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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Junior Delgado

Artist. Reggae, dancehall

Active
1973-2005
Sunrise
August 25, 1958, Kingston
Sunset
April 11, 2005, London
Also known as
Jooks, Oscar Hibbert, Junior Hibbert

Junior Delgado, born Oscar Hibbert in Kingston, was a roots singer with a full-throated, anguished delivery who worked with Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo and Dennis Brown and kept making hits as reggae changed around him. The name Delgado, Spanish for "skinny," was a nickname.

He began in the vocal group Time Unlimited, which recorded for Rupie Edwards and for Lee Perry; "Reaction" was his debut for Perry, cut shortly before the Black Ark opened. For Edwards he also sang with the Heaven Singers on "Rasta Dreadlocks." Going solo, he cut "Every Natty Want to Go Home" for Niney the Observer and "Armed Robbery" for Joe Gibbs.

Dennis Brown took him on for his DEB label, and Delgado's debut album, Taste of the Young Heart (1978), gathered his DEB singles "Devil's Throne," "Love Won't Come Easy," "Famine" and "Storm Is Coming." Back with Perry at the Black Ark in 1977 he made "Sons of Slaves," which the Rough Guide counts as arguably his strongest record. He credited Perry's studio with his schooling: "The Black Ark was a school." Tim Cooper writes that "his husky vocal style stood out from the crowd of Jamaican singers." For Augustus Pablo he cut "Blackman's Heart Cries Out," over a version of Pablo's "Zion High," and "Away With You Fussing and Fighting," which made an even bigger impression as a 1979 Rockers 12-inch with Hugh Mundell toasting as Jah Levi.

In the late 1980s Pablo moved to digital riddims and found a "revitalized" Delgado for a run of hard-edged records, among them "Raggamuffin Year." He was one of the few roots singers to keep having hits through the ragga, digital and dancehall years. Based in London, where he ran a record shop, a label (Incredible Music) and a production company, he split his time with Kingston, and in the late 1990s worked with British dance producers such as Smith & Mighty, Jerry Dammers and the Stereo MCs on new takes of his old songs.

He departed suddenly in London on April 11, 2005, aged forty-six. He was survived by his wife, Janet, and seven children.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide gives "b. Oscar Hibbert, 1958, Kingston" and calls him "a gritty, pain-racked vocalist in the tradition of the great Ken Boothe" with a "full-throated and always very anguished-sounding vocal attack." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 168, 200.
  2. "Junior Delgado 1958-2005," NME, April 15, 2005, https://www.nme.com/news/music/junior-delgado-1359313.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 200, 201. Bradley says that "as part of the band Time Unlimited" he "recorded for Perry just prior to the Black Ark, then returned as a solo singer later into the decade." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 360.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 115, 116.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 180 ("Long Way," "originally titled 'Every Natty Want To Go Home'"), 201 ("Armed Robbery" from Joe Gibbs). Bradley lists Delgado among the singers who had hits with Niney and who recorded at Joe Gibbs's studio. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 352, 366.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 201.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 176, 201 (where it is "momentous"). The Upsetter single is dated 1977 on Discogs. "Junior Delgado: Sons of Slaves," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/3498403-Junior-Delgado-Sons-Of-Slaves.
  8. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 360.
  9. Tim Cooper, "Junior Delgado: Sons of Slaves," Eats, Drinks and Leaves, accessed November 5, 2026, https://www.eatsdrinksandleaves.com/?p=6479.
  10. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 168-69. Discogs dates the Rockers 12-inch to 1979. "Junior Delgado / Augustus Pablo: Away With You Fussing and Fighting / King David Melody," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/2210497-Junior-Delgado-Augustus-Pablo-Away-With-You-Fussing-And-Fighting-King-David-Melody.
  11. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 169, 170.
  12. Bradley, writing while Delgado was still recording, calls him "one of the very few to have survived the changing styles and have hits in roots, ragga, digital and dancehall." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 360.
  13. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 360. The Incredible Music label is named in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 201.
  14. "Junior Delgado 1958-2005." The figure of seven children is three sons with his wife and "four more children."

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