Written by Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, the Jamaican drummer who reshaped reggae several times over as half of the duo Sly & Robbie, has died. “About seven o’clock this morning I went to wake him up and he wasn’t responding, I called the doctor and that was the news,” Dunbar’s wife, Thelma, said in a statement to The Jamaica Gleaner today, January 26. She did not disclose a cause of death, but shared that Dunbar had been sick for some time. He was 73.
Dunbar was born in on May 10, 1952 in Kingston, Jamaica. He made his first on-record appearance on the title track from Dave and Ansell Collins’ 1971 album Double Barrel, which reached No. 1 on the UK singles chart. Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare—who died in 2021—first played together in the Revolutionaries, the house band at Kingston’s Channel One Studios. The pair quickly became one of, if not the most, sought-after rhythm sections of their day. They played on classic reggae records including Peter Tosh’s Legalize It, the Mighty Diamonds’ Right Time, and Black Uhuru’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
In 1978, Sly & Robbie toured with the Rolling Stones, and Dunbar put out his debut solo album, Simply Slyman. By the early ’80s, they had started their own label, Taxi Records, and, as members of Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point house band, were backing up the likes of Grace Jones—on her legendary trilogy of Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing, and Living My Life—Serge Gainsbourg, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan.
Sly & Robbie played a formative role in the evolution of dancehall during the 1990s. The duo created the “Bam Bam” riddim that became the foundation for the genre’s early marquee singles, some of which, like Chaka Demus & Pliers’ “Murder She Wrote” and Nardo Ranks’ “Them a Bleach,” they also had a hand in producing. While recording their 2001 album Rock Steady, No Doubt asked Sly & Robbie to get behind the boards for a couple of dancehall-influenced songs, “Hey Baby” and “Underneath It All,” which became some of the band’s biggest hits.
Together, Dunbar and Shakespeare put out a total of 30 Sly & Robbie records, the most recent of which was 2019’s Sly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics: The Final Battle. They won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album (then called Best Reggae Recording) in 1985—the award’s inaugural year—for their work on Black Uhuru’s Anthem, and again in 1999 for their own album Friend. 25 years apart, Dunbar had two songs he worked on—Maxi Priest’s “Close To You,” in 1990, and Omi’s “Cheerleader,” in 2015—go to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
