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Culture singer Joseph Hill dies
At a tour stop in Berlin, 57-year-old reggae veteran suddenly fell ill and collapsed outside his tour bus.
Joseph Hill, the lead singer for the influential Jamaican roots reggae band Culture, suddenly fell ill on Saturday and died, according to the band's Web site. He was 57.
Culture (Hill at right).
Hill and Culture were in the middle of a European tour when Hill collapsed outside the band's tour bus in Berlin, Germany. Initial reports focused on liver failure as the cause of death, but the band is citing an "unknown illness."
Despite a career that spanned three decades and influenced scores of bands in both the roots reggae and punk rock scenes, Culture remained an active recording and touring band. The band's most recent album, 2003's World Peace, was its 30th album of original material. Prior to its current European tour, which will continue on with Hill's son Kenyata taking on lead vocals as a tribute to his father, Culture had performed at the Bob Marley 61st Birthday Celebration in Ghana and Reggae Sunsplash 2006.
"He was truly among the greats when it comes to reggae music," reggae singer Ken Boothe told the Jamaican Star newspaper. "The music has lost a stalwart. Culture made a great contribution to the development of reggae music."
Born in the rural Jamaican parish of St. Catherine in 1949, Hill began his musical career in the late 1960s as a percussionist in the Soul Defenders, an instrumental reggae band that backed the likes of Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Alton Ellis, Freddy McKay, The Heptones, and The Abyssinians. With his cousin Albert Walker and a third singer, Kenneth Dayes, Hill formed the African Disciples in 1976 and quickly changed the name of the band to Culture.
One year later, Culture released its seminal record, Two Sevens Clash, an album centered on the prediction by Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey that great social change and chaos would come on July 7, 1977, the day that the "sevens" met. The album and title track contained a slew of militant and apocalyptic imagery, and became a great influence on punk bands like the Clash. The Jamaican government called for a state of emergency that year in anticipation of upheaval related to the reference.
In 2002, Rolling Stone included Two Sevens Clash on its list of the "50 Coolest Records."
Over a 27-year-songwriting career, Hill penned Culture's best-known songs, including "Two Sevens Clash," "Natty Never Get Weary," "This Train," "International Herb," and "I'm Not Ashamed."
In 2005, Hill, a devout Rastafarian, was honored by the Jamaican government for his contribution to the island nation's culture with the Independence Award, presented by the Prime Minister of Jamaica. Radio Jamaica called Hill "one of the founding fathers of black consciousness."
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