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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Sly Dunbar

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1969-2026
Sunrise
May 10, 1952, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
January 26, 2026
Also recorded as
Sly & Robbie
Also known as
Drumbar, The Rhythmatist

Lowell Fillmore "Sly" Dunbar was a drummer and producer, and with Robbie Shakespeare half of Sly and Robbie, the most recorded rhythm section in Jamaican music. He took the name from Sly Stone.

He was born in Kingston, grew up on Windward Road and then in Waterhouse, and decided on music at thirteen, after Ken Boothe and the Gaylads played at his school in Trench Town. He took pointers from Carlton Barrett and from Mikey Richards of Now Generation, and began playing at fifteen in a band called the Yardbrooms. He named Lloyd Knibb of the Skatalites as his mentor and Al Jackson Jr. of Booker T. and the MGs as his other model, along with the Jamaican drummers Carlton Barrett, Carlton "Santa" Davis, Winston Bennett, Paul Douglas and Mikey Boo.

His first session, with the keyboard player Ansel Collins, produced the organ instrumental "Night Doctor," which Collins licensed to Lee Perry's Upsetter label in 1969. He played briefly with the Supersonics, on Justin Hinds's "Say Me Say," and drummed on Dave and Ansel Collins's "Double Barrel" for Winston Riley, a British number one in 1971. The guitarist Bertram McLean then brought him into the Volcanos, resident at the Colony Club in Discovery Bay; when the club closed, the band regrouped in Kingston as Skin, Flesh and Bones, played the Red Hills Road club strip, and worked steadily in the studios.

He met Robbie Shakespeare in the early 1970s, when Shakespeare was playing a few doors away at the Evil People club. Shakespeare, who had seen him backing Cynthia Richards, recommended him to Bunny Lee, and his first session with the Aggrovators, at Channel One, produced John Holt's "Too Good to Be Forgotten." They found they shared a taste for Motown, Stax, the Philadelphia sound and country music as well as for Studio One and Treasure Isle, and from the mid-1970s they were a fixed pair in the Revolutionaries at Joseph Hoo Kim's Channel One.

What came out of Channel One was rockers, faster and harder than the one drop, with the bass drum on every beat and rolling tom figures borrowed partly from American funk. The Mighty Diamonds' Right Time (1976) is the record usually named as its arrival; Dunbar said afterward that nobody believed the double tap on the rim was a drummer rather than an effect until the record went to number one and everyone started copying it. Credit for originating the pattern is disputed between Dunbar and Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace.

From 1976 the pair were the core of Peter Tosh's band Word, Sound and Power, playing on the run of albums from Equal Rights (1977) to Mama Africa (1983) and touring behind them, which is what carried their names outside Jamaica. Virgin also issued his two largely instrumental solo albums, Simple Sly Man (1978) and Sly Wicked and Slick (1979).

Taxi Records, founded in the late 1970s, was their own label. Early releases included the Tamlins' "Baltimore" and Black Uhuru's "Observe Life," and Gregory Isaacs's "Soon Forward" gave it a Jamaican number one. The house band was the Taxi Gang. Black Uhuru, Ini Kamoze, Half Pint, Chaka Demus and Pliers, Beenie Man and Red Dragon all recorded for it.

Outside reggae the list runs from Grace Jones's three Island albums, Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Living My Life, to Bob Dylan's Infidels, Empire Burlesque and Down in the Groove, Herbie Hancock's Future Shock, the Rolling Stones' Undercover, Mick Jagger's She's the Boss, Joe Cocker's Sheffield Steel, Ian Dury's Lord Upminster, Joan Armatrading, Serge Gainsbourg, Gwen Guthrie, Yoko Ono, Carly Simon and Sinéad O'Connor. He played on Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" and on Bob Marley's "Punky Reggae Party," the latter a Perry production whose drum track was cut at Joe Gibbs's Duhaney Park studio.

In the digital era the partnership stayed in front of the music rather than behind it. Silent Assassin (1990) put them with KRS-One, Queen Latifah and Young MC; Chaka Demus and Pliers's "Murder She Wrote" and "Bam Bam" paired a rough deejay with a singer in a formula that much of the following decade copied; and they produced No Doubt's "Hey Baby" and "Underneath It All," the latter with Lady Saw. In 2008 he made "Drumquestra" with the percussionist Larry McDonald.

Dunbar was nominated for thirteen Grammys and won two, in 1985 for Black Uhuru's Anthem, which he and Shakespeare produced, and in 1999 for the Sly and Robbie album Friends. He held the Order of Distinction, received the Musgrave Gold Medal from the Institute of Jamaica in 2015, and was given a lifetime achievement award by the University of Minnesota in May 2025. He departed at home after a long illness, aged seventy-three, four years after Shakespeare.

Last updated October 23, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Jon Blistein, "Sly Dunbar, Reggae and Dancehall's Rhythm King, Dead at 73," Rolling Stone, January 26, 2026, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sly-dunbar-reggae-drummer-dead-obituary-1235504654/.
  2. Rolling Stone says the nickname came from his love of Sly and the Family Stone. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar."
  3. Katz says his parents both worked at Kingston's airport, that he had moved from Windward Road in east Kingston to Waterhouse by the age of seven, and that he resolved to play professionally "at 13 after Ken Boothe and the Gaylads performed at the school." David Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary," Guardian, January 27, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jan/27/sly-dunbar-obituary.
  4. Rolling Stone says he was fifteen when he joined his first band and that his "first gig was with a band called the Yardbrooms." Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." Katz names the pointers he got from Carlton Barrett and Mikey Richards of Now Generation before he joined the Yardbrooms. Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary."
  5. Dunbar's remarks, from a Red Bull Music Academy lecture, are quoted in "Sly and Robbie," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_and_Robbie. Rolling Stone says hearing Knibb with the Skatalites made him want to drum. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar."
  6. Katz says his debut session, with Ansel Collins, produced "a sprightly organ instrumental called The Night Doctor," popular with British skinheads after Collins licensed it to Perry's Upsetter label in 1969; that he then "briefly joined the Supersonics, playing on Justin Hinds's Say Me Say"; and that "Double Barrel," cut for Winston Riley with Collins and Dave Barker, "topped the British pop charts in 1971." Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary." Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." Wikipedia makes "Double Barrel" his first appearance on record. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_Dunbar. Rolling Stone dates the "Double Barrel" album to 1969 and says his first session produced "Night Doctor." Blistein, "Sly Dunbar."
  7. Katz says the guitarist Bertram McLean drafted him into the Volcanos at the Colony Club, where he got the nickname, and that the regrouped Skin, Flesh & Bones "by 1974 became the resident act at the Stables nightclub on Red Hills Road, a few doors down from Evil People." Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary." Bradley names Ranchie McLean as "Sly's usual partner-in-riddim" and calls Skin, Flesh and Bone "a fairly upmarket live band" with a residency at the Tit for Tat Club. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 354; see also 384. Wikipedia makes it Ansel Collins's band. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia.
  8. Deadline dates their friendship to 1972. Greg Evans, "Sly Dunbar Dead: Drummer of Celebrated Rhythm Duo Sly & Robbie Was 73," Deadline, January 26, 2026, https://deadline.com/2026/01/sly-dunbar-dead-1236697086/. Rolling Stone gives 1973. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." On the Evil People club, Peter Mason, "Robbie Shakespeare Obituary," Guardian, December 9, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/09/robbie-shakespeare-obituary. Katz, in his Shakespeare appreciation, places Dunbar's band "a few doors down at Tit for Tat." David Katz, "Robbie Shakespeare Married Funk and Reggae to Create a Catalogue of Classics," Guardian, December 9, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/09/robbie-shakespeare-married-funk-and-reggae-to-create-a-catalogue-of-classics.
  9. Shakespeare's account is in Angus Taylor, "Interview: Robbie Shakespeare," United Reggae, June 26, 2012, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n1024/062612/interview-robbie-shakespeare. Katz says Shakespeare "saw Dunbar backing Cynthia Richards" and asked Lee to recruit him for a Channel One session, "where Dunbar drummed on John Holt's adaptation of the Chi-Lites' Too Good to Be Forgotten." Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary."
  10. The books differ on the year. The Rough Guide says the two "began playing together regularly in 1975"; Bradley says the Revolutionaries, formed in 1976, "hooked Sly Dunbar up with Robbie Shakespeare." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 156; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 335, 354. On the shared tastes, "Sly and Robbie," Wikipedia, citing Colin Larkin.
  11. Bradley credits Joe Joe Hookim with encouraging the rim figure. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 479. Dunbar later said the rockers beat drew on the funk and disco they were hearing in the late 1970s. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar."
  12. Dunbar: "nobody believe it was me playing the drums, they thought it was some sort of sound effect we was using. Then when it go to number 1 and stay there, everybody started trying for that style." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 479.
  13. The Rough Guide associates rockers "first, [with] Augustus Pablo and then the drummer Sly Dunbar." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 449. No source was read for Wallace's claim.
  14. The sleeves credit Dunbar on drums on "Peter Tosh - Equal Rights," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1607288 and on three tracks of "Peter Tosh - Mama Africa," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1686388. Rolling Stone mentions the 1978 tour with Tosh opening for the Rolling Stones. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar."
  15. Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary."
  16. The Rough Guide calls "Soon Forward" "the initial hit on Taxi in 1979." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 278. Dunbar told Bradley, "We set up Taxi quite quickly, it just didn't get no kinda high profile until into the eighties." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 356. Mikey Dread recalled "Soon Forward" reaching number one. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 477. Wikipedia dates the label to 1980. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia. No source was read for "Observe Life." Katz dates Taxi's output "from 1977, beginning with Gregory Isaacs' celebratory Oh What a Feeling." Katz, "Robbie Shakespeare Married Funk and Reggae."
  17. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia. See also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 278-79, 326.
  18. On the outside work, "Sly and Robbie," Wikipedia; Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." The Rolling Stones' "Undercover" credits Dunbar on percussion. "Rolling Stones - Undercover," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1595734. Katz adds Herbie Hancock's "Future Shock" (1983) and names Madonna and the Fugees among their collaborators. Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary."
  19. Rolling Stone names "Police and Thieves" and "Punky Reggae Party." Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." On the Duhaney Park drum track, "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia.
  20. The album credits KRS-One as producer, with raps by Queen Latifah and Young MC; Discogs dates it to 1989. "Sly & Robbie - Silent Assassin," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/750975.
  21. Rolling Stone describes the "Bam Bam" rhythm, built from a guitar loop and programmed drums. Blistein, "Sly Dunbar." See also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 326.
  22. "No Doubt - Rock Steady," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/6128092.
  23. Discogs lists "Drumquestra" as McDonald's album, dated 2009, with Dunbar on drums on three tracks. "Larry McDonald - Drumquestra," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/3612803. Wikipedia dates the collaboration to 2008. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia.
  24. Deadline gives thirteen nominations and two wins. Evans, "Sly Dunbar Dead." On "Anthem" and the first reggae Grammy, Simon Coates, "Why 1985 Was a Landmark Year for Reggae," Grammy.com, September 4, 2025, https://www.grammy.com/news/how-1985-changed-reggae-forever-grammy-awards. On "Friends," "Sly & Robbie & The Jam Masters," artist page, Grammy.com, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.grammy.com/artists/sly-robbie-jam-masters/8521/.
  25. On the Musgrave Gold Medal, Jermaine Barnaby, "Gold for Sly and Robbie," Jamaica Gleaner, October 30, 2015, http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20151030/gold-sly-and-robbie. The University of Minnesota names him as "Artist Lifetime Achievement Honoree" of its International Summer Institute for Reggae Studies. "International Summer Institute for Reggae Studies," University of Minnesota, accessed October 5, 2026, https://cla.umn.edu/music/research-creative-work/community-programs/international-summer-institute-reggae-studies. Katz says he was awarded the Order of Distinction in 2015. Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary." No source was read for the date of the Minnesota award.
  26. Katz says he died "after a long illness." Katz, "Sly Dunbar Obituary." His wife told the Gleaner she found him unresponsive that morning. Evans, "Sly Dunbar Dead." Wikipedia gives cancer as the cause. "Sly Dunbar," Wikipedia. His wife told the Gleaner he departed at home. "Iconic Drummer Sly Dunbar Has Died," Jamaica Gleaner, January 26, 2026, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20260126/iconic-drummer-sly-dunbar-has-died.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map