World of Jamaican Music

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

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Flabba Holt

Artist. Dancehall, roots, reggae

Active
1970s-present
Sunrise
1950, Kingston
Also known as
Flabba, Errol Holt, Errol "Flabba" Holt, Errol Carter, Errol Alexander Carter

Errol "Flabba" Holt is the bassist who founded and led the Roots Radics, and the bass behind much of the dancehall's first decade, from Barrington Levy's records for Henry "Junjo" Lawes to Gregory Isaacs's Night Nurse.

Born Errol Carter in Denham Town, West Kingston, and raised by his mother, he was first known as one of the best dancers of the early 1960s, winning a Vere Johns Opportunity Hour contest. He led a school group, the Itals, which sang for Rupie Edwards, and cut two songs for Duke Reid that were never issued; John Holt, hearing how much the young singer sounded like him, told him to take the name Holt. He taught himself bass, and the pianists Theophilus Beckford and Gladstone Anderson helped him with the chords; "My Heart Is in Danger" (1975), cut at Randy's, was his first record as both singer and bassist. He hung out at Idlers Rest on North Parade, where the singers waited for sessions, and two albums as a singer followed in the 1970s. He supervised the session for Jah Thomas's chart-topping "Midnight Rock" (1976), Prince Far I produced singles by him, and he joined the Morwells in the late 1970s.

In 1978 he and Bingy Bunny formed the band that became the Roots Radics, with Style Scott and Sowell Bailey, and as musical director he made it the unofficial house band at Channel One, working for Lawes and Linval Thompson. Holt says he brought Wycliffe "Steely" Johnson into the band and taught him, and that he arranged the keyboard figures on "Night Nurse" himself at Compass Point in the Bahamas, mixing the album in a day, without ever being paid royalties. One survey of reggae bassists hears "a round, low, rock-solid sound." His bass lines run through Eek-A-Mouse's "Wa Do Dem," Michael Prophet's "Gunman," John Holt's "Police in Helicopter," Freddie McGregor's Big Ship and most of Israel Vibration's albums. With the other founding members gone, he has carried on as the sole survivor of the original Radics, recording and touring with younger American and European musicians.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 480; Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 205, 249.
  2. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 1)," United Reggae, December 19, 2015, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n2022/121915/interview-flabba-holt-in-kingston-part-1. Taylor's question gives his birth year as 1950; Discogs gives 1954.
  3. Taylor, "Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 1)."
  4. Taylor, "Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 1)." "Flabba Holt: 'Ace of Bass'," Jamaica Observer, February 5, 2023, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2023/02/04/flabba-holt-ace-of-bass.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 193, 205, 285, 454. The Rough Guide also credits him as producer of Jah Stitch's first hit, "Danger Zone"; Jah Stitch told Bradley he cut it for Channel One. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 154; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 303.
  6. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 2)," United Reggae, December 22, 2015, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n2023/122215/interview-flabba-holt-in-kingston-part-2. "Flabba Holt: 'Ace of Bass'." Katz also dates the Radics to 1978, "formed by bassist Errol 'Flabba Holt' Carter and guitarist Eric 'Bingy Bunny' Lamont, as an off-shoot of the Morwells band," after the pair had recorded at Randy's as Roots Rock. David Katz, "RIP Style Scott, Roots Radics Drummer," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, October 14, 2014, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/10/style-scott-rip; David Katz, "Style Scott Obituary," Guardian, October 30, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/30/style-scott.
  7. Taylor, "Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 2)." Angus Taylor, "Interview: Flabba Holt in Kingston (Part 3)," United Reggae, January 4, 2016, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n2031/010416/interview-flabba-holt-in-kingston-part-3. The Rough Guide credits Night Nurse to Gregory Isaacs and notes that Island brought in Wally Badarou, "whose synthesizer helped sell it." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 253.
  8. "Flabba Holt: 'Ace of Bass'." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 267-68. "Toppa Top 10: Reggae's Greatest Bassists," LargeUp, June 11, 2014, https://www.largeup.com/2014/06/11/toppa-top-10-reggaes-ten-greatest-bassists/9/.

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