Before hip-hop existed, Count Machuki — real name Winston Cooper — was already doing it. In the yards of West Kingston in the early 1950s, working the mic for Tom the Great Sebastian's sound system, he invented toasting: rhyming, improvising, calling to the crowd over a moving riddim. Everything that would become dancehall, reggae DJ culture, and ultimately hip-hop grew from what he started. This episode traces the full story — the Kingston sound system wars, the Coxsone Downbeat connection, the artists who named him as their source (U-Roy, Big Youth), and the haunting unresolved question of whether recordings of Count Machuki's voice have ever been found. History of the Caribbean — stories from the islands that changed the world.
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This episode explores Jamaica’s historic push to remove the British monarch as head of state and transition to a republic. It traces the journey...
This documentary episode of THE HISTORY OF THE CARIBBEAN exposes the systemic exploitation within the music industry from the nineteen eighties to the present...
