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.