"That's my idea. My idea is to criticize all tax collectors and my idea is to execute all thief, all liars and vampires, mentally, not in a physical form, I can do it physically by my exercise, cramp and paralyze, coz I know it is the Master Dance, I art a ballet sounds."

Lee Perry,

 AKA, Lee Little, King, Scratch, Pipecock Jackxon, Super Ape, Ringo, Emmanuel, The Rockstone, Small Axe . . . . . .and many more

 This Black Art reissue is from the mid 1990s, Lee Perry (Rainford Hugh Perry) opened The Black Ark in 1974 and after some resurrections it finally closed in 1980. The Black Ark came into being some time in 1973 after Lee Perry had experienced what he understood to be a visionary dream in the garden of his new, 'up-market', house in the Kingston suburbs. In the dream Perry heard music, and, believing this to be a omen he built a recording studio on the exact spot where he had slept. It was completed the following year and Perry Christened it by painting the legend The Black Ark over its doorway. The equipment in the studio was less than state of the art, in fact it could only boast a four track recorder, on which some of the most incredible and complex music was created, music who's construction still baffles other producers today. Scratch offers this by way of explanation, "It was only four tracks on the machine, but I was picking up twenty from the extra terrestrial squad."

BACK TO ROOTS PAGE