King Tubby

About

Known as King Tubby, Osbourne Ruddock was an electronics and sound engineer whose dub technique influenced future decades of music. His music career began in the 1950s when the Jamaican sound systems were rising in popularity, and as a talented radio repairman, Tubby was sought after all over his hometown of Kingston to repair malfunctioning electronics, which was a side effect of the humid, tropical weather. In his repair shop, Tubby built his own radio transmitter and started a private ska and R&B radio station from 1961 to 1962. He eventually went on to make his own sound system called Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi, which featured his original echo and reverb sound effects. Tubby created a disc cutter for producer Duke Reid in 1968, which would give birth to the earliest remixes. Although King Tubby was shot and killed in 1989 while returning from his Waterhouse studio, his legacy has inspired several different music genres and served as the foundation of new ones.