Guns Don't Argue - The Anthology 1970-77

Though U-Roy may justly deserve his title of “The Originator” for being the first Jamaican performer to elevate the art of toasting or deejaying to a new level of popularity, few other early deejays possessed the stylish flair and effortless confidence of Dennis “Alcapone” Smith. His charisma and popularity attracted the attention of Keith Hudson, among the first Jamaican producers to make a serious attempt at capturing the mercurial art of deejaying on record. The tracks that Alcapone and Hudson cut together, such as “Spanish Amigo” and “Shades of Hudson,” are stone classics that established the enduring Alcapone persona—part rude boy, part clotheshorse, and part poet—that would be a template for countless other deejays in the decades to come. The sterling Dennis Alcapone anthology Guns Don’t Argue collects these early Hudson-produced singles, as well as a slew of classic tracks that the great deejay cut with producers like Duke Reid, Lee Perry, and Coxsone Dodd between 1970 and 1977. Simply put: these are positively seminal recordings that give listeners a thrilling glimpse into the birth of Jamaican deejay culture.