Max Romeo, reggae legend, dead at 80

Reggae legend Max Romeo died on Friday in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica after heart complications. He was 80. The news was shared on his Facebook” “It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Max. We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of love and tributes, and kindly ask for privacy at this time. Legends never die.”

Born in 1944 in Saint James Parish, Max moved to Kingston to start a music career when he was 18 and was part of group The Emotions in the mid-’60s. His solo career took off in 1968 with his single “Wet Dream,” a song that was laden with not-so-subtle innuendo that gave him his first UK Top 10 hit despite the song being banned on BBC radio. While known for those sexually charged songs, Romeo also was also politically active, and his song “Let the Power Fall” was used as a theme song for the socialist People’s National party in the 1972 Jamaica elections.

In the mid-’70s, Max Romeo teamed up with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and, backed by The Upsetters, released 1975’s Revelation Time (featuring classic single “Three Blind Mice”) and then 1976’s War Inna Babylon which includes the title track and “Chase the Devil” which has been sampled by everyone from The Prodigy to Jay-Z and Cage the Elephant. In the late ’70s Max moved to NYC where he wrote and starred in Broadway musical Reggae.

Rest easy, Max