Come on home with Sugar Minott

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

He tried singing very first at a talent show when he was 12 but he didn’t win—but he did make the finals, and close enough like that was encouragement enough to keep going, and so Sugar Minott—then Lincoln Barrington Minott—took his first tiptoes toward becoming one of Jamaica’s ranking reggae and dancehall singers. He had a talent for making a lot out of what scarce resources he had: as one of the first reggae artists to tape his new vocals over old rhythms, he wins credit for helping rough out dancehall; with his label-slash-civic-benefit organization Youth Promotions, he hauled everything from studio opportunities to simple pairs of new shoes into the depleted ghettos he’d grown up in. His Live Loving (on Studio One, re-released in part as a Soul Jazz compilation) broke slowly when it came out (after various delays) in 1979, but Minott’s able and agile voice (with some kind of sweeter quality than other lovers like Gregory Isaacs) floated him into decades of recordings characterized by a step-ahead sense for pop melody, political principle and a gently independent sense of taste and purpose (like cutting albums with British backing bands—at the time, a real leap outside convention!) “Reggae music, it’s always crying out for something,” he told one interviewer. “Right now we need a whole heap of help.”

SUGAR MINOTT WITH QUINTO SOL THE RHYTHM LOUNGE | 245 PINE AVE LONG BEACH 90802 | FRI 9PM | $15-20 | 21+ | RHYTHM-LOUNGE.COM

Tags: Long Beach, Music, rhyhm lounge, sugar minott