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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Michigan & Smiley

Papa Michigan (Anthony Fairclough)
Sunrise Central Kingston, Jamaica
General Smiley (Erroll Bennett)
Sunrise 1955 or 1956, Kingston, Jamaica

Band. Dancehall

Active
1978-1995

Papa Michigan (Anthony Fairclough) and General Smiley (Erroll Bennett) were the first deejay duo in Jamaican music, and their call-and-response method, two voices trading and completing each other's lines, became standard equipment in the dancehall era.

"We changed the toasting thing to composition," Smiley said: they wrote songs for the riddim rather than simply deejaying over it. They were still at school in Kingston when they worked the style out on sound systems, and they took it to Coxsone Dodd. "Rub a Dub Style" (1979), their first record, was voiced over the Studio One riddim known as "Vanity," the instrumental of Alton Ellis's "I'm Just a Guy," and went to number one. "Nice Up the Dance," cut over "Real Rock," was bigger still. Both titles entered the language of the dancehall. Six tracks, all of them versions of Studio One riddims, made up their first album, Rub a Dub Style.

One Love Jamdown followed in 1980. In 1981 they recorded "Diseases" for Henry "Junjo" Lawes, with the Roots Radics at Channel One, a dub by Scientist on the flip and the "Mad Mad" riddim underneath. It was their biggest record and the one that made the riddim, afterward known as "Diseases," one of the most versioned in Jamaican music. The lyric warns against vanity and lists the afflictions Jah will visit in return, polio among them, and the record was widely read afterward as a prophecy. The album Downpression followed, and Step by Step after it.

Bennett moved to California in the early 1980s. The two continued to record into the middle of the decade, then worked separately and reunited only occasionally. Their standing rests on the two Studio One singles and on "Diseases," and on the fact that nearly every deejay pair that followed worked from their template.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls them "the two deejays who popularized the 'combination' style at the close of the 1970s." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 264. A 2025 retrospective calls them "the first Dee-Jay duo." "Revisiting the Contributions of Michigan & Smiley on Jamaica's Dancehall Music," Yaawd Media, March 18, 2025, https://www.yaawdmedia.com/post/revisiting-the-contributions-of-michigan-smiley-on-jamaica-s-dancehall-music.
  2. Thomas Fawcett, "Jamaica Dancehall Legend General Smiley on Pioneering the Art Form and Settling in Central Texas," Austin Chronicle, April 18, 2019, https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/jamaica-dancehall-legend-general-smiley-on-pioneering-the-art-form-and-settling-in-central-texas-11675227.
  3. The same retrospective places them in Union Gardens, Kingston 13, as regulars on the Third World and then Black Harmony sound systems, and says Black Harmony's owner introduced them to Dodd. "Revisiting the Contributions of Michigan & Smiley."
  4. The Rough Guide calls it "a massive local hit" and "a version of Alton Ellis's 'I'm Just A Guy.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 261, 73. Wikipedia, citing Colin Larkin, gives the "Vanity" name and the number-one position. "Michigan & Smiley," Wikipedia, accessed October 4, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_%26_Smiley. "Ranking Michigan & General Smile / Sound Dimension: Rub A Dub Style," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/247551.
  5. "Nice Up The Dance" used "a sprightly remix of the Soul Dimension's 1967 rocksteady instrumental, 'Real Rock.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 261.
  6. The Rough Guide reviews the Studio One album as Rub A Dub Style: the two hits plus versions of "Full Up," "Pretty Looks Isn't All," "Heptones Gonna Fight" and "Danger In Your Eyes," with their dubs. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 264. "General Smilie & Papa Michigan: Rub-A-Dub Style," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/162372. Wikipedia, citing Larkin, gives the title as Nice Up the Dance. "Michigan & Smiley."
  7. The retrospective says "One Love Jamdung" was recorded at Tuff Gong and spent three months at number one. "Revisiting the Contributions of Michigan & Smiley."
  8. "Michegan & Smiley: Diseases," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/162375. The Rough Guide says it used "a stinging Roots Radics updating of Alton Ellis's rocksteady hit, 'Mad Mad,'" and calls it "one of Lawes's biggest hits, and probably Michigan & Smiley's greatest record." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 267-68.
  9. The retrospective links its success to the polio outbreak of 1982. "Revisiting the Contributions of Michigan & Smiley."
  10. Bradley dates Downpression to 1982. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 494. "Michigan And Smiley: Step By Step," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/842050.
  11. The retrospective ties the move to the violence before the 1980 election and lists later albums: Sugar Daddy (1983), Back in the Place (1990), Reality Must Rule Again (1992) and Uptown Downtown (1995). "Revisiting the Contributions of Michigan & Smiley."
  12. Bradley lists them among the deejays of Studio One's "last, early-1980s hurrah." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 224. The Rough Guide notes how closely later cuts of "Real Rock," such as Nigger Kojak's "Nice Up Jamaica" and Jah Thomas's "Dance Pon Me Corner," "stuck pretty close to the duo's original theme." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 262.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map