After gaining recognition as a teenager for his harmony singing with Derrick Howard and Tony Tuff as the African Brothers,
Mr. Minott (pronounced my-NOT) went on to a long career as a solo artist on record and in concerts around the world. Among
his early hits were “Vanity” and “Mr. DC,” recorded for Studio One, Jamaica’s first black-owned
recording studio and label.
“He mastered every reggae style and made significant contributions to each of them — from roots and message
music into lover’s rock to the computerized techno music of the dancehall genre in the mid-’80s,” said Roger
Steffens, a co-founder of the reggae magazine The Beat, which recently ceased publication after 28 years.
From the days of Bob Marley, who died in 1981, reggae has evolved from its Rastafarian message of peace, love and justice to a style called lover’s
rock and the more stripped-down dancehall style, characterized by digital rhythm tracks and harsher vocals. The rappers, or
toasters, who came to dominate dancehall “turned the music into homophobic and misogynistic rants,” Mr. Steffens
said. But Mr. Minott, an early practitioner of the form, shunned the harshness.
“Sugar brought his trademark sweetness and humor, even to what can be quite a violent genre,” said Vivien Goldman,
the adjunct professor of reggae at the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University. “Reggae has always been loved for its golden voices, and Sugar Minott ranked among the greatest.”
|
Ms. Goldman cited his 1984 hit “Buy Off the Bar” as evidence of dancehall at its sweetest: an encouragement
to forget the troubles of everyday life, buy drinks and keep the party going.
Mr. Minott’s biggest hit was a cover of the Jackson Five’s “Good Thing Going,“ which reached No. 4 in the British singles chart in March 1981. But the recordings that made him famous, Ms. Goldman said,
came in 1979: “Hard Time Pressure,” bemoaning the plight of the poor, and “Ghetto-Ology,” about starvation
and mass brutality, in which he sang, “I got an A in starvation, I pass my grades in sufferation.”
|
“One of the outstanding aspects of Sugar Minott was his commitment to poor youth,” Ms. Goldman said, pointing
out that he started a label, Black Roots, that featured young artists from the deprived downtown areas of Kingston. Among
those who became popular were Garnet Silk, Tony Rebel, Tenor Saw and Johnny Osbourne.
In recent years Mr. Minott recorded with the Easy Star All-Stars, singing “Exit Music (for a Film)“ on their album “Radiodread” (2006), a reggae interpretation of
the Radiohead album “OK Computer,” and “When I’m Sixty-Four” on Easy Star’s “Lonely Hearts Dub
Band” (2009), which took a similar approach to the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and reached No. 1 on the Billboard reggae chart.
Lincoln Barrington Minott was born in Kingston on May 25, 1956, one of eight children of Austin and Lucille Minott. He
attended a trade school, where he learned how to install shelves, then worked with friends who built sound systems. That led
to the formation of the African Brothers and his work with Studio One, which had been founded by Coxsone Dodd.
In 1993, Mr. Minott married Mr. Dodd’s niece, Ms. Stowe. Besides his wife, he is survived by his mother, three sisters,
four brothers and 14 children. Ten of his children, Ms. Stowe said, came from two previous relationships.
An animated entertainer, Mr. Minott roamed the stage to reggae’s pulsating, off-beat rhythms, acting out the roles
in his songs, dancing. But another “uniquely striking” feature encapsulated his exuberance, Mr. Steffens said:
“a hugely gap-toothed smile that you could drive a minibus through.”
|
