Knowledge

Knowledge originated from the Rema district in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, where the ensemble quickly built a loyal following. Formed in the closing years of the 1970s, the collective operated under the mentorship of DJ Tapper Zukie, whose influence shaped their early direction. The roster comprised Anthony Doyley, Delroy Folding, Earl MacFarlane, Michael Smith and Michael Samuels, with Paul Freeman joining at a later stage. Their first recording, ‘Make Faith’, opened with Zukie presenting the musicians as his own discoveries, and the single achieved immediate success. Several further tracks appeared on Zukie’s Stars imprint, paving the way for a contract with a major label in 1978. That agreement proved fleeting, leaving the group largely inactive throughout the early 1980s. Amid this lull, Freeman adopted the name Jah Showie and, together with Trevor Douglas, launched the independent Sunshine label. In 1981 Samuels, recording as Michael Knowledge, pursued a solo venture that yielded the track ‘Dreadlock Time’. By the early 1990s the band had begun working with Roy Cousins, delivering the singles ‘Na Buy Apartheid’, ‘Chant Rasta Man’ and ‘Fire Burn’ for his Tamoki-Wambesi concern. Eschewing computerized rhythms, they relied exclusively on live instrumentation and recruited leading Jamaican session players such as Pablove Black, Winston Wright, Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace and Sowell Radics. After remaining unreleased for an extended period, the resulting material finally surfaced as a CD anthology in 1995.