Born Oswald Williams in 1926 above Bull Bay, Ossie became a regular at a Rastafari camp in Salt Lane, a Kingston slum, where Burru drummer Brother Job took him in and taught him to play — Job had learned from drum-builder Watta King. After Hurricane Charlie flattened the Salt Lane camp in 1951, Ossie's rebuilt groundations on Wareika Hill drew Kingston's jazz musicians, future Skatalites Don Drummond and Rico Rodriguez among them, up the hill to listen. Those drums, backing the Folkes Brothers on producer Prince Buster's 'Oh Carolina' around 1959, caused such a sensation that both of Jamaica's radio stations broke their own ban to air it. Ossie died in 1976, struck by a bus after a stampede delayed his group's Carifesta set; his infant son died in the chaos. At his 2026 centennial, guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith explained why he still matters: "the drum was before the guitar."

the sound in question

1975

Tales of MozambiqueCount Ossie