Prince Tony Robinson
Producer. Reggae, dub
- Active
- 1960s-1980s
- Also known as
- Tony Robinson, Prince Tony
Prince Tony Robinson was a record seller turned producer who specialized in deejays, and whose mid-1970s albums with Big Youth, U-Roy and the Gladiators took Jamaican roots music to Virgin Records' new international audience.
He sold records from a shop on Slipe Road in Kingston before founding his High School label, and was one of the new producers who forged a distinctive sound of their own in early reggae. Unusually for the time, deejays were his specialty: he had particular success with Dennis Alcapone, the "plummy-voiced" Winston Scotland and Lloyd Young. He was also among the first to update riddims from the recent past, as when he had the Chosen Few cut the Techniques' "You Don't Care," which then carried fresh deejay versions. King Tubby mixed early dubs for the High School label.
Virgin licensed his productions when it entered reggae in the mid-1970s. Big Youth's Dreadlocks Dread was sold to rock listeners in a striking sleeve, and U-Roy, whom Robinson revived, toasted commercial dread lyrics over recut Treasure Isle and Studio One riddims on Dread in a Babylon (1975) and the albums that followed; U-Roy credited Robinson and Branson with making him known worldwide. Robinson also produced the Gladiators' Trenchtown Mix Up, updating their country style with Sly Dunbar and Lloyd Parks, and later records by Ranking Joe and Barry Brown.
Last updated October 14, 2026
Connections
- Soul Syndicate (backing group)
- King Tubby (engineer)
- U-Roy (artist)
- Big Youth (artist)
- Errol Thompson (engineer)
- Dennis Alcapone (artist)
- Barry Brown (artist)
- The Gladiators (artist)
- Ranking Joe (artist)
- Sly Dunbar (session work)
- The Techniques (collaborator)
- Lloyd Parks (session work)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 116, 145.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113, 116.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 116, 124, 126.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 219.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 145.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 123 ("a revival courtesy of producer Prince Tony Robinson in the mid-1970s"), 189, 190. U-Roy: "When Virgin Records start, Richard Branson came to Jamaica to check me with Prince Tony." David Katz, "The Originator," Wax Poetics, July 27, 2021, https://magazine.waxpoetics.com/article/u-roy-transformed-the-deejay-from-a-toaster-to-a-star/.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 151, 190, 211, 267.
