BIG YOUTH – SCREAMING TARGET

Achieving his first success on wax with “S 90 Skank” for producer Keith Hudson in 1972, Big Youth recorded Screaming Target, his debut full-length, one year later for Gussie Clarke. That album, along with a handful of 45s from the period, was largely responsible for bringing the DJ art form forward after U-Roy’s innovations. Here, in place of hip, jive-derived phrases, listeners find Big Youth ruminating on themes that exemplified the new consciousness of the 1970s. The music on this release is simultaneously a benchmark for reggae in general and the DJ form in particular – and a classic of recorded music, regardless of the genre.