Yami Bolo
Artist. Dancehall, roots
- Active
- 1983-present
- Sunrise
- 1970, Kingston, Jamaica
- Also known as
- Rolando Ephraim McClean
Yami Bolo is a singer in the wailing "Waterhouse" style he shares with Junior Reid and Michael Rose, who in the late 1980s seemed, in the Rough Guide's account, the only fresh "conscious" vocalist being recorded regularly.
Born Rolando McClean in Kingston, he grew up in Greenwich Farm and was singing on local sounds in the early 1980s; by 1983 he was established on Sugar Minott's Youth Promotion sound, whose roll call he later sang on record, naming its founder and the selector Jah Stitch. Minott produced his first songs but was slow to release them, and his break came in 1986 with Winston Riley's Techniques label, when he was about fifteen.
After he embraced Rastafari in the late 1980s he recorded and toured with Augustus Pablo, who issued his records on Rockers, and with Junior Delgado and Earl "Chinna" Smith. In the 1990s he worked with Island Jamaica and with Sly and Robbie, with hits including "Love My Woman," "La Isla Bonita," "Love Is Dangerous," a big seller in Japan, and "Put Down Your Weapon" with Capleton. He also sang for Bobby Digital and Linval Thompson, on the combination "Do Good" with the deejays Josey Wales and Charlie Chaplin, and with Jack Radics, and later settled in New York.
Last updated October 21, 2026
Connections
- Sly Dunbar (producer)
- Robbie Shakespeare (producer)
- Bobby Digital (producer)
- Sugar Minott (producer)
- Linval Thompson (producer)
- Winston Riley (producer)
- Augustus Pablo (producer)
- Earl "Chinna" Smith (collaborator)
- Junior Delgado (toured with)
- Capleton (collaborator)
- Josey Wales (collaborator)
- Jah Stitch (same sound system)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 355, 357.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 357, 278. "Yami Bolo: Teenaged Sound System General," Jamaica Observer, May 5, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/05/05/yami-bolo-teenaged-sound-system-general/.
- "Yami Bolo: Teenaged Sound System General."
- "Yami Bolo: Teenaged Sound System General." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 169.
- "Yami Bolo: Teenaged Sound System General." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 356, which lists him among the singers who came to Sly and Robbie.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 258, 286, 323, 356. "Yami Bolo: Teenaged Sound System General," on New York.
