The history of UK sound system culture

A sound system is a mobile disco built around three things: a big, usually home-built speaker stack; a selector with records you can't hear anywhere else; and an MC (in Jamaica, a deejay) talking over the top. The idea was born in Kingston in the late 1940s and 1950s, where operators such as Duke Reid The Trojan, Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat and King Edwards fought for the biggest crowds. It travelled to Britain with the Windrush generation.

The 1950s and 60s: the pioneers

Duke Vin (Vincent Forbes) is usually credited with the first Jamaican-style sound system in the UK. He built it in 1955 in Ladbroke Grove from a second-hand turntable bought on Edgware Road, a £15 speaker and a £4 amplifier, and went on to play Notting Hill Carnival for 37 years. Count Suckle (Wilbert Campbell) opened the Cue Club in Paddington in 1962, one of the first Black-owned clubs in London. Count Shelly (Ephraim Barrett) held residencies at the 31 Club in Harlesden and the Four Aces in Dalston and started the Count Shelly and Third World labels. With East London's Chicken, these operators are the foundation that every later UK sound grew from.

"When I came here, the people was backward – them didn't know what a soundsystem was."

Duke Vin, speaking to The Independent (source)

These sounds played "blues" dances: parties in front rooms and basements, because most pubs and clubs operated a colour bar. A system didn't need to be big. Dennis Bovell, who arrived from Barbados in 1965 aged 12, grew up around his father's sound, Tropical Soundmaster:

"If you had a 50-watt amp and four or five speakers, enough to put one in every room of a party and enough wire to run it, that was a soundsystem."

Dennis Bovell, Red Bull Music Academy, "Warrior Charge" (source)

For Jah Shaka, those parties were about more than music:

"When people left Africa for the Caribbean, all they could bring with them was their music, their songs and their memories from home. So, over the years, this is all that people had to keep them together."

Jah Shaka, Red Bull Music Academy lecture, Tokyo 2014 (source)

The scene spread fast. Lord Gellys started in 1964, three years after Fitzgerald Gelly arrived from Jamaica. The same year, Karl Irving founded Quaker City in Handsworth, Birmingham. The music moved from ska to rocksteady, and the sound system became the place to hear new Jamaican records first.

The 1970s: roots, dub and the dubplate wars

By the end of the 1970s there were hundreds of sound systems in Britain. Most were run by a generation that had grown up here, and the music was roots reggae and dub. Jah Shaka began in south-east London around 1970 and became famous for spiritual, bass-heavy sessions at venues like Phebes in Hackney. Sir Coxsone Outernational (Lloyd Coxsone) was one of the first to play dub. King Tubby's was set up in Brixton in March 1970 by Cecil Rennie, then just 19, and introduced dubplate specials in 1973. North London had Fatman Hi-Fi in Tottenham, Entebbe (formed 1978) and Jah Tubby's. In west London, Great Tribulation won the West London Sound System Cup. In the East End, King Original (1973) and Jah Massagan (1972) ran the dances.

It wasn't only London. Baron Turbo Charge brought reggae to Moss Side and Hulme in Manchester from 1974. Jah MafiaTone Hi-Fi and King Earthquake played Birmingham, Cultural Roots started in Bedford in 1979, and Foundation Sound took roots music to Norfolk from 1980. Sound clashes, where two systems played against each other until the crowd picked a winner, decided reputations. Dubplates, one-off acetates cut for a single sound, were the ammunition.

The 1980s: fast chat, lovers rock and digital

A new generation, born or raised in Britain, now ran the sounds. Saxon's co-founder Lloyd "Musclehead" Francis learned from his family's front-room parties:

"We used to have a lot of house parties with my mum's friends and what I can remember, we used to have a Blue Spot 'gram what really sounded powerful… I inherited that from my mum and close family friends; that's where I started it from."

Lloyd "Musclehead" Francis, Saxon Studio International (source)

Saxon Studio International from Lewisham changed the role of the MC. Its "fast chat" style, from MCs like Papa Levi, Tippa Irie, Smiley Culture and Maxi Priest, was copied around the world, and Saxon later became the first UK sound to win the World Clash in 1994. Jah Sufferer, run by Dennis Bovell of Matumbi, helped shape lovers rock and UK dub. In north-east London, Robert "Ribs" Fearon's Unity became one of the leading sounds of the digital dancehall era, with the Ragga Twins on the mic. In the mid-1980s DJ Ade and Junie Rankin founded Nzinga Soundz, one of the longest-running all-women sound systems in a scene run almost entirely by men. Platinum Soul Sound and Sir Lloyd brought soul, lovers rock and later house to parties in west and south London.

Sound systems also started to break out of reggae. Soul II Soul ran its sound at the Africa Centre in Covent Garden from 1985 and went on to global chart success. Mastermind in north-west London played soul, electro and hip hop. In Bristol, The Wild Bunch played St Pauls house parties and the Dug Out club before some of its members became Massive Attack.

The 1990s: raves, free parties and jungle

When acid house and rave exploded at the end of the 1980s, sound system skills were suddenly in demand: who could rig a warehouse, a field or a West End club and make it sound right all night. Pirate radio carried the rave scene, and sound crews rigged the parties it advertised. Free-party crews took systems into fields and empty buildings: DiY Sound System from Nottingham (1990), Spiral Tribe, Bedlam from Dalston, Circus Warp, the Exodus Collective in Luton (1992–2000) and Pineapple Tribe in Surrey. In May 1992 many of them met at Castlemorton Common in Worcestershire, where an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 people partied for nearly five days. Thirteen members of Spiral Tribe were later tried for public order offences and found not guilty. Jungle and drum & bass took the sound system's bass weight, MCs and dubplates into a new music, and Dillinja and Lemon D later built the Valve Sound System to play it.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave police powers to shut down outdoor gatherings with music "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". Many crews moved into licensed venues and festivals.

Today

Sound system culture is in good health. Sinai Sound System in Sheffield has grown from three boxes to a rig of over 200,000 watts. Reggae Roast took London Sunday sessions to festival main stages, Unit 137 builds super-scoops in Deptford, Cosmic Slop runs an audiophile rig for a Leeds charity, and Maasai Warrior carries Bristol's St Pauls tradition. Founding sounds like Channel One, Aba Shanti-I, Jah Observer and King Tubby's still play Notting Hill Carnival every August.