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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Yabby You

Vivian Jackson

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1972-2010
Sunrise
August 14, 1946, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
January 12, 2010, May Pen, Clarendon, Jamaica (aneurysm)
Also known as
Jesus Dread

Vivian Jackson, known as Yabby You, made some of the heaviest and strangest roots records of the 1970s, and did it from outside the belief system almost everyone else in that music shared.

He was born in Waterhouse, one of seven children, his mother a devout Christian and his father a follower of Marcus Garvey, and went to work in a metal foundry at twelve. At seventeen malnutrition put him in hospital and left him with arthritis that partly crippled his legs; he performed and directed sessions on crutches for the rest of his life. He wore locks and lived among Rastafarians but held that divinity belonged to Jesus rather than to Haile Selassie, an argument he had constantly and which earned him the name Jesus Dread.

The music came out of one of those arguments. He formed the vocal trio the Prophets, and "Conquering Lion" was released late in 1972, credited to Vivian Jackson and the Ralph Brothers and mixed by King Tubby; Aston Barrett, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace and Earl "Chinna" Smith played on it for nothing because he had no money. The chant that opens it, "be-you, yabby-yabby-you," gave him his name. The album Conquering Lion followed in 1975, and Deliver Me from My Enemies in 1977.

He produced as well as sang, and his own records are only part of what he left: Wayne Wade's "Black Is Our Colour," and sessions with Michael Prophet, Michael Rose, Tommy McCook, Big Youth, Trinity, Dillinger and Tappa Zukie. Some of it was cut at Lee Perry's Black Ark, and much of it went to King Tubby to be mixed. He thought of his records as "scrolls of wax," biblical teachings etched on vinyl.

He stopped recording in the mid-1980s and re-emerged in the 1990s as the reissues began, most importantly Blood and Fire's Jesus Dread 1972-1977, which is how most listeners outside Jamaica first heard him. He departed in May Pen, Clarendon, at sixty-three; the cause was a ruptured brain aneurysm.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Katz gives August 14, 1946. David Katz, "Yabby You Obituary," Guardian, February 1, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/feb/01/yabby-you-obituary. The Rough Guide gives "c. 1950, Kingston." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 163.
  2. Katz says he was raised with six siblings, that his father was "a staunch follower of Marcus Garvey" and his mother a dressmaker, and that he left home at twelve and worked "at a metal foundry in the Waterhouse district." Katz, "Yabby You Obituary."
  3. Katz says he was taken ill at seventeen with "malnutrition, pneumonia, brain fever and an ulcer" and afterward could not walk without crutches. Katz, "Yabby You Obituary." In his own account the hospital stay came shortly before his first record. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 164-65.
  4. The Rough Guide calls him "the Jesus Dread" and gives his account of the 1969 argument over whether "Rastafari is the Supreme." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 163-64. Katz says he "wore dreadlocks but adhered to the Christian faith." Katz, "Yabby You Obituary."
  5. Katz says he formed the trio "with Alaric Forbes and Bobby Melody." Katz, "Yabby You Obituary." The Rough Guide describes the Prophets as a label launched in 1974 and a group of "fluid membership." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 163.
  6. The Rough Guide dates the single to 1972 and its credit to "Vivian Jackson & the Ralph Brothers." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 132, 163. In his own account Horsemouth brought Chinna and Family Man, who "play for free," and King Tubby voiced the tape. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 164-65. See also Katz, "Yabby You Obituary."
  7. In his account, record buyers asked for the song by its opening chant, and "the name stick on." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 165. The first pressing was one hundred copies. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 163.
  8. Discogs dates the first Conquering Lion LP to 1975, on Micron, and Deliver Me from My Enemies to 1977. "The Prophets - Conquering Lion," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/175752; "Yabby You - Deliver Me From My Enemies," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/2713855.
  9. The Rough Guide names Wayne Wade's "Black Is Our Colour," Michael Prophet and deejay records by Big Youth, Trinity, Dillinger and Tappa Zukie, and Bradley adds Michael Rose. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 164-65; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 366. Katz names the dub albums with Tommy McCook. Katz, "Yabby You Obituary."
  10. Bradley says "Run Come Rally" was cut at the Black Ark in 1974 and mixed by Perry, and names Jackson among the roots producers who took rhythms to Tubby. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 323, 465.
  11. David Katz, "Yabby You: Jesus Dread and His Scrolls of Wax," Caribbean Beat, no. 103, accessed November 5, 2026, https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-103/jesus-dread-and-his-scrolls-wax.
  12. Katz says he slowed down after a period of ill health, returned in the early 1990s, and that Blood and Fire's reissues "brought You's best works to a new audience." Katz, "Yabby You Obituary." Jesus Dread 1972-1977 appeared in 1997. "Yabby You & The Prophets - Jesus Dread 1972-1977," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/969321.
  13. Wikipedia gives a ruptured brain aneurysm; Katz says he "died of a stroke aged 63." "Yabby You," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabby_You; Katz, "Yabby You Obituary." He departed in May Pen, where he had been living, not Kingston. "Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson passes away," Jamaica Gleaner, January 19, 2010, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100119/ent/ent4.html. Basil Walters, "Yesterday's Notes remembers Yabby You and Teddy P," Jamaica Observer, January 17, 2010, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2010/01/16/yesterdays-notes-remembers-yabby-you-and-teddy-p.

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