I can't imagine what my ears would have been like had I not heard King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown – perhaps the classic dub album of all time – shortly after it was first released in 1976. Suddenly the world of sound was full of possibility, the studio was a place in which to create, and the producer was essential to the process. Granted, it was probably that already, but I didn't know it. Plus – first, actually – the music on the album was incredible. Augustus Pablo arrived on the scene as a teenager and quickly became known as a genius producer, as well as the guy who made the melodica, formerly a cheap children's toy, familiar to reggae fans (his haunting, Eastern-flavored melodies are unmistakable and unforgettable). And King Tubby was the studio wizard who, in the late '60s, invented dub by dropping the melodies from reggae hits and distributing the dub versions (ver-shans, or whatever they're called in Jamaica) for toasters to rap over.

The album's title song – a version of Jacob Miller's "Baby I Love You" – is a terrific cut as well as a Dub 101 primer, and the other songs are nearly as inspired. What I want to know is what the title actually means. Back in the day, when I smoked ganja and had time on my hands, I tried to figure what living in an "irie" manner meant for a guy squatting in a stucco duplex in the no-man's-land between Firestone and Florence in southeast Los Angeles. I'd fire one up and spend a lot of time imagining what "Uptown" looked like. In fact, I wanted to know if there was actually an Uptown somewhere in Kingston where a cool, famous producer like Tubby would go and meet rockers. And if so, if that was where he'd pass the newly pressed acetates to favored DJs. And where was Pablo all that time? Was he downtown somewhere, waiting for Tubby to come back? Or was he one of the rockers? Maybe he lived Uptown? Or maybe not. Maybe he was on the outs with the rockers and needed Tubby to work as a go-between. The first time I heard Samuel Jackson puzzling out the meaning of Psalm 23 in Pulp Fiction, I thought of my dilemma. Jackson was a long way from Jesus and the cradle of civilization, and I was a long way from Jamaica, Tubby, and rockers who didn't modify their appellation with punk.