TOGETHER AGAIN: Derrick Morgan (left) and Prince Buster in musical harmony at Heineken Startime in July, 2001. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

LONG before Ninjaman dreamt of sneering at Shabba, or Bounty took his first verbal jab at Beenie Man, there was the Derrick Morgan/Prince Buster feud. Though nowhere as nasty as its predecessors, it too held the attention of a then newly-independent Jamaica; it was a 'throw-wud' contest that set the pace for the clashes that have been a part of dancehall culture.

The flare-up between Buster and his former protégé was sparked by accusations from Buster that Morgan and his new boss, Leslie Kong, had stolen his musical ideas. Thirty-five years later, Bounty Killer would similarly charge Beenie Man with copping his style.

Musicologist Bunny Goodison was moving in dance circles at the time Buster and Morgan were squaring off and remembers the feud being on most Kingstonians' lips. "In the dance and on the street corners it was very topical, people would use terms from the songs and jive each other," he tells Legacy.

While the Morgan/Buster standoff was intense, the combatants were friends. Morgan, born partially blind in Mocho, Clarendon in 1940, moved to Kingston as a three year-old. At age 19 he recorded his first song, Loverboy (S Corner Rock), for producer Arthur "Duke" Reid. Leaving Reid's Treasure Isle studio in 1961, he went to Buster who was making waves with cutting-edge recordings like the Ffolkes Brothers' Oh Carolina.

Born Cecil Bustamante Campbell in Kingston in 1938, Buster's first passion was boxing and he reportedly harboured ambitions of fighting professionally. Eventually, he got into the Kingston dance scene and met a young sound system owner named Clement Dodd with whom he worked as a 'heavy' at dances where Dodd's Downbeat 'sound' played.

In 1959, Buster broke away from Dodd and started his own Voice of the People sound system. That same year, he went against conventional trends and recorded Oh Carolina which featured the indigenous drumming of the Rastafarian, Count Ossie, and his nyahbingi troupe from Wareika Hills.

"He (Buster) had no exceptional skills as a producer but he brought different things to the music like the handclap," says Goodison. "He had an air of revolution and he was more topical."

Buster's golden run continued with Morgan, who scored with Little Miss Lulu and Shake A Leg, but their relationship reportedly became icy after Morgan took his act to Kong, a Chinese-Jamaican who had ventured into the music business and was reportedly paying artistes and musicians better wages than his rivals.

The Morgan/Kong tandem had immediate success with Housewive's Choice, Be Still and She's Gone. Interestingly, the song that triggered the war of words between Buster and Morgan was the latter's Forward March, which celebrated Jamaica's first year of independence from Great Britain.

"The song was released on the day of independence and in the night wi was driving 'roun' on the truck back and everybody was playing it," Morgan told the Observer in an interview last year.

Buster, however, was in no mood to celebrate when he heard Morgan's ode to patriotism.

"Headley (saxophonist, 'Deadley' Headley Bennett) took a solo in Forward March and Buster claim sey it was one of his solo that Lester Sterling played for him in They Got to Go," Morgan related. "Him sey mi tek him belongings and gi it to the Chineyman, and so him do Blackhead Chineyman an' me retaliate wid Blazing Fire."

Not prepared to end it there, Buster cut Praise And No Raise, which influenced Morgan to record No Praise, No Raise.

Though he believes this musical drama was lighthearted, Goodison points out that it did have some sour moments. "Blackhead Chineyman was banned by RJR (Radio Jamaica) and it offended a lot of Chinese," he says.

Morgan, now 63, laughs at talk that his clash with Buster was driven by envy and anger. "No man, it was jus' a musical war, wi friends forever," he says.

Morgan was not as successful when Ska evolved into rocksteady and eventually reggae. But his Ska songs found new life in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s among anti-establishment youth called Skinheads; he still tours there and other parts of Europe.

Buster's social awareness heightened in the mid-1960s. His views can be heard in songs like Under Arrest and the seminal Judge Dread in which he condemned leading players in the emerging Rudie culture of the mid-1960s to lengthy 'sentences'. Like Morgan, he has a cult following in Europe and Japan and has influenced a number of new wave British Ska bands such as The Specials and Madness.

Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster met on the same stage at the Heineken Startime show in Kingston in July, 2000. A full house turned out for what was expected to be an opening up of old 'wounds', but both stayed clear of a clash.

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