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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Prince Far I

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1975-1983
Sunrise
1944, Spanish Town, Jamaica
Sunset
September 15, 1983, Jamaica (life taken)
Also recorded as
King Cry Cry
Also known as
The Voice of Thunder

Michael James Williams, who recorded as Prince Far I, was a deejay and producer whose slow, graveled chanting is the least imitable voice in roots reggae. Enos McLeod gave him the name and the epithet that went with it, the Voice of Thunder.

He was born in Spanish Town and worked first as a deejay on the Sir Mike the Musical Dragon sound system, then as a security guard at Joe Gibbs's studio and a bouncer at Studio One. He recorded for Bunny Lee in 1969 as King Cry Cry, a name that came not from his delivery but from a habit of bursting into tears when angry; the record was "The Great Wooga Booga," cut over Lester Sterling's "Spring Fever." A Studio One session came his way in 1970 when King Stitt failed to turn up, and he made "Natty Farmyard" over Larry Marshall's "Mean Girl," a version of Cornell Campbell's "Queen of the Minstrel," "I Had a Talk," and "Cain and Abel" for Coxsone Dodd.

In 1974 he voiced "Let Jah Arise" for Enos McLeod at King Tubby's. It was McLeod who gave him the name Prince Far I, which he was already using when "Natty Farmyard" was made. Self-productions followed on Pete Weston's Micron. Psalms for I (1975), produced by Ivanhoe "Lloydie Slim" Smith for Carib Gems, is what it sounds like: psalms chanted over heavy riddims, and nothing else on the island sounded like it. Under Heavy Manners (1976) was made for Joe Gibbs and takes its title from the emergency measures of that year; "Message from the King" and "Long Life" followed in 1978. He also recorded with the Maytones on "Creation Time" for Alvin Ranglin.

From 1978 he ran his own Cry Tuff label, with the Roots Radics, billed as the Arabs, playing the sessions. In Britain Adrian Sherwood set up Hit Run to release the singles and mixed the Cry Tuff Dub Encounter volumes; the same musicians became Dub Syndicate on Sherwood's On-U Sound, and Far I sang with Singers and Players and Creation Rebel, which is how a Jamaican deejay of his generation came to be a fixture of the British post-punk scene. Virgin signed him to Front Line, but the tapes of Health and Strength disappeared from the label's London office and the record, which includes "Uncle Joe" with Gregory Isaacs, was not heard until a former employee turned up a cassette copy in 1998.

His life was taken at his home during a robbery.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide gives "b. Michael James Williams, 1944, Spanish Town." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 162.
  2. The Rough Guide says he took the name "at the instigation of singer Enos McLeod." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 191. Wikipedia says he styled himself "The Voice of Thunder." "Prince Far I," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Far_I.
  3. On Sir Mike the Musical Dragon, Steve Barker, "Biography," Tribute to Prince Far I, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.princefari.com/biography.htm; on the jobs at Gibbs's and at Studio One, "Prince Far I," Wikipedia.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 191, which dates the Bunny Lee record to 1969. Barker spells the title "The Great Booga Wooga," dates it to the early 1970s, and explains the name King Cry Cry by "a strange habit of breaking out in uncontrollable sobbing on becoming angry." Barker, "Biography."
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 191; see also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 127. The Coxsone single credits "Prince For I" and is dated 1975. "Prince For I - Natty Farmyard (For I And I)," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/653495. King Stitt's absence is reported in "Prince Far I," Wikipedia. No source was read for "I Had a Talk" or "Cain and Abel."
  6. The Rough Guide: "by the time he made the version of Larry Marshall's 'Mean Girl' titled 'Natty Farmyard' for Coxsone Dodd, he had begun calling himself Prince Far I, at the instigation of singer Enos McLeod." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 191. Barker places the renaming at the 1974 "Let Jah Arise" session. Barker, "Biography." The Micron single is dated 1975. "Little Joe / Prince Far I - Bag-O-Wire / Let Jah Arise," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/6058824.
  7. Barker, "Biography."
  8. The Rough Guide calls it "the Lloydie Slim-produced set Psalms." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 193. Discogs dates the Carib Gems LP to 1976. "Prince Fari - Psalms For I," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/175712. See also Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 304.
  9. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 162, 193; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 353, 464. Discogs dates the Joe Gibbs LP to 1977 and both Front Line albums to 1978. "Prince Far I - Under Heavy Manners," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/175714; "Prince Far I And The Arabs - Message From The King," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/86857; "Prince Far I - Long Life," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/175711.
  10. "Mighty Maytones / Mighty Maytones & Prince Far I - Creation Time / Rain From The Sky," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/923872 (GG's, 1977).
  11. The Rough Guide says his Gibbs hits "financed the setting-up of his own label, Cry Tuff," with "tough rhythms from an early incarnation of the Roots Radics." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 191. Barker dates the label to 1976. Barker, "Biography." A Cry Tuff single with Culture is dated 1977. "Prince Far I & Culture - Message From The King / Black Reggae Music," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/559216.
  12. Sherwood "by 1978 was running the Hitrun label and releasing Jamaican-recorded music by... Prince Far-I"; Creation Rebel backed Far I on his 1979 British tour, and On-U Sound followed in 1980. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 410; on the dub albums, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 243; on the alliance, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 192. Barker says "the Arabs/Roots Radics became Dub Syndicate." Barker, "Biography." On Singers and Players, "Prince Far I," Wikipedia. Katz says Style Scott joined the Arabs "just in time for Far I's 1978 tour of Britain," and that Creation Rebel "soon became the backing band for Prince Far I." David Katz, "Style Scott Obituary," Guardian, October 30, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/30/style-scott; David Katz, "'More Delay! More Reverb!' UK Dub Legends Creation Rebel Return after 40 Years," Guardian, October 3, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/03/uk-dub-legends-creation-rebel-return-after-40-years-hostile-environment.
  13. Virgin's roster included him. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 455. The 1998 Pressure Sounds release includes "Brother Joe." "Prince Far I - Health And Strength," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/450643. Wikipedia says the master tapes were lost on the way to Virgin and that a former Hit Run staff member found a cassette copy in 1997. "Health and Strength," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_Strength.
  14. The Rough Guide notes his "brutal murder in 1983." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 192. On the date, Barker, "Biography." Wikipedia says he died later in hospital. "Prince Far I," Wikipedia. Barrow and Dalton say he was shot dead in his own home on September 15 (Rough Guide to Reggae, 454) and give his birth as 1944 (p. 162); Kingston and the age of thirty-eight come from Wikipedia, which gives a birth date of March 23, 1945.

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