Socialist Roots Hi-Fi was a prominent Jamaican reggae sound system and record label owned by Tony Welch (aka Papa Roots) in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was originally named King Attorney (and before that Soul Attorney). The name changed in 1976 when Welch bought the set. Regular deejays included Ranking Trevor, U Brown, Jah Mikey and Nicodemus, alongside the regular selector Danny Dreadlocks. They received dub cuts from Bob Marley & The Wailers. After 1981, the group was known as Papa Roots Hi-Fi.
The sound system was strongly aligned with the Jamaican Peoples National Party and was instrumental in organizing local communities and attempting to promote peace at a time when Jamaica was racked by political violence. Socialist Roots record label released several records. The most successful was "Train to Zion", released in 1976, featuring U Brown and Linval Thompson. The peace song was one of the first 12" 45s issued in Jamaica.
Famous quotes containing the words socialist, roots, sound and/or system:
“Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931)
“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)