Prince Fatty

British producer Mike Pelanconi spent his early years engineering sessions for outside acts before launching the dub alias Prince Fatty during 2005. His technical background and familiarity with dub’s lineage allowed him to restore vintage textures to projects such as the 2007 debut Survival of the Fattest, where classic reggae forms merged with production choices shaped by hip-hop.

He established himself in London during the 1990s, handling material for acid-jazz ensembles, rock outfits, hip-hop crews, pop vocalists, and reggae or dub figures including Gregory Isaacs. The Prince Fatty identity surfaced that same year when an unplanned commission arrived to compose the one-off reggae cut “Nina’s Dance” for Stussy’s 25th anniversary. Survival of the Fattest featured Slits singer Hollie Cook and reggae vocalist Little Roy. Supersize followed in 2010, again with Cook and Little Roy plus Dennis Alcapone and Winston Francis. Alcapone returned for the 2012 set Versus the Drunken Gambler. In 2014 Pelanconi reworked Nostalgia 77’s catalog into In the Kingdom of Dub for the Tru Thoughts label. The Clone Theory, a 2015 partnership with Mad Professor, combined digital dub techniques with traditional roots reggae. Two further releases appeared in 2019: Understand What Dub Is, a dub treatment of Last Poets material, and the more wide-ranging studio album In the Viper’s Shadow.