Also, I'm a lover of women, so I have to make sure I write a few love songs just for them,' the artiste explained. 'What inspired me to release this EP is really daily issues, things that are happening all around us in society and the world. He is survived by his wife Marian, with whom he had a son.Popular recording artiste Pliers officially dropped his latest EP, titled In It To Win It, last Friday. Last year, he was voted 17th in Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest bass players, but for many years he had suffered from diabetes and he died following kidney surgery. Robbie Shakespeare was nominated for Grammy awards 13 times and won twice. The favourite of Shakespeare’s collaborations, however, came earlier, when he and Dunbar played with Bob Dylan on the Infidels LP (1983). Later in the decade, they produced records by No Doubt and had a hit with Simply Red with a cover of Night Nurse.

They oversaw the records by the duo Chaka Demus & Pliers, including Murder She Wrote and Tease Me (No 3 in the UK), which helped to generate international interest in new forms of Jamaica music such as ragga and dancehall. More commercial, arguably, if no less on the pulse, was their contribution to Gwen Guthrie’s club smash of the time, Ain’t Nothin’ Going On But the Rent.īy the early 1990s, they had come to the fore as well as producers. In 1987, the LP Rhythm Killers yielded a quirky single, Boops, featuring Bootsy Collins on guitar, which reached No 12 in the UK. Somehow, they also found time to run their own label, Taxi, and to make their own music. On tracks such as Private Life and Pull up to the Bumper, Sly & Robbie fashioned a futuristic beat for the stylised chic of her vocals, creating a sound which not only heralded a new decade in music but which has proved enduringly influential. Notably, there they worked on a trio of albums with Grace Jones, including Warm Leatherette (1980) and Nightclubbing (1981). At the start of the 1980s they became in effect the house band at Compass Point, the studio in the Bahamas owned by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. Indeed, Sly & Robbie were early adopters of the possibilities of electronic technology that would change music. Of broader significance was their use of a harder beat than reggae’s customary loping one-drop rhythm, which locally led to the evolution in the 1980s of the brisker dancehall style.

Their rhythms were arguably instrumental in helping Black Uhuru to gain worldwide recognition. In the same milieu, they provided backing for the producer Lee Perry at his studio, worked with the Upsetters, Toots & the Maytals, Burning Spear and Gregory Isaacs.

Chaka demus and pliers videos