Spanning over three decades, the partnership of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare has been the ultimate musical marriage, birthing an estimated 200,000 tracks. Some of their most revered musical and production work has been on Culture-s seminal 1977 album Two Sevens Clash, dubbed one of the greatest albums of the roots age. They have done musical and production work for just about every Jamaican artist imaginable including legends Peter Tosh, Toots & the Maytals, Black Uhuru, Gregory Issacs, Dennis Brown, Maxi Priest, Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, Beenie Man and Sean Paul, in addition to working with pop music icons Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones, Grace Jones, Joe Cocker, Sting, Carlos Santana, Sinead O’Connor, Herbie Hancock, Robert Palmer, and many more.

Peppa Pot catches up with one half of the "Riddim Twins", Sly Dunbar

Peppa Pot: How do you keep up with the workload of being a world re-known drummer and producer?

Sly Dunbar: Well, first and foremost I am a musician but producing, I am just trying to make my own music, trying to keep the fans happy. Sometimes it is hard but both of them converge at times like twins so we just basically do them.

Peppa Pot: Sly, they say that you are the master of drumming.

Sly Dunbar: Well not really, I am just trying a little thing you know. Lloyd Knibbs is the Godfather!

Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare

Peppa Pot: I was told that Ansel Collins had something to do with your career.

Sly Dunbar: Yeah man, Ansel was the one who took me to the studio when I was about 15 years old. I played on "Night Doctor" and the second tune I played on for him was "Double Barrell" which sold a million records. So Ansel Collins is my Godfather you know, because he was the one who took me to the studio.

Peppa Pot: Do you like what is happening with the music today, in terms of a resurgence of reggae tracks?

Sly Dunbar: It [Reggae] has always been popular [you know]. It is just that now we have greater media coverage, more radio stations and the younger youths have seemed to involve themselves more with the music. But, we still have a lot more work to do in order to keep the standards high in order to break into the international market and stay there. We don-t just only want to go in with one tune [song] but we should have at least six tunes there at all times. Sean Paul, Junior Gong doing very well right now and there are other young artist who will come [succeed] once they get the development and exposure. I mean, Jamaica has a lot of talent, looking at UWI and Cast [currently UTECH], there are a lot of good song writers so we have to just go for them and offer them the chance.

Peppa Pot: Is reggae doing a good job of breaking the mainstream?

Sly Dunbar: It has always been. It has been doing that since, as far as I can remember, let-s see; when Harry Belafonte was the first major star and after that Ansel Collins made "Double Barrell", that is about 1969, so reggae has been a hit since then. So what I-m saying is that we should just keep up the work and the standard so we position the genre in the right place.

Peppa Pot: Sly, a lot of people both locally and internationally look at reggae and say that it needs a superstar, what do you think.

Sly Dunbar: Well, personally I think we do need a figure head. Someone with the charisma that can go out there and have the world embrace them. I can see it coming but I am not sure who it may be. Everybody is doing very well so I don-t know. You see like how Bob was a major force and then in America you had let-s say a Michael Jackson; I see it coming but I do not know who it is so you have to just work with everybody but we don’t even think about that. We just do the work and if it manifest, so be it.

Peppa Pot: Tell me about the famous group that you were a part of, the Revolutionaries.

Sly Dunbar: The Revolutionary was like a studio group with me Ansel Collins, Bertram "Rancho" Mclean, Robbie Shakespeare, Radcliffe "Duggie" Bryan, Uzziah "Sticky" Thompson, Noel "Scully""Zoot" Simms and Dean Frazer sometime sit in and you had Tommy McCook, Herman Marquis, Bobby Ellis and many more. We were a recording group and we used to record mainly for Channel One and Treasure Island. We played a lot of instrumentals.

Peppa Pot: Is there still a market for instrumentals?

Sly Dunbar: Yeah man. There is a market! Remember instrumentals were always like the dance music so there will always be a market. A lot of people disagree but I think that if they [instrumentals] are done on modern riddims, people will buy them. It is just about finding the right grove. I would encourage any upcoming musician to get an instrumental album on the streets.

Peppa Pot: Do you consider yourselves as one of the best bands out of Jamaica?

Sly Dunbar: Well [Laughs], I don-t know, it is very hard to top the Skatalites. When other bands came through, they were recording bands and I think at this point in time, Skatalites and maybe Taxi Gang are the only groups that to this day still frequently focus on instrumentals.

Rhythm Doubles

Peppa Pot: You recently did and album with Shanade Oconnor where she re-did a lot of reggae songs. Are there any other projects that you are undertaking?

Sly Dunbar: Yes. We just did two tours. We did a European tour and a U.S Tour. Burning Spear came with us to the Ritz and we played "Congo Man"; that was wicked [very good]. No singing, just him playing percussion through the whole hour and a half. It was something to behold.

Peppa Pot: Reggae at the Annual Grammy Awards Show, What do you make of it?

Sly Dunbar: Reggae at the Grammys is a good thing for the industry because I always dreamt of owning one of those things [laughs] and now when you have one you look at it and say "Bwoy I neva dream that this dream would come through". [Laughs]

Peppa Pot: How many times have you looked at yours?

Sly Dunbar: Well everyday I have to glance at it [laughs] because I have two of them you know. It is really a good feeling for an Artiste when you are nominated for a Grammy and you win. It is like a culmination of all the hard work that you have done, so it is a joy.

Peppa Pot: Which two albums did you receive a Grammy for?

Sly Dunbar: We got a Grammy for "Black Uhuru", the first one. That was the first Grammy for a reggae album! We later received another for "Sly, Robbie and Friends". We were also nominated for a dub album. But we have to big up this thing that they call Tempo and Caribbean TV, I think that they are going to serve the Caribbean well.

Anthem

Peppa Pot: The group Black Uhuru were at the highest heights of their career when they broke up, what happened?

Sly Dunbar: Definitely they were the next big thing out of Jamaica but they just broke up. So I don-t know what really caused that, I guess it was misunderstandings between the two singers.

Peppa Pot: Was Sly and Robbie also a part of Black Uhuru?

Sly Dunbar: Yeah man, If you look at the album cover for Black Uhuru you can see myself and Robbie in the back of the picture. Then there was "Anthonlogy" and "Tear It Up". We produced the entire "Black Uhuru" album.

Interview conducted by: Ra-Umi Alkebu Lan