The controversial album shots of the Rhino versions of Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus' Freedom Sounds album.

Singer/percussionist, Ras Michael, is threatening to sue Dynamic Sounds and an English record company for what he says is the "desecration" of one of his album jackets by both companies.

Ras Michael told Throb that he has decided to take action five years after the matter arose because it has damaged his reputation with show promoters.

The original cover.

Ras Michael's grouse with Dynamic and Rhino Records (a subsidiary of the independent Creole Records) has reached a boiling point after what he believes is a lack of interest by the parties to remove the photo of a naked woman from the jacket of Freedom Sounds, an album he recorded in 1979.

"My next move is to sue Dynamic and Rhino and Creole Records," said an angry Ras Michael earlier this week from his California home. "I want to know why a jacket like this would be used for my album," he added. "They have desecrated the Rastaman image and my vibrations."

Freedom Sounds was reissued three years ago in Europe by Rhino, which has a distribution deal on that continent with Dynamic Sounds, local distributors of the album. According to the 55 year-old, when promoters and fans familiar with his work saw the jacket, there was an immediate backlash.

"It hurt mi by not getting jobs 'cause people start sey Ras Michael a deal wid porno thing," he said. "Dem a seh fi the song dem wha me sing is not my image this. I'm telling yuh, somebody will have to pay," he screamed.

The first edition of Freedom Sounds was released with Ras Michael and the musicians who played on the set pictured on its cover. The Rastafarian performer said since he first became aware of the controversial jacket, he has been in constant contact with executives at Dynamic Sounds and Rhino to have it pulled from record shops, but to no avail.

"I have spoken to Byron Lee Jnr and him sey 'Ras, is a wrong thing the man dem do'. But nothing has been done all now," Ras Michael disclosed.

When contacted, Byron Lee Jnr said he was aware of the situation but was unable to comment on it. Efforts by Throb to get a response from Byron Lee, head of Dynamic Sounds, were unsuccessful.

Freedom Sounds was recorded at Dynamic Sounds and produced by Pete Weston. It captured Ras Michael and his Sons of Negus group playing the traditional Nyahbinghi chants heard on the critically-acclaimed Dadawah album and honoured the percussive sounds that were first made popular by Rockfort's Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari in the mid-1950s.

Freedom Sounds included songs like Roll River Jordan Roll and Watch And Pray and came four years after Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus released the fantastic Dadawah. Freedom Sounds never fared as well as Dadawah or Rastafari Dub, an album the group also recorded in 1979; the latter contained two songs -- New Name and None A Jah Jah Children No Cry -- that gave Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus some form of mainstream attention.

Promised Land Sounds, Love Thy Neighbour and Know Now, other albums by Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, are rated among the group's best works.

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