Buccaneer

The emergence of Buccaneer in 1996 stunned dancehall followers who craved constant novelty, since no one before him had shown the inclination, skill, or sheer nerve to fuse ragga toasting with opera. He accomplished exactly that through the major success “Skettel Concerto,” which launched a career defined by repeated crossings of stylistic boundaries. Andrew Bradford had prepared for this improbable leap long before, having received classical piano and music theory training from his mother during childhood in Kingston’s Havendale suburb. Those studies remained influential after the family relocated to the West Kingston ghetto of Waltham Park, where he performed as the flamboyantly dressed DJ Little Ninja alongside local sound systems. A friend coined the name Buccaneer after seeing the pirate outfit Bradford had assembled, complete with an eyepatch that some attributed to light sensitivity. Following sessions at King Jammy’s studio, he cultivated a close association with musician and producer Danny Browne, who supplied many of the riddims behind his early hits and remained a frequent collaborator.

Buccaneer’s debut album, 1995’s Now There Goes the Neighbourhood, offered early indications of operatic interests, yet the following summer the Jamaican single “Skettel Concerto”—built on Browne’s orchestral adaptation of Toscanini’s “Barber of Seville” and delivered with dramatic sing-jaying—became the breakthrough. That track formed the centerpiece of the 1997 album Classic, which included other opera-derived pieces such as “Bad Man Sonata” alongside more conventional dancehall tracks like the duet “Brick Wall” with legendary singer Dennis Brown. In 1998 Buccaneer released Da Opera, whose major hit “Fade Away” referenced Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” and incorporated contributions from reggae heavy hitters Steely and Clevie as well as fellow dancehall wildmen Scare Dem Crew. After the occasional single such as 1999’s “Weh Dem Woulda Do,” a collaboration with Mr. Vegas over Browne’s “All Purpose” riddim, he stepped away from his own recordings to focus on production and launched the Jamaican label Opera House.