Daddy Freddy grew up in Trenchtown Kingston Jamaica, home of many musical legends. His house was literally a few minutes walk from Sir Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd’s notoriously influential Reggae factory/soundsystem/record label, the world renowned ‘Studio 1’. His neighbours were Jacob Miller and Ranking Joe. Ranking Joe took Freddy under his wing and taught him the basics of skills of performing. Freddy’s tremendous natural ability meant he was quickly enlisted to work with Lt. Stichie (Of ‘Natty Dread’ fame) and then later with Sugar Minot. It was performing on Minot’s soundsystem that founded Freddy’s fame in Jamaica.

When he released his first album, ‘Body Lasher’, 6 of the tracks went straight into the Jamaican top ten. After successful touring in the US under the ‘Chrysallis’ record label, Freddy came to England in the 1980’s. His first UK work was a collaboration with Asher D (UK reggae star) called, ‘Raggamuffi n Hip-Hop’. This album created a new style of music that was a fusion of Jamaican ragga and UK/US Hip- Hop. The anthemic title track has the much sampled vocal, ‘The raggamuffin, The raggamuffin, Hip-Hop’. Freddy also managed to influence and support fl edgling UK reggae stars, Top Cat, Tenor Fly and Prento Youth who went on to the legendary ‘Coxsone’ Sound and the record label ‘Congo Natty’. This album created even more interest for Freddy. Artists such as Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, David Morales and Norman Cooke all requested collaborations and others like The Prodigy, Salt ‘n’ Peppa and KRS One all sampled his unique voice. He also featured extensively on US televison, appearing on Soul Train, Arsenio Hall’s show and Yo MTV Raps, CNN, BBC’s famous children’s show Blue Peter and many more. Even the President of the United States, Bill Clinton wanted to meet him!

This fame culminated in Freddy attempting and breaking the World Record for World’s fastest rapper in 1989 as part of the Capital radio Music Festival. Eventually Freddy broke the record four times taking it from 346 to 598 syllables a minute. First and second time in UK (in Covent Garden and at BBC’s Record Breakers show where he appeared with the great Roy Castle) and two times in America (New York Empire State Building and in Washington). Renowned live performances have always been Freddy’s hallmark, most notably at the New Music Seminar in New York and Tim Westwoods live rap shows on Capital radio.

After these hectic few years, Freddy decided to take a break for a while. His hectic life-style had taken it out of him so he found time to return to Jamaica and re-discover his roots. Whilst he still lent vocals to prominent dance-hall tracks in Jamaica his next major work did not come until he came back to the UK, with a new lease of life. Freddy teamed up with renowned Dub legend, The Rootsman in 2000 to make the ground-breaking new album, ‘Old School – New School’ (Third Eye Music)

Since then Freddy has been riding high, always striving to make new music and to give his all in his trademark, super-charged performances. His time is divided into touring, both nationally and internationally, recording and even training up some of tomorrow’s dancehall stars. His latest album “Hardcore is out on P.O.T. music and a new one will follow at the beginning on 2006.

Comment