In my honest opinion Garnett Silk has one of the best voices in reggae music PERIOD. Garnett started to make his rise on the reggae scene in the early 90's and passed away in 1994. Allegedly he passed away while saving his mother from a fire. Some feel his death was actually a murder covered up by a fire, due to the strong social and political influence his music had on the people.
During the 90's i was a teenager attending high school. I was coming into my own during these times, and reggae had a huge influence in my life. Like i've mentioned in the past i was born in Jamaica and moved to New York in the early 80's. The neighborhood i grew up in had a strong West Indian influence. Maybe around 90 or 91 or even earlier, some fellow Jamaican friends from the neighborhood and i started a Sound System. The name of the sound was MegaDeath SoundSystem. It's still going strong today even though i no longer play a role.
We used to hang out in my friend Jug room pretty much all day everyday. He had a little component set stereo system with some speakers. I used to sneak some of my fathers records and bring them over. We started playing music and slowly building our own record collection. We also started building our own speakers and gradually collecting more sound equipment. We had a little rag tag sound, but we played good music and started making a name for ourselves in the hood.
We often played for birthday parties, backyard parties, pretty much anything. We loved reggae music it was our life and, we started to make some money. After awhile our popularity really started to grow to a next level. We eventually got some real professional stereo system equipment. We had 2 technique 1200 turntables, which was top of the line at that point. We also had nice 6 output mixer and a coffin to hold the mixer and turntables. Here's a pic of how a coffin looks.
We also had some Gemini amplifiers, equalizers, preamps, a nice speaker wall of 18" scoop speaker boxes, 15" mid range, some top ends and horns. This is how the sound looks now.
One of the worst parts i remember of having a sound system was carrying the record boxes. We placed our records in empty milk crates we got from the corner store. We had about 10 crates of records and we had to carry them manually as well as all the other equipment. Now all you need is a nice laptop MAC and a good hard drive to store your music. That was a lot of work, my muscles are aching at the thought smh. Fun Fact my nickname back then was Yardie. I remember when we got our first set of dubplates, it was an amazing experience to hear a reggae artist call your name out on a record. Boy those were the days.
Anyhow getting back on track. During them times if you didn't have some Garnett Silk in your record box, you wasn't a real selector. He had so many wicked tunes coming out, as you listen to the youtube link you will hear and can judge for yourself. He was really heating up earning his spot in reggae history, and we lost him way to soon. I remember we wanted to get some dubplates from him. Now a days a dubplate from him is very covetted, only a few sounds can play one of his dubs.
I think the 90's was a sweet and exciting stage for reggae music and sound systems alike. Bounty Killa, Beanie Man, SuperCat,Buju Banton, Ninja Man and so many others made there mark on the culture during these times.
Listening to this mix as i write is bringing back so many memories. I could remember playing dances burning our spliffs while beating out some Garnett records. R.I.P to a legend taken away from us way to soon.
