Sly & Robbie

Drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare are modern masters of rhythm. Rarely if ever has the sound of an individual genre been so suffused with the sounds of specific individual musicians; according to one estimate, the two musicians have contributed their distinctive rhythms to some 200,000 recorded tracks, most of them in the Jamaican reggae style. Constantly active musically, Dunbar and Shakespeare have recorded under the Sly & Robbie name, released recordings by other artists on their own Taxi label, and contributed to recordings helmed by other producers on other labels, both within and beyond the reggae field.

Lowell Fillmore Dunbar (later called Sly, it is said, because of his admiration for the music of Sly & the Family Stone) and Robbie Shakespeare were both born in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew up on its mean but musical streets. Dunbar was born May 10, 1952, and Shakespeare September 27, 1953. Dunbar grew up practicing the drums on empty food cans and on his school desk. He dropped out of school when he was 15 to play drums for a living. "That's all I ever wanted to do," he told The Independent in London. Although he did suffer through a brief stint as an apprentice refrigerator mechanic. Shakespeare studied bass with the early reggae player Family Man Barrett, and he too had become an experienced musician while still in his teens.

-James M. Manheim