's recent hit Under Mi Sensi." David Katz, "Wayne Smith's Under Mi Sleng Teng: The Song That Revolutionised Reggae," Guardian, February 20, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/20/wayne-smith-sleng-teng-revolutionised-dancehall-reggae.
  9. On his later hits with Jah Screw, including "Too Experienced" and "Living Dangerously" (1996), Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 251.
  10. Wikipedia notes that Rebel MC sampled the song for "Tribal Base" (1991) and that a new version with Talisman P reached number 37 in the UK in 2001: "Barrington Levy," Wikipedia.

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