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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Little Roy

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1965-present
Sunrise
1950 or 1953, Kingston
Also known as
Earl Lowe, The Little Roys

Little Roy, born Earl Lowe in Kingston, is a Rasta singer and songwriter whose "Bongo Nyah" (1969) was among the first hit records to put Rastafari themes on the radio, and whose "Tribal War" and "Prophecy" became roots standards.

He cut his first song at Studio One with Jackie Mittoo while still a schoolboy, in 1965 by his own account, and two songs for Prince Buster, who did not know his name and called him Little Roy; none of these succeeded. With a school friend, Donovan Carless, he recorded "Bongo Nyah" for Lloyd "Matador" Daley, who credited it to "the Little Roys"; it was built on the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep," with Boris Gardiner on organ, and by Roy's account held the top spot on both Jamaican radio charts for six weeks. It began a run of fine, mostly Rasta-inspired records for Daley, among them "Hard Fighter" (1971), usually counted as the first record with a specially remixed dub version on its B side; he also made "Cross the Nation" for Lee Perry and "Father's Call" for Glen Brown.

With Munchie and Scorcher Jackson and Lloyd Barnes he then started the Tafari and Earth labels, where his most consistent work appeared. "Tribal War" (1974), a plea for "love and a little harmony," was covered by John Holt, George Nooks, Dillinger, Wayne Wade and Trinity; he finished the lyric, he said, after reading that rival gangs had made peace. "Prophecy," on a riddim adapted from "The Peanut Vendor," took off again in the 1980s when Sly and Robbie and Steely and Clevie rebuilt it, and Freddie McGregor recut the song. The Rough Guide counts him, with Pablo Moses and Fred Locks, among the most distinctive Rasta singers of the period, members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

He lived in Brooklyn for a time in the 1980s and recorded an album, Live On, with Jackie Mittoo and Ernest Ranglin in Florida shortly before Mittoo's sunset. In 2011 he found a new audience with Battle for Seattle, an album of Nirvana songs produced by Prince Fatty. In 2026 he repeated his claim to have put the word "reggae" on record first, with a 1967 song, "Reggae Soul"; the scholar Donna Hope said no one has ever solidly proven ownership of the word.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Jesse Serwer, "LargeUp Interview: Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy," LargeUp, March 14, 2012, https://www.largeup.com/2012/03/14/largeup-interview-chatting-nirvana-with-little-roy/. The Rough Guide gives his birth year as 1950; Discogs gives February 25, 1953, in Whitfield Town, Kingston, which fits his account of recording at twelve in 1965. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 207; "Little Roy," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/artist/78276-Little-Roy.
  2. Serwer, "Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy." The Rough Guide says he "had recorded for Clement Dodd and Prince Buster without any success." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 207.
  3. Serwer, "Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy." The Matador single, credited to the Little Roys, is dated 1969 on Discogs. "The Little Roys / The Creations: Bongo Nyah / Bad Name," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/3078374-The-Little-Roys-The-Creations-Bongo-Nyah-Bad-Name.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 108, 119, 207, 219; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 309.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 207, 208.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 207. The Tafari single is dated 1974 on Discogs. "Little Roy: Tribal War / Peace and Harmony," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/4079024-Little-Roy-Tribal-War-Peace-And-Harmony. On the lyric: "Little Roy," Wikipedia, accessed October 6, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Roy.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 207, 311; Serwer, "Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy."
  8. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 207.
  9. Serwer, "Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy."
  10. Serwer, "Chatting Nirvana with Little Roy."
  11. Nicola Cunningham, "Little Roy Revisits Roots, Revives Claim to Reggae's Name," Jamaica Gleaner, March 18, 2026, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20260318/little-roy-revisits-roots-revives-claim-reggaes-name.

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