January 1, 2003

By Jeff Chang

IN THE FARTHEST corner of the north Bronx at the end of the subway line, Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes started American reggae. The Jamaican immigrant set up a small storefront four-track studio in the mid '70s, where he proceeded to produce and release classic side after classic side.

Much of the catalog of Barnes's studio and label, Wackies, was issued on vinyl in incredibly tiny numbers – usually 500 to 1,000 copies. And the quality of the records is so high that they quickly became the Holy Grail for dubheads, who have routinely paid hundreds of dollars for originals emblazoned with the label's lion-and-flag logo. Mark Ernestus of the pathbreaking German techno crew Basic Channel says, "I was heavily into Upsetter, and so you come across Wackies inevitably. What was special about it? The atmosphere and the sound!"

Barnes never could've known his records would have a profound influence on the hip-hop, techno, and downtempo genres for decades to come. The studio didn't always pay the bills. But thankfully, it survived, and now a new generation is ready to discover the pleasures of Wackies.

With help from some well-placed Wackies fanatics, Barnes's highly sought music is becoming more accessible than ever. The 58-year-old Barnes recently joined with Basic Channel to reissue 20 of his best titles on CD and vinyl. The 1983 Horace Andy classic LP, Dance Hall Style, will come out in conjunction with the East Village's Jammyland early this year. Even the oddest 12-inch in the catalog, the long-lost "Wack Rap" by Solid C, Bobby D, and Kool Drop, has been reissued by San Francisco's Re-Joint label. In almost typical ahead-of-its-time fashion, Wackies' only rap record was released at the dawn of recorded rap history in 1979 and has until now been lost to the ages. Chris Veltri, who comanages Re-Joint from his Groove Merchant shop on Haight Street, says, "The thing that sets Bullwackie apart is that he was able to see a little farther ahead and kinda trust what the youths were doing."

Because of the rare nature and the astounding quality of most Wackies releases, the label has been the kind that gives collectors wet dreams. The story of Barnes himself has remained shrouded in myth. In fact, his story is a fascinating tale of an immigrant struggling to survive in America, set to a pulsing rockers beat.

Barnes came of age in newly emancipated Kingston at dances hosted by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Downbeat the Ruler and Duke Reid's Treasure Isle sound systems. He hung out with ska and rocksteady pioneers Stranger Cole and Ken Boothe and began frequenting Prince Buster and Duke Reid sessions at the Federal studios. There, he cut two singles for Prince Buster as a singer before moving to Brooklyn in 1967.

In New York City, Barnes set up Bullwackie's Sound System, naming it after his street corner in Kingston, and attracted a fiercely loyal following. But as the '70s arrived, island political gangster-types began frequenting his dances. "Island politics started to surface in the New York area," Barnes says. "The Green [Jamaican Labour party supporters] want to be there, and the Red [People's National Party supporters] want to be there. But when they come together, they can't get along. So I got out of that part of it."

After a brutal shoot-out at a south Bronx dance, Barnes shut down the sound system and opened a studio. (Through his friendship and professional relationship with the Upsetter Lee "Scratch" Perry, Barnes would shepherd the recording of Little Roy's much reversioned 1974 meditation on Jamaican political gangs, "Tribal War.")

The Wackies studio became a magnet for talented immigrants and not a few musicians stranded in the United States by corrupt singers or managers. Unlike the stereotypical Jamaican studio, where DJs line up at the gate early in the morning hoping to catch the omnipotent producer's attention, Barnes fostered a nonhierarchical collective vibe among the motley dreads. "I used to think every musician is my family," he says. Because of its relative isolation in the north Bronx, far from the daily struggle in the streets of Kingston, London, and even Brooklyn, Wackies studio evolved into a kind of lab of exploration and experimentation. Barnes was pursuing a rootical vision with in-house musicians such as Fabian Cooke, Junior Delahaye, and Clive "Azul" Hunt, who now works with new-roots artists like Sizzla.

From the late '70s to the early '80s, Barnes recorded artists including Andy, the Love Joys, Sugar Minott, Wayne Jarrett, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Augustus Pablo at the Wackies studio for his label. In the early '80s, when Jamaican dancehall was turning to DJs and synthesized sounds, Barnes continued to develop the roots and dub sound. Unlike his post-punk British counterparts Aswad and Steel Pulse, who favored a jazz-rock-reggae hybrid, Barnes preferred to extend the roots innovations of close friends such as Jackie Mittoo and Perry. (Barnes, intriguingly, promises to release the last recordings of organist Mittoo, done with DJ-singer Sugar Minott.) Barnes's vision of American reggae feels like an immigrant journey, combining a longing for the old country with an expansive view of the future. "I want to be roots like Downbeat, sweet like Treasure Isle, and mystic like Upsetter," Barnes says.

Andy's Dance Hall Style album, for instance, with its serrated edges and almost antimystical realism, became the template for Massive Attack's Brixton post-punk, post-hip hop hybrid. Minott's 1984 hit album, Wicked Ago Feel It, and the Love Joys' brilliant "Lover's Rock" are fantastically idiosyncratic takes on the emerging dancehall scene in Kingston and on the lover's rock scene in London, respectively. Dub albums like Tribesman Assault and Nature's Dub are prized by collectors for being the bridge between the high '70s era of Jamaican dub and the '90s diasporic revival.

One mind-blowing single captures the transition. Wayne Jarrett's 1983 track "You and I" flips the Treasure Isle hit of Barnes's formative years, Keith and Tex's lovelorn "Tonight," into an underdog anthem that describes the Wackies ethic perfectly. "Sometimes it seems like you and me against the world," Jarrett sings in an Andy-esque lilt.

But the financial reality always lurked behind the musical breakthroughs. While Jamaican immigrant populations in Britain had a vibrant blues-dance scene that helped vault Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" to the Top of the Pops as early as the mid '60s, Barnes was an American trailblazer with no comparable scene to work with. He had to fight for his audiences. "It was rough in those days to make music because people used to figure if you don't do it in Jamaica, it's not reggae," he says. "We probably wasn't really making no money, but I had to take care of another 10, 15 guys who had nowhere else to go."

He often didn't pay the electric bill for his own home so he could keep the studio running. "Maybe as much as 7, 8, 10 times, I've had to make that choice," he recalls. "I remember once I had to give up the whole house. I used to sleep in the drum room at the studio because I can't give up the studio."

Wackies remained a lonely dub and roots outpost in the Bronx until a turning point finally came in the early '80s when Sugar Minott's "Sometime Girl" entered heavy rotation on Frankie Crocker's WBLS-FM. As time has passed, Barnes has assumed a large place in the international reggae scene. He records and remixes Japanese reggae artists such as Ras Takashi and Kodama and continues to introduce new-roots talent such as Anthem and Ashanti Reid on his new PLUSH label. He has also branched out into other media and runs the Web site www.linkupmedia.com, which brings together dub and dancehall shows and news and talk programming for the Jamaican diaspora through radio stations in Kingston, New York, and London.

Of the resurging interest in his life and discography, Barnes says, "I'm glad I made the right choice. As long as you could survive, even if it's minimum wages, and you're doing something that you love and believe in, it's best to do it."