robert ffrench: black solidarity presents mr babylon

"Hear what happen now! We used to punch the juke box lunchtime... Me and me friends had a kinda thing like the juke box was our sound system and we'd use our lunch money to play the baddest tunes on the juke box. We were aided and abetted by a kinda dodgy little shop keeper cause we were kids and we were in the rum bar punching the juke box when we weren't supposed to be allowed!! So we were breaking all the rules... punching the juke box and taking turns to play the wickedest tunes in the juke box..." --Ossie Thomas. Breaking rules from the outset, Ossie Thomas had furthered his childhood fascination with music while still attending Oberlin High School; many more rules would be broken when, together with Phillip Morgan, he set up the Black Solidarity label in 1979 on Delamare Avenue, deep in the heart of the Kingston ghetto... "I used to tell people that dance hall was like styles and fashions, if you have a wicked style and you have the fashion you go make it in the dancehall... You understand?" --Ossie Thomas.