Julian is Dr Doom

In 1998, browsing a record shop in Madrid, I came across a beautiful display celebrating the 25th anniversary of Grounation by Count Ossie and The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari. It was a pleasant surprise, and sobering to realise that this epic work, originally released as a groundbreaking triple album in 1973, was being more lovingly celebrated abroad than at home in #Jamaica. That paradox, however, is itself part of Count Ossie’s story. Born Oswald Williams 100 years ago on 26 March 1926, Count Ossie established a Rastafari community at Rockfort near Wareika Hill on the east side of #Kingston in the early 1950s, where many of the city’s musicians first encountered the #Rastafari movement and its powerful rhythms. His legendary jam sessions up in that hilltop compound drew an extraordinary roster of talent; Skatalites players Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Knibbs; all absorbing the nyabinghi pulse that Ossie was keeping alive. His contribution to #Jamaican music begins at the very root. Count Ossie’s drummers performed on the first commercially released single to integrate #Rastafarian traditional music with popular music, the Folkes Brothers’ groundbreaking “Oh Carolina,” recorded for producer Prince Buster in 1959. That fusion of African drum traditions with contemporary Jamaican sound was not merely a stylistic flourish; it was the seed from which #ska, #rocksteady, and roots #reggae would flower. Grounation, the first ever reggae triple album, combined Rastafari consciousness with deep spiritual jazz, a sprawling and raw cultural statement comparable in ambition to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Co-led with tenor saxophonist Cedric “Im” Brooks, the album recreates a Rasta grounation, or gathering; chanting, drumming, and Bible readings in praise of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Count Ossie’s importance in bringing Rastafarian music to a wider audience is matched only by #BobMarley’s promotion of the faith internationally in the 1970s. That a Madrid record store in 1998 understood this better than Kingston ever officially acknowledged remains one of reggae history’s quiet injustices, and a reminder that true pioneers are often most visible from a distance.