Words by Jesse Serwer, via The Hype Life and Shimmy Shimmy

Last summer reggae lost one of its great, and most unsung, icons in sweet-voiced Sugar Minott. Here’s how we remembered the dancehall pioneer’s life at the time. Beth Lesser, the author of books including 1989′s King Jammys and 2008′s Dancehall: The Story of Dancehall Culture, has sprung into action to correct any historical oversights with The Legend of Sugar Minott & Youth Promotion, a 212-page tome on “Sugar Booga” and his Youth Promotion soundsystem. Lesser is a longtime friend of Minott’s–she even married fellow reggae documentarian David Kingston (with whom she founded the ’80s-era reggae fanzine Live Good Today) at a Youth Promotion dance at Sugar’s house in 1986–so we can say with absolute certainty that no one was better equipped to tell this crucial story.