Reggae icon Sly Dunbar of Sly & Robbie has died

Sly Dunbar, reggae icon and one half of one of the greatest rhythm sections of all time, Sly & Robbie, has died. He was 73 and had been in declining health for a while. Dancehallmag confirmed the news with Rory Baker, a recording engineer who worked for Sly & Robbie’s Taxi Records. He told them: “This is a major, major blow for me personally…mi three mentor dem gone back to back now, Robbie, then Cat Coore and now Sly, all of them gone.”

Born Lowell Fillmore Dunbar in 1952 in Kingston, Jamaica, Sly started playing in bands at 15 and met Robbie Shakespeare in 1972; soon they became a team and would later both play in Peter Tosh’s band. They were not renowned just as musicians but also as a production duo and, as Tom Tom Club put it in “Genius of Love,” they helped expand the boundaries of reggae, and pop music.

Sly & Robbie were at the core of the house band for Chris Blackwell’s famed Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas where they played on countless records, often uncredited. Over the years they contributed to Grace Jones, Black Uhuru, Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Marcia Griffiths, Althea & Donna, The Rolling Stones, Joan Armatrading, No Doubt, Robert Palmer, Sister Nancy, Chaka Demus & Pliers, The Tamlins, The Mighty Diamonds, Culture, Gregory Isaacs, Sugar Minott, Sinead O’Connor, and so many more.

Rest easy, Sly. Listen to some of the songs Sly & Robbie played on below.

Robbie Shakespeare died in 2021.