Singer and producer Yabby You died in the night of 12 to 13 January 2010 of a ruptured aneurysm. He would have turned 60 this year. With his death, reggae roots loses another prolific contributor.
Yabby You (real name Vivian Jackson) began his career in the late sixties on a sign from heaven: a child of the ghetto and a committed Rasta with a particularly ascetic lifestyle, Yabby You said the melody of Conquering lion was inspired in him by a thunderstorm (after a theological dispute with other Rastas). It took him more than two years to turn this revelation, whose chorus gave him his nickname, into a song, for lack of money and because of his fragile health. He could only press 100 copies of Conquering lion in 1972, even though the song had been ready for over a year, and despite the musicians having agreed to record for free.
The track was successful enough to allow Yabby You to produce himself, then to set up his label Prophets in 1974.
Having also become a producer, Yabby You introduced several singers and deejays who voiced his riddims: Big Youth, Trinity (the album "Shanty town determination") but also Jah Stitch, Dillinger and Half-Pint. Michael Prophet, Tommy McCook, Michael Rose, Willi Williams and Tony Tuff also passed through his hands…
The English label Blood and Fire had paid tribute to his work with the superb "Jesus Dread" and reissued the album "Deliver me from my ennemies" in 2006.
Another peculiarity of Yabby You was his unorthodox Rastafarianism, venerating Jesus rather than Haile Selassie (hence that founding dispute).
He was last seen, frail, at Ja'Sound in 2005, for a landmark concert. Sadly, he had known health problems and hospital stays since his youth.