04/06/2026
Many years ago, my dad had a Japanese friend who absolutely loved Leroy Sibbles and I do not mean the usual kind of fandom. If you visited his home, you would think you had stepped into a Leroy Sibbles museum. The records. The photographs. The posters. The music playing from the moment you arrived to the moment you left. Everything pointed back to Leroy and with complete confidence, he would explain why no other artist in Reggae history mattered quite the way Leroy Sibbles mattered.
And because of that, it was only a matter of time before a debate broke out. I cannot remember exactly what started it but I remember how it ended. In the middle of all the back and forth, he said something that stopped the room. "Leroy Sibbles the vocalist is celebrated but Leroy Sibbles the bassist and arranger is a completely different conversation." At the time, I did not fully understand what he meant. Still, that sentence followed me for years.
Then, as the years passed and I went deeper into the music, I slowly began to understand what he was pointing at because there is a difference between knowing someone's name and understanding their weight. Most people know Leroy Sibbles as the voice behind some of Reggae's most beloved recordings. Yet behind that voice was a musician whose fingerprints were all over the Studio One era. As a bassist, arranger, harmony singer and talent scout, he helped shape the sound that would influence generations of artists.
And the funny thing is, I thought he was talking about Leroy Sibbles. Years later, I realised he was actually talking about how we remember people. We celebrate the faces. Sometimes we miss the hands that built the thing.
And that was his whole point.
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