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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Count Ossie

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1950s-1976
Sunrise
March 26, 1926, St. Thomas, Jamaica
Sunset
October 18, 1976, Kingston, Jamaica (car accident)
Also recorded as
Count Ossie & the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari
Also known as
The Father of Nyabinghi

Oswald Williams, known as Count Ossie, brought Rastafarian drumming out of the hills and into Jamaican popular music. David Katz credits his circle with helping to break ska; Sister Melva, of his circle, said his drumming "kept the heartbeat of reggae to the fore."

He was born in St. Thomas, where he heard the Kumina rhythms he would later blend with Burru drumming, and became a Rastafarian in the 1940s. The Salt Lane camp in the Dungle, his first base, was destroyed by a hurricane in 1951, and after a time at Rennock Lodge he settled in the Wareika Hills near Rockfort, above eastern Kingston. There he assembled a drum ensemble and developed what became the standard Nyabinghi configuration: bass drum, funde holding a steady two-beat figure, and repeater improvising over the top. The camp doubled as a school. Musicians came up the hill to learn, among them Don Drummond and several other Skatalites.

The rhythms reached record buyers at the end of the 1950s with "Oh Carolina," the Folkes Brothers single produced by Prince Buster, on which Ossie's drummers play behind the vocal. Buster, who said he liked "something different all the time," wanted a record that would set him apart from Dodd. It was the first commercial recording to feature Rastafarian drumming, and it caused a sensation, getting radio play despite initial bans.

Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, formed in 1971 when his drummers joined the Mystics of the saxophonist Cedric "Im" Brooks and the trumpeter David Madden, released Grounation in 1973, a three-record set of extended drumming, chanting, and horn playing that remains the fullest documentation of the tradition on record. Tales of Mozambique followed in 1975.

He lost his life in a car accident in October 1976.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. David Katz, "Count Ossie and the Birth of Reggae," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, April 24, 2015, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/04/count-ossie-and-the-birth-of-reggae. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 87, says Buster's use of Ossie "plugged Jamaican popular culture into a genuinely indigenous expression," and says that "as a piece of cultural legislation" "Oh Carolina" "was enormous." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 61.
  2. Augustyn: his first camp, in the late 1940s, was "on Salt Lane in the Dungle"; in 1951 it "was destroyed by Hurricane Charlie," and he spent time at Rennock Lodge "before establishing his famous camp in the Wareika Hills off Adastra Road near the area known as Rockfort." Heather Augustyn, "The Drums of Count Ossie," SkaBook (blog), March 27, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/03/27/the-drums-of-count-ossie/, an excerpt from her Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World's Greatest Trombonist. The Rough Guide places his community "at Renock Lodge in the Wareika Hills" by 1953; Bradley lists Rockforth and the Wareika Hills among the large Rasta camps around Kingston, and has Buster seeking Ossie at Salt Lane, in the Dungle. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 26; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 33, 61, 87. Campbell dates the move to Wareika Hills to 1944, and Wikipedia dates a community at Rockfort to the early 1950s. Howard Campbell, "Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari," Jamaica Observer, August 2, 2017, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2017/08/02/count-ossie-and-the-mystic-revelation-of-rastafari/; "Count Ossie," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Ossie. Katz calls Salt Lane "a Rasta camp" where Ossie "soon became a regular figure," taught by Brother Job, and says that "in 1951, after Hurricane Charlie destroyed the Salt Lane camp, Ossie moved to Adastra Road in the heart of Rockfort." David Katz, "Count Ossie and the Birth of Reggae," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, April 24, 2015, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/04/count-ossie-and-the-birth-of-reggae.
  3. Bradley says Ossie studied Burru drumming under the master drummer Brother Job, and that in Rasta music "the fundeh kept the beat while the bass emphasized it," while "the repeater by itself handled the melodies"; the Rough Guide says a Burru man it calls Brother Joe taught him the funde and then the repeater. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 84; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 23. Augustyn also names Brother Job as his teacher, and says Job's own teacher, Watto King, made Ossie's first drums. Augustyn, "Drums of Count Ossie."
  4. The Rough Guide says the trombonist Rico Rodriguez lived in Ossie's community from 1953 and that ska musicians such as Johnny "Dizzy" Moore and Don Drummond developed their approaches at the gatherings; Campbell names Drummond and Rico among those who jammed there. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 26, 172; Campbell, "Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation." Augustyn names Roland Alphonso, Tommy McCook, Johnny Moore, Ernest Ranglin and Drummond among the visiting musicians. Augustyn, "Drums of Count Ossie."
  5. The Rough Guide calls it "the first Jamaican 45 to feature the nyahbingi drumming of Count Ossie." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 23. Bradley describes the session, cut in a small upstairs room after Duke Reid took Buster's booking at JBC, with Owen Gray on piano and "Ossie and his four drummers." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 59-60. The books differ on the year: Bradley gives 1959 and the Rough Guide 1958. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 63; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 430, 454. Campbell also gives 1959. Campbell, "Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation."
  6. Katz, "Count Ossie and the Birth of Reggae." Yasmine Peru, "100 Years of Pioneering Rasta Drummer Count Ossie," Sunday Gleaner, April 5, 2026, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20260405/100-years-pioneering-rasta-drummer-count-ossie. Bradley writes that "while reggae gives Rasta access to the world stage, Rasta's depth of spirituality means reggae will always have something to say." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 61.
  7. The Rough Guide calls Grounation the first album "to give the music the studio time it deserved," says the triple LP "has never been superseded," names Cedric Brooks as its musical arranger, and dates it to 1973. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 172, 454. Katz says the group formed in 1971, when the Mystics, led by Brooks and the trumpeter David Madden, appeared with Ossie's drummers and the two combined. David Katz, "Cedric Brooks Obituary," Guardian, May 8, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/08/cedric-brooks.
  8. The Rough Guide says it was "released a couple of years after" Grounation. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 172.
  9. The Rough Guide dates his death to October 18, 1976, and says he was given a state funeral. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 454. Campbell says he died in a motor accident while returning to Rockfort from his native St. Thomas. Campbell, "Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation."

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