World of Jamaican Music

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Black Uhuru

Band. Reggae, dub

Active
1972-present

Black Uhuru took their name from the Swahili word for freedom, and for more than half a century the group has been held together by its founder, Derrick "Duckie" Simpson (born 1950), its one constant member through a dozen lineups. It has carried three of reggae's most distinctive lead voices, Michael Rose, Junior Reid, and Andrew Bees, and in the years when Rose, Simpson, and Sandra "Puma" Jones sang over the riddims of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, the Rough Guide counts it the most dynamic and progressive reggae act of its day.

Simpson was born in Kingston and grew up in Waterhouse, the hard West Kingston district its residents also call Firehouse. As a teenager he sat with the Rasta elder Mortimo Planno, and his friend Rudolph "Garth" Dennis brought him to Trenchtown; Bob Marley, Simpson recalled, rehearsed in Dennis's yard. He learned to sing alongside his boyhood friends Winston "Pipe" Matthews and Lloyd "Bread" McDonald of the Wailing Souls and recorded a few tracks with them before starting a group of his own.

That group, Uhuru, was Simpson, Dennis, and Euvin "Don Carlos" Spencer, formed in Waterhouse around 1972 (accounts range from the late 1960s to 1974); the name, Simpson said, came from a stranger who passed while they sat on a wall with his guitar. A cover of the Impressions' "Romancing to the Folk Song" and "Time Is on Our Side" went nowhere, Carlos left for a solo career, and Dennis joined the Wailing Souls. Simpson regrouped with Errol "Tarzan" Nelson and Michael Rose, a Waterhouse youth he had known since Rose was a small boy and had, by his own account, encouraged to sing. Rose had already recorded for Niney the Observer and Vivian Jackson. The new trio's debut, Love Crisis, was cut for Prince Jammy, who sold it to Britain's Third World label at the end of 1977; "I Love King Selassie" and a version of Marley's "Natural Mystic" announced a serious new roots act, though the album made its full impact only when Greensleeves remixed and reissued it as Black Sounds of Freedom in 1981. At Channel One the group also cut Marley's "Sun Is Shining" for the Hitbound label.

When Nelson returned to the Jayes, his place went to an American. Puma Jones was born Sandra Jones in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1953. She earned a master's degree in social work at Columbia University, studied African dance with Chuck Davis's company in New York, worked as a social worker, also worked in Ghana, and settled in Jamaica in the 1970s, where she danced with Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus and sang with the women's group Mama Africa. Simpson brought her in around 1978 (the year is given variously from 1977 to 1979). Her high harmonies, set against Rose's lead and Simpson's middle voice, gave the trio its sound, and as one of the very few women in a front-rank reggae group she gave it a striking stage presence; Simpson later said she played "a big part" in both the group's sound and its image.

The breakthrough came with Sly and Robbie's Taxi label in 1979. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "Abortion," and "General Penitentiary" for Taxi, "Plastic Smile" for Gorgon, and two singles for Dennis Brown's DEB label, "Wood for My Fire" and "Rent Man," established them in Kingston. Keith Richards, recording at Channel One with Sly and Robbie in 1979, is credited with guitar on "Shine Eye Gal." Showcase (1979) gathered five of the Taxi hits, each followed by its dub, sold well, and caught the attention of Chris Blackwell, who signed the group to Island.

Rose wrote most of the songs, and his voice defined them: the wailing delivery that, with Junior Reid's, became known as the Waterhouse style, which the Rough Guide calls eminently suited to serious "reality" lyrics. He set Rastafarian militancy beside the realities of ganja, poverty, and prison, in what the same book calls "uncompromising roots music that also transcended most of the genre's limitations." Sly and Robbie built the riddims, a hard, metallic sound some called robotic; Sly made more imaginative use of the newly imported syndrums than any other drummer in Jamaica, and by his own account he worked soul drum patterns into reggae tempos on these records. Bradley notes that even after "Shine Eye Gal," "Sensimilla," and "Sponji Reggae" ruled the Jamaican dancehalls, Kingston's producers made no effort to follow Sly and Robbie in that direction.

On Island the group made the run of albums on which its reputation rests. Sinsemilla (1980), with its title track, "World Is Africa," and "Endurance," sounded like no roots music before it. Red (1981), opening with "Youth of Eglington" and carrying "Sponji Reggae," "Sistren," and Simpson's own "Journey," reached number 28 in Britain; Rolling Stone later ranked it among the best albums of the 1980s. For Chill Out (1982), Rose, by then living in New York, wrote about the city on songs such as "Darkness" and "Mondays." Island also issued a live album, Tear It Up (1982), and The Dub Factor (1983), Paul "Groucho" Smykle's dub reworking of the Island material, a landmark of the form. The group toured widely, sharing stages with the Rolling Stones and the Police and reaching rock audiences that most reggae acts never did. Anthem (1983), remixed for its American release and carrying Steven Van Zandt's "Solidarity" and "Party Next Door," won the first Grammy Award for Best Reggae Recording in 1985, though the Rough Guide judges it weaker than Chill Out. The same book argues that the group was simply too militant to fill the international superstar slot left by Marley.

Rose left around the time of the Grammy, after a falling-out with Simpson; accounts differ on whether he went months before the award or shortly after it. His replacement was another Waterhouse wailer, Junior Reid. "Black Uhuru have a problem," Reid remembered, "and is me was the only solution at the time." With him the group made Brutal (1986), co-produced by Arthur Baker and nominated for a Grammy, and Positive (1987); visa trouble and friction in the group then sent Reid off on his own.

Brutal was also Puma Jones's last album. Diagnosed with breast cancer before the Positive sessions, she withdrew and was replaced by Janet "Olafunke" Reid, and she returned to the United States for treatment. Jones departed in January 1990 at thirty-six; the cause was the cancer. She was buried near her family's home in South Carolina. Simpson wrote "Emotional Slaughter" on an airplane after the sunsets of Jones and Marley.

Around 1990 Simpson re-formed the original trio with Don Carlos and Garth Dennis. Now (1990), Iron Storm (1991), whose "Tip of the Iceberg" featured Ice-T, Mystical Truth (1993), and Strongg (1994) were each nominated for a Grammy. In 1996 the reunion broke apart, with Simpson and the Carlos-Dennis pair each touring as Black Uhuru; Simpson won the right to the name in court in Los Angeles in 1997 or 1998.

The voice of the group for most of the years since has been Andrew Bees, born Oneil Norman Beckford and raised in Waterhouse. He sang on Radio Jamaica at fourteen in a youth program sponsored by Colgate and took his stage name from people who said his constant singing sounded like buzzing. His 1995 album Militant, for RAS, brought him international notice and tours with the Itals and Israel Vibration. Bees first toured with Simpson in Brazil in 1996, joined about 1997, and sang lead on Unification (1998), produced by King Jammy, and Dynasty (2001), produced by Fitzroy Francis and Simpson, as well as Dubbin' It Live, recorded with Sly and Robbie at Switzerland's Paléo Festival. He left for a solo career in 2003. Rose then rejoined Simpson for several years of touring, beginning around 2004, before the two parted again; by 2019 a dispute between them over the name had gone to arbitration. Bees returned in 2010 or 2011 and has sung lead ever since, with backing singers including Kaye Starh and Elsa Green. "I'm a lead singer for the group," he has said. "I'm not Black Uhuru."

Late in his career Simpson stepped forward as a lead singer himself. As the World Turns, announced in 2008 with Simpson on every lead, was finally released in 2018 after the original recordings were lost; he wrote most of it with his daughter, Ashaki Simpson, and it earned the group another Grammy nomination. New Day (2022), released on LAW Records for the group's fiftieth anniversary, again had Simpson in front with Bees featured, and was produced with Horace "King Hopeton" Campbell; that year Simpson, who calls himself reggae's "nine star general," received the Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award from the Caribbean American Heritage Awards in Washington. In June 2025 Black Uhuru played Glastonbury's West Holts stage, their first appearance at the festival since 1989, and the trio of Simpson, Bees, and Green was still touring in 2026.

Last updated November 4, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Simpson as founder and only constant member: "About Black Uhuru," Black Uhuru official website, accessed October 20, 2026, https://blackuhuruofficial.com/about; "Derrick 'Duckie' Simpson," Caribbean American Heritage Awards, accessed October 20, 2026, https://caribbeanamericanheritageawards.com/honorees-2022/derrick-duckie-simpson/. On the name and the founding, "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Uhuru.
  2. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 148, calls the group of the Sly and Robbie years "the most dynamic and progressive reggae act of the late 1970s/early 1980s." On Reid and Bees as lead singers, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277; Stephen Cooper, "A Bull Session at the Beach with Black Uhuru's Andrew Bees," Afropop Worldwide, October 19, 2017, https://afropop.org/articles/a-bull-session-at-the-beach-with-black-uhurus-andrew-bees.
  3. Ondine Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru," Contemporary Musicians, Encyclopedia.com, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/black-uhuru, gives his birth as June 24, 1950, in Kingston. On Waterhouse and "Firehouse," "Biography: Black Uhuru," Reggaeville, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/black-uhuru/about/; "Derrick 'Duckie' Simpson," Caribbean American Heritage Awards, accessed October 20, 2026, https://caribbeanamericanheritageawards.com/honorees-2022/derrick-duckie-simpson/.
  4. Simpson's own account in Stephen Cooper, "'I'm a Nine-Star General Now': An Interview with Black Uhuru's Duckie Simpson," CounterPunch, March 25, 2019, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/25/im-a-nine-star-general-now-an-interview-with-black-uhurus-duckie-simpson/. On Matthews and McDonald and the tracks with the Wailing Souls, "Biography: Black Uhuru," Reggaeville, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/black-uhuru/about/; "Derrick 'Duckie' Simpson," Caribbean American Heritage Awards, accessed October 20, 2026, https://caribbeanamericanheritageawards.com/honorees-2022/derrick-duckie-simpson/.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148, names the original members. Wikipedia, citing Dave Thompson, dates the group, as Uhuru, to 1972 in Waterhouse: "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Uhuru. Ondine Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru," Contemporary Musicians, Encyclopedia.com, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/black-uhuru and Bud Kliment and Amy Wachtel, "Black Uhuru," Trouser Press, accessed October 20, 2026, https://trouserpress.com/reviews/black-uhuru/ give 1974; Simpson and the group's own site say the late 1960s: "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson," Rebelbase, July 14, 2005, https://rebelbase.be/interviews/detail/black-uhuru-duckie-simpson---openluchttheater-rivierenhof-072005; "About Black Uhuru," Black Uhuru official website, accessed October 20, 2026, https://blackuhuruofficial.com/about. The story of the name is Simpson's, in Cooper, "Nine-Star General."
  6. "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Uhuru. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148, has Dennis "later of the Wailing Souls" and Carlos a "future solo star."
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148, on the second lineup; Nelson's nickname is from "Biography: Black Uhuru," Reggaeville, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/black-uhuru/about/. Simpson's account of Rose is in Cooper, "Nine-Star General"; Simpson also told Rebelbase that he and Rose grew up together: "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson."
  8. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 366.
  9. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149, 271. Wikipedia and the group's own site date Love Crisis to 1977; the Rough Guide says it appeared in 1978. On the Greensleeves reissue, Bud Kliment and Amy Wachtel, "Black Uhuru," Trouser Press, accessed October 20, 2026, https://trouserpress.com/reviews/black-uhuru/.
  10. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 358, which places the session before Jones joined.
  11. "Roots | Puma Jones – Black Uhuru," IRIE, October 6, 2016, https://www.iriemag.com/magazine/2016/roots-puma-jones-black-uhuru/; "Puma Jones," Wikipedia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_Jones. Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru," gives only "c." for the year. On Nelson's return to the Jayes, "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Uhuru.
  12. Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru"; "Roots | Puma Jones"; "Puma Jones (1953-1990)," National Library of Jamaica, accessed October 20, 2026, https://nlj.gov.jm/REGGAE%20EXHIBITION/Puma%20Jones.htm. On Mama Africa, "Roots | Puma Jones." Wikipedia connects the name Mama Africa with Miriam Makeba instead: "Puma Jones."
  13. Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru," and "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, give 1978; "Roots | Puma Jones" says Simpson invited her in 1977; the National Library of Jamaica and Simpson himself give 1979: "Puma Jones (1953-1990)"; "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson."
  14. Trouser Press credits her "haunting high harmonies": Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru." The Rough Guide calls her "visually arresting": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149. Simpson's remark is in "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson."
  15. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148. Campbell dates the Taxi connection to 1979 and notes the earlier, less successful DEB sessions: Howard Campbell, "Rose Blooms Again in Waterhouse," Jamaica Gleaner, February 26, 2008, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080226/ent/ent1.html. The Rough Guide places the DEB singles in the first period with Sly and Robbie.
  16. Marcelo Sonaglioni, "Keith Richards Teams Up with Black Uhuru in a 1979 Reggae Experiment," Rolling Stones Data, May 31, 2026, https://rollingstonesdata.com/articles/keith-richards-records-with-black-uhuru-1979/; "Black Uhuru," uDiscover Music, accessed October 20, 2026, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/artists/black-uhuru; Caribbean American Heritage Awards, "Derrick 'Duckie' Simpson." Neither source gives primary evidence for the session; thinly sourced.
  17. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149; on Blackwell and Island, Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru."
  18. That Rose wrote the Sinsemilla songs: Marshall Bowden, "Black Uhuru: Sinsemilla / Red / The Dub Factor," PopMatters, March 7, 2004, https://www.popmatters.com/blackuhuru-sinsemilla-2495849942.html. On the Waterhouse style, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 299, 357.
  19. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148.
  20. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 278, which describes the Taxi sound as "metallic, almost non-human" and "tagged 'robotic' by some." Sly Dunbar's account is in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 512.
  21. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 493.
  22. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149.
  23. On "Youth of Eglington," Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru"; on "Journey" and "Sistren," which Simpson co-wrote with Rose, Bowden, "Sinsemilla / Red / The Dub Factor." The UK chart position and the Rolling Stone ranking (no. 23 of the 1980s) are from "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia.
  24. Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru"; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149. Chill Out reached no. 38 in Britain: "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia.
  25. On Smykle and The Dub Factor, Bowden, "Sinsemilla / Red / The Dub Factor"; Katz calls it a landmark: David Katz, "Interview: Paul 'Groucho' Smykle," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, April 1, 2013, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/04/paul-groucho-smykle-interview. On Tear It Up, Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru."
  26. Caribbean American Heritage Awards, "Derrick 'Duckie' Simpson." Wikipedia says only that the group "toured with The Rolling Stones": "Black Uhuru." uDiscover dates a Stones support tour to 1989: "Black Uhuru," uDiscover Music.
  27. On the remix, Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru"; "Black Uhuru," uDiscover Music. On the first Grammy for Best Reggae Recording, Simon Coates, "Why 1985 Was a Landmark Year for Reggae," Grammy.com, September 4, 2025, https://www.grammy.com/news/how-1985-changed-reggae-forever-grammy-awards. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 149, calls Chill Out "the last Uhuru album of any real interest" and Anthem "weaker."
  28. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 148.
  29. Simpson told Rebelbase the group had split about four months before the Grammy: "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson." Campbell says Rose left shortly after the award, reportedly after a falling-out with Simpson: "Rose Blooms Again." Wikipedia, citing Campbell (2004), gives 1984; Le Blanc gives 1985: "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia; Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru."
  30. Reid in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277. On Arthur Baker and the two albums, Kliment and Wachtel, "Black Uhuru"; on the Grammy nomination for Brutal and Reid's visa trouble, "About Black Uhuru."
  31. "Puma Jones," Wikipedia; on Janet "Olafunke" Reid, "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia; Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru."
  32. "Roots | Puma Jones" and "Puma Jones (1953-1990)" give January 28, 1990; "Puma Jones," Wikipedia, gives her age and the burial. On the cause, "Black Uhuru: Duckie Simpson."
  33. Simpson in Cooper, "Nine-Star General."
  34. "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia; "Biography: Black Uhuru." On "Tip of the Iceberg," Le Blanc, "Black Uhuru," who dates Iron Storm to 1992 and Mystical Truth to 1992-93.
  35. "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, gives 1997. Simpson dates the Los Angeles ruling to 1998 and mentions an earlier injunction in Jamaica: Cooper, "Nine-Star General." "Biography: Black Uhuru" names the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
  36. Stephen Cooper, "A Bull Session at the Beach with Black Uhuru's Andrew Bees," Afropop Worldwide, October 19, 2017, https://afropop.org/articles/a-bull-session-at-the-beach-with-black-uhurus-andrew-bees. "Biography: Black Uhuru" calls him Andrew "Bee's" Beckford; French Wikipedia gives Norman Beckford, born 1972: "Andrew Bees," Wikipédia, accessed October 20, 2026, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bees.
  37. Cooper, "Bull Session," where Bees himself dates his time with the group from 1998; "About Black Uhuru"; "Biography: Black Uhuru"; "Andrew Bees," Wikipédia.
  38. On Bees's departure, "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia. On Rose's return, Campbell, "Rose Blooms Again," which says the two reconciled about four years earlier; "Biography: Black Uhuru" dates the reunion to 2007; Benjamin Peronne, "Duckie Simpson Sings Lead on the Next Black Uhuru Album," United Reggae, September 10, 2008, https://unitedreggae.com/news/n359/091008/duckie-simpson-sings-lead-on-the-next-black-uhuru-album, says Rose had since gone back to his own career. On the arbitration, Simpson in Cooper, "Nine-Star General."
  39. Cooper, "Bull Session," which gives 2011; "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, gives 2010. On Starh and Green, "Biography: Black Uhuru"; "Black Uhuru," Belly Up Tavern, event listing for September 14, 2026, accessed October 20, 2026, https://bellyup.com/calendar/14811453/black-uhuru.
  40. Peronne, "Duckie Simpson Sings Lead"; Simpson in Cooper, "Nine-Star General"; "About Black Uhuru," which gives the nomination as Best Reggae Album at the 61st Grammy Awards.
  41. "Legendary Grammy Award Winner Black Uhuru to Celebrate 50th Anniversary with the Release of Latest Album New Day," Grateful Web, March 14, 2022, https://www.gratefulweb.com/?p=513312; Howard Campbell, "Duckie Gets Marcus Garvey Lifetime Award," Jamaica Observer, November 20, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/11/20/duckie-gets-marcus-garvey-lifetime-award.
  42. Kevin Jackson, "Glastonbury Gives a Lot of Mainstream Promotion, Says Black Uhuru's Duckie Simpson," Jamaica Observer, July 1, 2025, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/07/01/glastonbury-gives-lot-mainstream-promotion-says-black-uhurus-duckie-simpson/; "Black Uhuru," Wikipedia, for the West Holts stage and the 1989 appearance; on the current lineup, "Black Uhuru," Belly Up Tavern.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map