Responsible for the birth of reggae and dub music, Lee “Scratch” Perry has achieved many things in his life, but making a video isn’t one of them. At the age of 72 The Upsetter returns to Kingston on a search for the city’s finest pum pum…

Most outsiders who come to the heart of Trench Town are usually looking for stories about Kingston’s most famous son, Bob Marley. So it comes as a surprise to Kai, the custodian of Culture Yard, a mini Marley museum in the heart of the ghetto, when instead of asking about Bob, I ask him about his infamous producer, Mr Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Kai is not alone in being spooked out by the mythical musical madman widely credited as the inventor of reggae and dub music. Tina Blackwell, wife of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, was once awoken by a hurricane at their iconic Compass Point Studios in Nassau. She looked out of the window and saw Scratch standing in the middle of the lightning storm, wrapping a tree trunk with wire and taking Polaroids of himself. He then stuck the photos to the tree. They later found chicken's blood splattered over the studio walls.

Since 1979 he’s also encouraged the rumour that he burnt down his legendary Black Ark studio to banish all the evil “vampires” who were sucking away his money and talent. Investigators found out that the fire was actually caused by an electrical fault.

Before I arrived in Jamaica to report on his first ever music video, I had only encountered him on wax and from afar. In 1998 I saw him support the Beastie Boys and The Prodigy at Reading. Squashed in a punk schlock sandwich between Rancid and Echo & the Bunnymen, Scratch spent most of his set hopping around on one leg shouting, “Jesus was a guppy! Jesus was a Rastafari”. It was amazing. A decade later, Dazed Digital ran an interview with him to promote his Fabric live show. Our phone conversation ended with him saying, “I will tell my shit it stinks, even though it fed me when I was hungry.”

So it was with no small amount of anticipation/trepidation to actually fly over to his birthplace and meet the man. Would it be possible to separate the myths from the facts? Was he really insane? Why the hell was he shooting a video at this stage of his life?

Knocking on room 1114 of the Kingston Hilton, a hotel teeming with its fair share of reggae ghosts, I suddenly wonder who to ask for. After all this is a man with more pseudonyms than Ghostface. Jah Lion? Pipecock Jakxon? Super Ape? The Upsetter? Lee? Answering the door, his Swiss wife Mireille saves me the hassle and walks through to his bedroom. Standing by a laptop, in some natty Union Jack socks, is Scratch.

Much smaller in person than I’d imagined, the creator from the equator rubs his purple beard and agrees to sit down for a quick tête-à-tête before tomorrow’s shoot.

“Welcome to Jamaica,” the 72-year-old says in a thick patois accent. “Some people spell it wrong, but I spell it right. Jah Mek Ya! Jah Mek Ya! Jah made me. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be home.”

Scratch, when were you last in Jamaica?

I was back about a year ago. There’s an old saying: curse where you’re going but don’t curse where you’re coming from. This is one of the richest countries in the world; they have everything here – magic, science and miracles. We have powers with words. The artists here didn’t go to school. They learn what they learn from oppression. I would never say any ting bad about my country. My country has never done anything wrong, it’s just the people who have done wrong. The people have been suffering and they’ll do anything to get money. Politicians give them guns. I blame them.

You’ve lived in Zurich since 1989. What do you miss about Kingston?

I don’t miss the beggars and killers. I didn’t really have to run away but if I tell people what it’s all about they think I’m crazy, that I’m a sicko. If I arrive at Kingston airport I’ll see maybe 100 or more beggars out there, and they all know me. I have to spend at least £500 to support the resident’s income in Trench Town. People in Kingston know me as the emancipator. ‘Who is that man? It’s the man you’ve seen on TV, Lee Scratch Perry!’ I moved country so people couldn’t beg me; I don’t have anything to give.

Some people think you moved away because you went mad.

People think I am complicated because they don’t understand who I am or how to deal with me. I am something like nature sir. I put nature together to make music happen. People say that I took coke or something like that. But it’s just their imagination. The only thing I did was smoke too much herb. I drank too much rum and wine. I have never taken cocaine yet. Never.

Do you still smoke sensimilla?

I’ve stopped smoking. I had enough. If you overdo your lungs, you pick up other diseases. Bob smoked too many cigarettes. I stopped smoking maybe 10 years ago. I stopped drinking alcohol. Red wine was my favourite. I put them all away. I just asked myself, ‘Do you have to smoke and drink? Because if you have to drink and smoke, it won’t be you singing, it will be the drink and smoke singing.’ It wasn’t those things that made me a star. I repented. After you repent you have eternal life. And you don’t grow any older or any colder. You won’t even feel any pain after you repent.

During the Black Ark era, how many joints were you smoking?

Not less than 50 spliff a day. From the morning until the night. Very large spliffs.

Did your music get better when you smoked more?

Well, when me make music, me go into the studio at 5 o’clock in the morning and put the tracks together for the artist who’s coming in. By the time the artist come in and do the work me don’t stop till five o’clock the next night. Sometime me don’t even eat anything. I had my white rum, my red and white wine, and my machine. That’s why people think that I was crazy, but I wasn’t crazy I was just smoking too much and paying less attention to myself.

Bob? Well, Bob was very much a great guy. And he was a simple person until Bunny Wailers inject him with some bad vibrations. Bunny Wailers had a terrible grudge. His expectation was to be a star and he thought he could be a star over Bob, but it didn’t work. Somebody told Bob that I was ripping him off, but me were not ripping him off. I just told him he had to pay to promote himself in America. There was no MTV back then. Then he started to change a little, but Bob himself was a good spirit.

Is that what caused the breakdown in your relationship?

That caused a little change between him and me. In the studio if you tell Bob ‘This is it’, he didn’t go into the can and do anything different. He do exactly what you say. And because he believes in the ting that you say he sees it makes sense. He was, to me, a good honest decent boy. My mother loved him like her own son. He was something special.

Okay, so tell me about the video shoot tomorrow, what’s the song about?

It’s for my song “Pum Pum”. When you find a girl and you’re getting a good vibration when it comes to sex, most men will say ‘Jesus Christ’. If the girl doesn’t say ‘Jesus Christ’ then you can’t cum. It’s all about having a nice time. I don’t blaspheme, my dick is named Jesus Christ. Every time my dick go into the pum pum she has to say ‘Jesus Christ’. If she doesn’t say it then she must say ‘Jesus Christ’ when she cums.

Wow. Is that your personal rule?

It’s a reality.

Every time you make love?

Ya. When she’s cumming she must say ‘Jesus Christ’. The steam go like a bom exploshaaan. Ka Boom! Bom energy. On my cocky. On her titty. But it’s not all about a sexual point of view. It’s also about music and culture. When you play the cymbal it goes titty titty titty titty titty titty titty titty. When you play the bass it goes pum pum pum. When you put it together you get titty titty pum pum, titty titty pum pum, titty titty pum pum…

How many children have got Scratch?

Five. Maybe six.

An hour later, I meet the extraterrestrial vegetarian, his wife, PR and the Germans in the hotel lobby and take them to Caribbean Fashion Week. Within minutes of walking into the sports arena, he’s mobbed by locals wanting to get a snap with him. Even Lady Saw and Eve jostle up for a hug. Noticing the ruckus, a voice announces his entrance and Scratch strides onto the catwalk arms raised above his head, waving at a crowd who are sniggering as much as they are whooping. After watching a few designer collections, the Perrys go outside for some air.

Walking up to a nearby palm tree, Scratch wraps himself in its leaves. At least there’s no lightning involved this time. In the background his wife digs through her handbag, which is stuffed full of pre-rolled reefers. “I hate hash! Where are the other ones? That’s the trouble with not rolling them yourself, I never know what I’m smoking…”

Minutes later he’s called to a private booth upstairs. Director Jay Will pulls in a dancer with considerable jelly in the trunk to do a dutty wine infront of him. Scratch tried his best to lip synch the lyrics, but his mind appears to be somewhere else …

“…Going to a nightclub in New York City / Going to a nightclub in New York City / To find some Pum Pum, find my titty / To find some Pum Pum, find my titty / Pum Pum come and Pum Pum go but Jesus Christ remains…”

Twenty-four hours later and the action has moved onto a street dance in the centre of Kingston. The diminutive local legend walks towards the dancefloor through bewildered gangs of roughnecks and dancehall queens who are more used to shaking their asses to the likes of Mavado and Bounty Killer. As “Pum Pum” comes on for the final time, Scratch raps along while heavily tattooed dancers touch their toes infront of him. He looks tired and slightly confused, as do the girls, who have been dancing for the better part of two days. It’s doubtful that the video will reach the same artistic heights as the rest of his boundary breaking 40-year career, but at this stage of his life, that seems a moot point.

As we get back to the hotel, a mischievous glint comes across The Upsetter’s old, but lively eyes. He says goodbye and strides off the elevator back towards room 1114. An hour later, as I take one last look at Kingston from my balcony, I hear someone shouting a few floors beneath me. It sounds like a woman screaming “Jesus Christ!” at the top of her lungs. Or maybe that’s just another myth in the making.

Text & Photography © Tim Noakes 2008