Desmond Dekker

Thanks to his warm, yearning vocals and polished style, Desmond Dekker became one of Jamaican music’s premier vocalists—and a big reason for its increasingly global popularity through the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Born in 1941 in Saint Andrew Parish, Dekker was working as a welder in Kingston when he landed his first recording contract with producer and label boss Leslie Kong in 1961.

After scoring a series of ska hits in the mid-‘60s, the young singer embraced the socially conscious lyrics reflective of the emergent rude-boy sensibility, as well as the less hectic, more melodic sound of rocksteady.