Rockers, and how Channel One changed the drum
A studio on Maxfield Avenue, a house band with something to prove, and a drummer who put the kick on every beat. Reggae's centre of gravity moved and never quite moved back.
Sly Dunbar
Drummer
- Kingston, Jamaica
- 1970s onwards
Lowell Dunbar is the drummer on an implausible number of the records that define Jamaican music from the mid 1970s on. With the Revolutionaries at Channel One he helped push reggae from the one drop into rockers: a harder, four to the floor kick that gave the music forward drive without losing the weight underneath.
Paired with bassist Robbie Shakespeare, he became half of the most in demand rhythm section in the world, working far beyond reggae while never really leaving it.