In a recent sit down with Hot Press, during Electric
Picnic 2013, the group – currently consisting of Derrick "Duckie"
Simpson, Andrew "Bees" Beckford, Kaye Starr with Ras Iqulah - took interviewer Olaf
Tyaransen down memory while talking about struggles of yesteryear and their
currently status in Reggae's musical soundscape.
On
their recent performance to over 70,000 persons in Zimbabwe: "It
was a very positive vibe because you know the amount of atrocities that the
people in Zimbabwe have been going through…Duckie [insisted] that we should use
the opportunity to leave a positive impression…perform with a positive vibe."
On the Jamaican musical landscape in 1972: "It was not beats like today but keys and chords…people would [mostly focus on harmonizing to specific keys and chords] but today it's more about the beats. In the 70's there was a lot of groups and we patterned out [vocal style] from the Americans like Smokey Robinson, Chi Lites and in the 80's it was mostly [about] singing."
On Chris Blackwell: "He's a vampire…he's like the Christopher Columbus of Reggae…he took it all. [We] put out 5 platinum albums for Chris White-worse and [we] didn't earn a cent from it and he took those 5 albums and turn them into 42 CDs…so he robbed [our] children of their birth right and all their possessions and stuff like that. We don't call him Chris Blackwell cause he's not well we call him Chris White-worse..."
On Duckie's musical relationship with Bob Marley: "I learnt a lot of things from Bob. I was around him for 2-3 years and we learnt a lot of things from The Wailers; even my harmonizing skill came from the Wailers and the Wailing Souls."
Check out the entire video interview here.