Sugar Minott / Jah Thomas Beg You Put It Down / Put Down The Dub

The Midnight Rock label was home to some of the greatest productions of the era, and like any smart Jamaican producer, label owner Nkrumah Jah Thomas worked his rhythms hard, using them to create scores of records by dozens of artists.

Thomas came up just at the right time, and his breakthrough recordings were made at the finest studios, using the finest musicians: often they were recorded at Channel One and used the Roots Radics. And sometimes the voicings that he created were released, but still more languished in the vaults. Caught on multi-track tape, but never released.

That was the fate of a session that he recorded with Sugar Minott. The singer – known in the UK for his monster hit ‘Good Thing Going’ – had made his name in the vocal group The African Brothers, before working as a soloist for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One, where he became a pioneer of the dancehall, his voice riding over many of Dodd’s greatest rhythms to create timeless music.

Thomas has worked hard in creating sharp new mixes from his sessions with Minott, and this single – a plea against gun violence as apt today as when it was put down on tape – is the first fruits of that work. A fantastic Radics rhythm with an exceptional vocal and brand new dub by Jah Thomas and Rory on the flip.