When two sounds go to war: David Rodigan details his life as a sound clash King

Ricky is an inspiring selector and very difficult to beat. Even when you have really given it to him he can make a speech that suggests to the audience that the tune you just played was of no significance. But that night in Long Island the dance was going in my favour, and he couldn’t take it. So he drew the race card at the end of the clash.

He played a dubplate, ‘Jaro Have No White God’, and then made a succession of comments about skin colour. He called me “Some little white boy” who “nah brush oonuh bloodclaat teeth”; he said the “black man originate toothpaste and toothbrush” and “when Rodigan talk to me, mi smell him breath through the bloodclat speaker”. He then lined up a record, shouting “Ayy! White bwoy!”

He played a track by Goofy, a jokey song about bad oral hygiene called ‘You Brush Yuh Teeth’, and as it finished he shouted “Stand up with Jah!” – a righteous cry that also punned on the ‘Ja-ro’ nickname of his sound. I was seething. “Stand up with who? Stand up with Jah? After bullshit like that. You’re a hypocrite. Now hear this.” I played Prince Buster: "Yuh pick him up, yuh lick him down, he bounce right back, Rodigan’s a hard man fi dead."

But I was furious, and made a speech. "I’ve got one thing to say to you. This was a sweet dance until you started on this colour thing. You know what you’ve done? You’ve just brought the whole thing down into the gutter. And you’ve spoilt the night! You’ve taken away the spirit from the dance, because you’re bad mind and mi finished with you!" He tried to stand his ground, even though people were starting to boo him. “Nuff man want to see Jaro dead. It not my fault that I have better tune dan dem and me is a better selector.”

I couldn’t understand why he had gone down that route after we had been playing for four hours. I suppose he was clutching at straws because I was winning and he knew that. It didn’t do him any favours because the crowd was perfectly well aware of the fact that I was a white man and Jamaicans know me as someone who has a passionate love of their music. Because of that I have never been disrespected in my career, which made this lone episode hard to take.

Ricky left the dance and the revered owner of the Killamanjaro system, Noel ‘Papa Jaro’ Harper, apologised to me and said he had tried to stop Ricky as soon as he started talking about race. Mr Harper, who founded the sound in 1969, naming it after Africa’s highest mountain, is a veteran of clashes over many decades, and he knew that tactic wasn’t going to work.

Years later I got to know Ricky better. When he wasn’t doing that nonsense he was a great selector. He said to me that I didn’t realise how tough it was for him. I was a white man from England, and if I lost a clash I could go back home undamaged because people would know I was first
and foremost a radio DJ. He asked me to consider his position. If he lost and returned to Jamaica as a black man playing on the legendary Killamanjaro sound, he would be taunted with: “Bwoy, you let white man beat you?” He said it was much harder for him. “Yeah, but you didn’t have to do that,” I said.

A couple of weeks later we had a rematch called ‘Come to Settle a Score’ in Fulham Town Hall in London. It was another epic struggle and was eventually declared a draw. I pulled a wicked dubplate on Ricky recorded for me by the dancehall artist of the moment, Red Rat, who had a huge hit called ‘Wrigleys’, which was another jokey song about dental cleanliness. The dub was customised and I told my opponent, “Trooper, don’t chew on my name like Wrigleys!” It ripped the town hall apart.

Rodigan: My Life In Reggae by David Rodigan with Ian Burrell is out now, published by Constable