The original members of Black Uhuru (File photo )

After a 20-year split, singer Michael Rose is set for a return to the Black Uhuru fold. Group founder, Duckie Simpson, told the Observer yesterday that he and Rose met recently, patched up their differences and are ready to resume working together.

"Wi jus' link up a Stony Hill last week, bun a chalice an' talk 'bout some music and sey wi woulda like work together again," said Simpson. He added that an official announcement of Rose's return will be made at a press conference to be held soon.

Rose, 48, left Black Uhuru in 1984 after a well-publicised falling-out with Simpson; the following year Black Uhuru won the first Best Reggae Album category at the Grammy Awards. A pumped-up Simpson says with Rose back on board, it is bound to generate excitement among hardcore Uhuru fans, and show promoters, abroad.

"It nah go big inna Jamaica but it a go blow up a foreign," he said.

The Grammy win was the icing on the cake for a group that had, in the eyes of many Reggae fans, succeeded The Wailers as roots-Reggae's superstars. With the emerging production team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare at the helm, the classic Black Uhuru line-up of Simpson, Rose and American Sandra "Puma" Jones rose from obscurity to international fame on the strength of albums like Sinsemilla and Red, and hard-hitting songs such as General Penitentiary, Shine Eye Gal, Plastic Smile and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

After Rose's departure, Simpson recruited Junior Reid as lead singer. He stayed for two albums before his place was taken by Garth Dennis and Don Carlos, who both figured in the early days of the group during the late 1960s in the Kingston community of Waterhouse.

Like Rose, Reid, Dennis and Carlos severed ties with Black Uhuru because of differences with Simpson. Three years ago, another Waterhouse-reared vocalist, Andrew Bees, joined the ranks; he worked on Dynasty, Uhuru's last album, but Simpson says he has been doing "his own thing" since late last year.

Throughout the 1990s, Black Uhuru continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences in the United States and Europe, and earned one more Grammy nomination after Anthem. But their post-Rose albums for the now-defunct American company, Mesa/Bluemoon Records, lacked the fire of the records they did for Island Records in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Rose, too, struggled to establish himself as a solo act, releasing moderately successful albums for the American independent company, Heartbeat Records.

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