Bushman

Bushman performs at the TD IRIE Music Festival on Sunday, July 31st at Queen’s Park

Dwight Duncan was born in Prospect Beach, St. Thomas, Jamaica in 1973, and raised as a Rastafarian. He remains a strict adherent to the faith, and chooses to still leave a righteous and humble lifestyle with his wife and children in the St. Thomas parish. As a young student, his musical talents were soon spotted, and he excelled in the school choir at Yallas High School. He also played the drums and bass organ, and was a member of the New Testament Church of God Choir, where he was awarded the name Ark Angel.

As a teenager he worked as a selector under the name Junior Melody (sometimes Junior Buckley), when he was a selector for the Black Star Line sound system. His local fanbase grew when he began to sing dub plates for local sound-systems such as Lee’s Unlimited, Mello Construction, King Majesty and others. The inevitable next stop was the studios of Kingston. A career turning point was a meeting with Steely & Clevie, at a makeshift football game. They invited him to Studio 2000, where he recorded his first tracks, “Grow Your Natty” and then the hit “Call The Hearse”. A name change to Bushman followed, and his 1997 debut album, Nyah Man Chant, proved he was a real contender. The Rough Guide to Reggae called that album “as good an example of modern cultural singing as you could hope to find,” and many observers still term it his best work.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 5:22 am. It is filed under Queen's Park 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.