The iconic dancehall musician U-Roy has died at age 78. The DJ and vocalist known as "The Originator" had a massive impact on Jamaican music, and was also viewed as a crucial forebear to rap.

U-Roy, the influential reggae artist who specialized in the art of toasting and whose style became a key precursor in the early development of hip-hop, has died at the age of 78. The singer and ...

U-Roy – born Euwart Beckford – had been testing his skills as a DJ since the early Sixties. His initial inspiration was Count Macuki who, from the late Fifties, had performed with Tom Wong’s and ...

No history of the development of the sound system, of DJs or indigenous Jamaican popular music can be told without reference to stalwarts such as Count Machuki, King Stitt and Ewart 'U Roy' Beckford.

Ewart "U-Roy" Beckford, who transformed the Jamaican art of toasting, or deejaying, from a sound system phenomenon into a hit-making art form that deeply influenced generations of dancehall artists as ...

Legendary Jamaican vocalist U-Roy has died. He was 78. Born Ewart Beckford, he helped inspire the birth of rap in the U.S. His death on Wednesday in Kingston, Jamaica, was announced by the label ...