Popular Jamaican musician, Ewart Beckford, popularly known as U-Roy has passed away.
The reggae legend who started his professional music career in 1961, died at the age of 78 at a hospital in Kingston, where he had been undergoing surgery.
His death was confirmed by his partner Marcia Smikle. According to her, U-Roy had been receiving treatment for diabetes and high blood pressure while also suffering from kidney issues.
“He passed away at 11:10 last night at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) after undergoing surgery there,” she told The Gleaner.
“He has diabetes and hypertension, but those are under control because we make sure that he takes his medication. But he also had a kidney problem and was being treated at Andrews [Hospital], and then they told us to take him to UWI for surgery because the kidney had messed up the bladder, and he was bleeding.
“They recommended dialysis for the kidney, but he didn’t want to do that.”
U-Roy was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1942 into a musical family; where his mother performed in the choir at a local Seventh-Day Adventist church. He first DJed when he was 14.
“My mother used to say to me: Why don’t you trim and shave because you will look a much nicer boy?” he told United Reggae. “And I used to say, ‘Listen mum, I did not tell you not to be a Seventh-Day Adventist. I did not tell you not to play that organ on that choir. I’m going to do what I have to do and I’m not going to disrespect you. But what I believe in is what I believe in.”
In 1969 he made his first recordings, with Keith Hudson, Lee Perry and Peter Tosh. His breakout came a year later, after John Holt witnessed him DJing and toasting over Holt’s song, Wear You to the Ball, and told producer, Duke Reid to work with him.
Their partnership birthed three immediate hits, Wake the Town, Rule the Nation and Wear You to the Ball; as well as two dozen more singles,
U-Roy has released hit singles like Runaway Girl, Natty Rebel, Babylon Girl, and Chalice in the Palace.
In 2007 he was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government for his contribution to music
