Prince Buster @ Concorde 2 On Wed 19th Feb
Published 8th Feb 2003 by Alison@c2

Wednesday 19th Feb? Prince Buster True ska music: inspired, authentic and soulful.? His greatest hits album was recently voted by?Mojo magazine as one of the best albums of all time.? As a producer, composer and singer - and also as a political spokesman and visionary - Buster is definitely one of the most committed personalities in the history of Jamaican music + Goldmaster Allstars.? 8pm.? ?15.

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Prince Buster Biog

"True ska is music with a soul" This was how Prince Buster, born Cecil Campbell in 1938 in Kingston, Jamaica, proudly defined his music.

A one-time boxer, Prince Buster first began working in music as a combination sound engineer and bouncer for Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd. Buster established his own sound system, label and record store. His first recording session produced "Oh Carolina" by the Folkes Brothers. Buster soon had multiple labels operating: Wild Bells, Voice of the People and Buster's Record Shack. His singles were distributed on the Blue Beat label in England, and Buster's fame rose while such hits as "Al Capone" and "Madness" exploded.

Some of Prince Buster?s thoughts about Jamaican music in the early ?60s: "Too many imitators were following up with a phony ska style which sounded more like the old-time twist than the real thing." Bearing in mind the man's arrogant and aggressive personality, it is easy to understand why he called so many people "pseudo-artists". In fact, this new musical form inherited from American R&B took on a different colour according to the producer. It was easy to pick out the different sounds of Coxsone, Duke Reid, King Edwards, Leslie Kong and Byron Lee - legends in the fierce competition of the ska era. All the same, Prince Buster's music is so inspired, authentic and soulful, more than any other, that it's hard to deny his definition. As a producer, composer and singer - and also as a polemicist, spokesman and visionary - Buster is definitely one of the most committed personalities in the history of Jamaican music.

Just mentioning the labels he began creating in 1962 after working for the Coxsone Sound System ("Wildbells", "Islam", "Soulville Center", "Voice of the People") is enough to give us an idea of the man's preoccupations and the form which they took: Christian fervour impregnated with Baptism, Afro-Centrism influenced by the Black Muslim Movement, a devotion and reference to all Afro-American music and a moral commitment to the Jamaican people. He proclaiming himself as their representative, defender and charismatic guide. So are the many faces of the prophet.

Jamaican music did not have to wait for the arrival of reggae and the expression of Rastafarianism to deserve adjectives like mystic, honest, moral, proud of one's roots and anti-disestablishment. His talking/toasting records, filled with lewd imagery and vivid language, proved enormously popular. Buster doubled as a prolific performer and busy recording executive in the '70s, cutting sessions with Dennis Brown, Big Youth, John Holt and Alton Ellis among others.

Buster's early recordings are, both musically and psychologically, underpinned by a rebel attitude tinged with religious feeling, an inextricable mixture of pagan cultures inherited from the African slaves and Bible fundamentalism. This is most evident on "The Prophet."

Some of Prince Buster?s later recordings broke away from the quasi-religious stance and took on outrageous tones connoting his sexuality, voracious appetite for women and general bad-assness. Songs like ?Big Five,? ?Wreck a Pum Pum,? and ?Rough Rider? serve as excellent examples. But he also had a social conscious . Many of his songs dealt with social issues in Jamaica and the Civil Rights movement in the U.S.

Fascinated by the stands taken by his Afro-American brothers, Buster increasingly referred to Islam as well as Christianity. In 1964, Buster changed his name to Muhammed Yusef Ali after meeting boxing great Muhammed Ali while on tour in England.

>From what I?ve been able to learn, Cecil Bustamente Campbell, aka
>Prince Buster, aka Muhammed Yusuf Ali, now owns a gym in the Miami area
>and spends his time scouring the area for the next boxing great. He
>still performs, at least occasionally, and took part in a music
>festival in Colorado in 2000.

I hope to contact him soon, get his input and blessing for this site, and update throughout with what the man himself can tell me.

"You sing what you feel. Slick it up and you take that soul away..."

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