Natty Going On A Holiday... Interview with Tapper Zukie.

Q: It came to a halt there. What happened after the album, you got homesick and decided to leave the UK for Jamaica again, or to just simply try a thing at home?

A: No, after the 'Man A Warrior', man, I went back to Jamaica and then come back over after doing the 'MPLA' album.

Q: That was on the Klik label in 1976.

A: Klik, yes. Then I signed with Virgin Records.

Q: Not a bad move.

A: After I sign with Virgin Record then I leave home and go an' build my own recording company, Tappa Record, and started production. Produced a lotta artists.

Q: How did the signing to Virgin come about, a link through Patti Smith?

A: Well, actually that time with Virgin I wasn't doing much good. I licensed like three albums, but I haven't seen much reward from them. I don't think they did a lot to my career.

Q: No?

A: I don't think they did a lot to any reggae artist. They don't really promote reggae.

Q: They took it when it was happening, then it's on to something else.

A: It was just for a while. 'Cause right now I don't know 'bout no deal, I don't see no company doing good for reggae. Everybody come and take what they can take from reggae. Nobody is really pushing it. More people are trying to take reggae away from the land of its birth.

Q: In what way?

A: Put it this way: with reggae, the people who's doing the original, real reggae players now, these people are underpaid and they can't even get themselves together fe really presenting the right way to the people.

Q: What is happening now to your productions, you had quite a few releases in the early nineties, the Heptones, Big Youth, U Roy, Beres Hammond. Then it slowed down.

A: Well, it's the way the system set itself now, certain type of music they're supporting and as I said earlier on, the support for the real music is not there. They're more out for the degrading style of music, like the rappin' and the young dancehall, just everyday t'ing. So it have to make nuff because every six weeks seven days, so you have to keep on doing a lotta dem.

Q: It's more of a hands on production, the stuff you put out at that time compared to what we get nowadays.

A: Then?

Q: Compared to now, what they have these days, yes.

A: Because really, the older production was acoustic, it was real music. You're going in the studio with a band and you're creating music. Now it's just the drum and a one man need to play a whole riddim, so it's like it's watered down. You don't have any money to pay nine musicians to going in the studio, you may can afford one musician to go in the studio with a drum machine and a keyboard and make ten riddim for one day.

Q: Limited...

A: It's limited.

Q: But you succeeded when starting out using new technology to maintain some of the old production values, it was still that hard rock-bottom sound.

A: Yeah. Because we used to add the natural music with it also. But we find out that it's not working, so we kinda 'ave to jus' trying... it jus' can't keep it up because it's not givin' us the vibes.

Q: But still, you got some hits with Beres, 'Putting Up Resistance', good tracks with U Roy, and so on.

A: Yeah. But if you check the programme with what's going on now, the real reality is not there, it's just like a everyday t'ing. People talk on record now what's going on, y'know, it no really... You know what I would say? I would say it's a yout' t'ing going on now. Yeah. And I'm a veteran and an older producer, so I have to allow the yout' dem now fe really do their t'ing.

Q: Sure, but you still have something to offer, too.

A: Yes, I still have something to offer. But at the moment I've been away from the stage business fe the fans for so long, so I'm thinkin' about doing that now. I don't think you're gonna get the production t'ing from me now for a good while. You may get more from me now as an artist, because if you notice I'm not producing myself for a long time. I've been producing a lotta artists. Now, what I'm gonna do now is to pay more attention to me.

Q: I was gonna ask you about that, because you have quite a reputation for putting on a solid performance. So the obvious question would be why you haven't done more stage work in the past few years?

A: That's what I'm saying, I'm only one person.

Q: Yeah.

A: I cyaan be in the studio producing other artists and on the stage. I think the production t'ing drew me away from me as an artis', my career.

Q: You simply took on too many artists to shape and work with.

A: Too many artists...

Tapper Zukie @ Reggae Geel
(Photo: Teacher)

Q: Sounds good in a way. You did appear in Belgium at a festival not so long ago ('Reggae Geel, 2006'), and something at the Jazz Cafe in London. But you would like to reach out further in Europe at the moment?

A: Right, that's what I'm thinkin' of doing now, going back on the road. Ca' I think I have more to offer on stage now. Me to offer more as an artist more than a producer. I think my career as a producer is on hold right now.

Q: That's a loss for the music. I mean you have quite a reputation as a producer as well, as obviously a very innovative type of producer, so I hope it's not on its way down for good.

A: Well, music is like that, it's from one extreme to another, my career in music. Beca' I started out playing sound system going out as an artis', went in to play a part in the industry, and now my career is where it started. A lot of people have been keeping on with their act, but what I'm doing with my career is I've been holding it down for so long. This is the time where I have to pick it up back and I think I'm doing the right thing in putting it back together.

Q: What started your journey into the producing arena? You got some rhythms from...

A: Bunny Lee.

Q: From Bunny to begin with.

A: Yeah. And I started producing myself. So it went from coming in as an artist... Actually, that album with Clement Bushay, 'Man A Warrior', it wasn't produced by Clem Bushay alone, it's about five tracks on it is by Clement Bushay. The other tracks, the other five tracks was my production.

Tapper Zukie
(Photo: David Corio | www.davidcorio.com)

Q: Boy, you started early, you've must've been like...

A: I was the producer. Because, like, I tell you - people used to say I follow bad company. You coulda call it... you can call it I was a rudie, a lickle rude bwoy, but much producer dem no had the talent, y'know (chuckles). So I had to... just had to do something for myself.

Q: What did you appreciate the most with being in the producer's seat? You 'heard' a lot which wasn't put into practice and wanted to accomplish...

A: Well, you know, you play the sound and you're a part of... you're listening and you like the beat and you know what to make the people happy. As a sound person, you have to know what to put... which tune to play in the dance to keep it going, so you have an idea of what people want. You know? So thinkin' that you can build somet'ing to make the people dance.

Q: You have to be in touch all the time with the dancehall.

A: You have to be, yeah, you have to be in touch all the time in the dancehall.

Q: How did you find some of these people, like Prince Alla for example? You have been responsible for some of the finest roots productions ever recorded in albums like his 'Heaven Is My Roof' for example.

A: 'Heaven Is My Roof'. Yeah, well, when I was a lickle boy... Prince Alla is a bigger man for me, yunno, is an elder person. And when I was a lickle bwoy I used to go and siddung and listen dem when dem play them guitar an' t'ing. So when I start produce now that's the first person a come to me an' come to my camp. So I went to the studio (to produce him). But through they was proud to see me moving away from the rude bwoy business an' t'ing, so they jus' work along with me. And it happened. And me and Junior Ross grew up together from lickle bwoy days. Is my lickle spar, we grow up together. And me and him used to walk up and down when me used to play sound system. And me an' him used to run up an' down the place an' do our t'ing, yunno.

Q: What became of Junior Ross & The Spears again? It took a long time before you finally released that album, 'Babylon Fall'.

A: Well, he's still down there now and I'm completing another one with him now. So sooner or later you will soon hear another Junior Ross.

Q: Great.

A: It's actually, you know... Well, me and Junior Ross come in like brothers. If you notice nobody else produce him.

Q: True.

A: So it's half-time now fe really deal with me and my friend, which is Junior Ross (chuckles). Soon you will hear a new music from Junior Ross.

Q: And he had a brother too in the business, perhaps the more established of the two, or three (the third being the late Roy 'Soft' Palmer of the Nazarenes, aka Palm Threes or Palmer Brothers), which is Frankie Jones.

A: Frankie Jones, he died.

Q: When was that?

A: Around two, three years ago.

Q: It wasn't in Jamaica?

A: No, somewhere in the States, somewhere in America.

Q: Sad, and kinda unnoticed.

A: I don't really know what went down, but I know he died.

Q: You did some stuff with him, like 'Bygones'.

A: 'Bygones', yeah.

Q: Also 'Marijuana'.

A: Yeah, I did a couple... stuff with him.

Q: What happened to the album you cut with Alton Ellis? You did songs like 'Jamaican Rock' with him, backed by the (Roots) Radics.

A: Yeah, some of the tape dem get mix up, yunno. I didn't get to release them. I've got a couple of the songs still, but most of dem haven't release. One of them come on 45 and one tune is on an album. I put one out on a 45 in Jamaica only. But the tape get lost somewhere along the way. I coupla tape I had get mix up and used up along the way, and Alton's would get caught up in the lot.

Q: What a shame.

A: Yeah. Also, I had a John Holt one that get mix up at the same time when I was making Alton, so that's a great loss for me.

Q: I wanted to ask you, too, how on earth you succeeded in landing a deal with the A&M company to release the Knowledge album, 'Hail Dread'?

A: Well, it's from that same show I did with Patti Smith.

Q: Ah.

A: I was doing that show, I was in all the major papers and A&M wanted to sign me. But at that moment I was just signed with Virgin Record.

Q: That's what happened.

A: So I couldn't do that, but Knowledge was... I was making this Knowledge and I was building Knowledge as a group to perform on stage with me. So I let them know that I was signed and they asked me fe put a song on the record, that Knowledge LP, they would take the LP. So I had to ask Virgin permission to do it, so I did it. And that's how the Knowledge LP come along with A&M, just for me to do that one song, introducing the group.

Q: But that album got kinda lost in the major label circus as you could expect.

A: Yeah, they didn't promote it... Because it was the first reggae A&M started with, the firs' reggae (a project with Alton Ellis, Slim Smith and Ken Parker preceded that in 1973). I don't think they know how to market it. They didn't know how to market reggae at the time.

Q: Regardless what company you approach with your product, even if Knowledge was a bit too 'grassroots' to be a major hit at the time, they just throw it away, can't seem to find the right sort of marketing for reggae music.

A: Well, I don't think... some of them don't try that hard, yunno, like how they do it hard. They don't spend the amount of money that it need to spend to promote it.

Q: I did see that you actually got shot at the time, in the leg and stomach, which obviously could've been disastrous...

A: That's a long time ago (chuckles).

Tapper Zukie

Q: But it happened during the late seventies?

A: That's in the seventies. That's early when I just signed with Virgin.

Q: Do you think it was out of jealousy because you tried to support the community at the time (building a home for the elders in Trench Town, and, while being a member of the then Peace Committee, Tapper tried to establish a cultural youth centre in the section of Rose Town, Rema)?

A: Yeah, yeah. Well, that is a long story. I don't want to go into that now, it's going to be too long, y'know (chuckles).

Q: I respect that.

A: And you know, sometime I don't even like to talk about it.

Q: Understood. A tough experience.

A: Yeah. Right now I'm musical now, that's one of the t'ings in music, as doing music. I mean, I'm in the mood, I'm in the vibes for the stage now, yunno. (Chuckles) I'm in the vibes for the stage now. I think people gonna get a lot of performing from me now. I'm lookin' forward to do some good shows, to let the people dem see that I'm still around. And I'm still fit, and I still have it in me. I maybe think I'm better now.

Q: Is that so?

A: Yeah (chuckles). Ca' then I was just learning the game and now I've gone through the production and do everyt'ing, I know the whole works about it. So I'm doing more easier now and doing more better.

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