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 Reid

Artist. Dancehall, reggae, roots

Active
1979-present
Sunrise
1965, Kingston
Also known as
Little Junior Reid, Delroy Reid, JR Productions

Junior Reid (born Delroy Reid) is a Waterhouse singer who bridged roots and dancehall. He began as Hugh Mundell's protégé, had hits with Sugar Minott and Prince Jammy, sang lead for Black Uhuru, and then produced himself to the anthem "One Blood."

He grew up with his grandmother on Balmagie Avenue in Waterhouse, near King Tubby's studio and on the same road where Jammy grew up, singing hymns such as "The Old Rugged Cross" with her in the evenings. He fell in with Lacksley Castell, and then with Mundell, who heard him deejaying and told him to sing instead. Mundell produced his first single, "Speak the Truth," which Augustus Pablo issued on Rockers International in 1979; Reid was thirteen when he recorded it. He remembered being told in the studio that he sang flat, "But at the time, I didn't know what flat mean," and voicing the song at Tubby's in a single take.

When Mundell's life was taken in 1983, Reid was left, as he put it, without a musical director. After a few sides for Negus Roots he joined Sugar Minott, who issued "Original Foreign Mind," credited as a co-production between the two and his most successful single before "One Blood." For Jammy he cut bestsellers for both the Jamaican and British markets, including Boom-Shack-A-Lack, and he also recorded "Youthman" over Sly and Robbie riddims for Myrie Lewis and Errol Marshall. By then he had absorbed the fast-talk deejay style, partly from the British MCs, and his wailing delivery was, with Michael Rose's, the model for what came to be called the Waterhouse style.

In the mid-1980s he replaced Rose as Black Uhuru's lead singer. "Then Black Uhuru have a problem," he told the Rough Guide, "and is me was the only solution at the time"; the group's first album with him was Brutal (1986). While in the group he started his JR label, whose first release was Barrington Levy's "Nah Go Settle Down." He said he had recorded "One Blood" to sing with Black Uhuru, and that visa trouble and friction in the group led him to go his own way.

On his own, "Married Life" and then "One Blood" (1989) came out on JR; "One Blood," which he said he wrote "because of certain incidents that were taking place at the time, political war," became something of a Jamaican anthem, and "All Fruits Ripe" was his biggest Jamaican hit after it. Through the 1990s and after he recorded himself and others at his own studio, produced Ninjaman, sang with Bounty Killer on "This World's Too Haunted," and appeared in the regalia of the Bobo Ashanti. American hip-hop took up "One Blood": The Game's "It's Okay (One Blood)" (2006) was built on it, and Reid and Cham were on the 2007 remix of Mims's "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 277, 357.
  2. Reid's own account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 169, 271, 454. The Rough Guide says he was "only 13" when he recorded it.
  4. Reid in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 169; Dan Dabber, "Interview with Junior Reid," Reggaeville, September 11, 2015, https://reggaeville.com/artist-details/junior-reid/news/view/interview-with-junior-reid.
  5. Reid in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 169, 274, 276. Discogs lists the Black Roots single as 1985. "Junior Reid: Original Foreign Mind," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/293615.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 271, 277, 280-81; "Junior Reid: Boom-Shack-A-Lack," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/195212. Discogs dates the Greensleeves album to 1985 and the 12-inch single to 1984.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 271, 299, 357, 401.
  8. Reid in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277; "Black Uhuru: Brutal," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/35732. Wikipedia dates his joining to 1985. "Junior Reid," Wikipedia, accessed October 7, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reid.
  9. Dabber, "Interview with Junior Reid."
  10. Reshma B, "Junior Reid Is Still All About 'One Blood,'" Tidal, August 29, 2019, https://tidal.com/magazine/article/junior-reid-one-blood/1-56219.
  11. Reid in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 277; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 358; "Junior Reid: One Blood," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/177439.
  12. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 293, 330, 335, 357, 377. The Rough Guide notes the Bobo regalia on his Emmanuel Calling cover.
  13. "The Game featuring Junior Reid: It's Okay (One Blood)," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/97652; Dabber, "Interview with Junior Reid."

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