1969
IT IS I * COUNT MACHUKI * AMALGAMATED 845 * UK
It Is I, or Machuki's Cooking, is a rare example on wax of one of the pioneers of the genre known as Dee Jay, Jamaican style. Winston Cooper a. k. a. Count Machuki is held to be the first Dee Jay who, during the 1950s, while a record was playing at sound system dances would interject his own lyrics, usually rhyming couplets or popular phrases. Machuki worked as a Deejay (in the conventional sense) for Coxsone Dodd and it is said that it was Dodd who on his frequent trips to the States to buy new tunes for his Down Beat Sound System, having heard American radio Dee Jays talking - generally talking trash and slanging - over the intro's of records, urged his Dee Jays to do the same. This of course developed into something different and quite unique, just as it could be said that Rap developed from this art form into another, different and unique in its own way.