Frequent Upsetter Record Shop customer Bob Marley and his bandmates Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer (then collectively known as The Wailers) wanted to repeat the UK success of The Upsetters for their own band. When Marley discovered that The Upsetters felt like Perry had ripped them off on the profits on the UK tour, he got them to leave Perry and join The Wailers. An unamused Perry threatened Marley’s life, but in the end, they agreed to work together, with The Wailers and The Upsetters playing together and Perry with the exclusive right to produce.

Bigger Than Jamaica

I bet you smugging right now Bob Marley. Real-real, high-high pleased with you damn self cause you stole my band for free. You thieved it from me! Raided down pon what mine like a damn-dirty dirt pirate and rode Carly, Capo, Reggie and Family Man out on you merchant ship – making me Upsetters you Wailers.

Whatever.

I know why it happen. How you sneak and make you sneaky moves get made. You examine into the alphabet from A -to-Z and see L is for Lee, so L is for me and L is for light and L is for love and L is for the lord. S? Is for Scratch, S is for the sky and S is for shit and for ships. P is Perry and P is for the power and the pyramids. And I all them things. I am Lee, I am light, I am love, I am the lord, I am Scratch, I am the sky, I am shit, I am ships. I am Perry and I am the power and the pyramids!

You snout it you did, like a hog in muck, you success key. You discover Mr. Perry he is creating the African arkology and he have the facts of life and the wizzy, so why no steal from him? You want ruin me Bob Marley, but can’t be done! No nothing that make no matter can be thieved from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry stand alone on solid stone while all others do sink quick in sinking sands.

It been a long off time since I made my discovery that no human can teach me no nothing. I left school, refusing to waste my time listening. Instead I go to trees and flowers and they take me into the jungle’s mind to show I what I need know, learn I on what I need learn. From there I started playing dominoes and gained the ability to read the minds of others. This has proved eternally useful to me. It make I an alien. Being a visitor only, I carry just the one suitcase so I always ready to collect good brains. I use my brain beam, my scanning beam I send out into brains, to see if they good or no – open to the good graces or slap-down-closed. When I go into a brain and see no part of it not wasted, no part I require, I am mighty bored! But when I scan a brain and see it not wasted, that it a brain I can make to work, a brain I can use to bring forth the creation? Well I be real-real interested in it. You brain not one them brains Bob Marley. It a wasted brain. Too undered by the corruption of greed. Closed except to ambition. Which is you damn loss.

I and I am the mighty Upsetter. Which means I can pass my upsetting power to any musician and they become a Upsetter too. I now at the turntable terranova. From here I taking over. I madder than mad, redder than red, dreader than dread – dis ya one heavier than lead! When I shit my enemies cry, when I speak they soon die. Consider youself about to be shat pon Bob Marler so enjoy them breaths you taking now cause you not going to be thieving them as easy or long as you think you going to.

My cap protects me from the evils but you leave you natty dreads to fly-fly free. The Upsetting power be white magic, bring of good heat, but it turn quick the other side the moon when used by another. I gifted my band with power and you done gifted youself with them. They’ll do good for you for sometimes but time-in-time eat itself up. It’ll eat you up. From deep inside all the way to the outside, withering everything tween you bones and you skin.

You need always look out and in to see if what you are doing and what you are saying be the right or the wrong thing. You tried stop my music. My making of it. But without it everything’s dead. Long as I keep making it everything does live. Check my catalogue. Listen my songs Bob Marley. Listen to the lightning and thunder, the hailstones, brimstone and fire music. Hear how they mixed by earthquake and produced by flood. You stirred up some serious shit, angering the upsetting power that made it.

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is the first scientist to stir the reggae stew, separate its components, look at them and see what the reggae really is. Back to the truth, back to the roots, down where the truth does lie – reggae finish and diminish. It a curse! It breed and hatch the cancer. It create violence. Encourages sin deep from within. I say it no good. It’s evil. More evil than anything I ever seen. It’s the evilest music to ever come pon the planet’s face.

You need sing songs of redemption Bob Marley, the world always need more songs of freedom.

I retire now from the reggae Bob Marley. Take it! What you thieved and more. They all yours. It no act of charity by me though. I just don’t possess no exuberance for it no more. Go add it to your cursed pile and pour and stir it in to mix with your doomed brew. I mourn Carly, Capo and them. I worry pon they spiritual safety. I hope you wasted brain does not cause no waste to theirs, that they never have to get down pon they knees and beg to come back to let my upsetting light shine pon them. You be the dark of darkness Bob Marley.

Your life’d go on and end irier if you heeded my special message and warning. It say: different kind of people, I and I want just one kind of people. And people who think they different, they no different, no different from the other people. No one body pon the earth is special. There is only the grace of the one God, the one aim, the one destiny. I am the supreme creator, saying to the people “Love and truth!” is the key to eternity. So I ask them, and the rest of the universe, to stop thieving, stop telling lies, stop being hypocrites and stop being parasites. This is the voice of the master, laughing in the echo chamber. I repeat: I can break the spell and undo what the wicked have done!

Want know why I stay so happy? It because those who do want to hear my truths are attuned, erect in they posture, hearing them. And those who be hearing them keep they good brains good. They not going be wasted. They can be put to use. And those that decline the listening, who recline with they ears shuttered to The Upsetter and his teachings, like the record companies and moguls and everybody who thieves from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, will run out that money to the point of depletion and run out that good luck to the point of depletion and into that type luck that is bad-bad-bad. And that will serve you and them all right for thieving from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry sirs! I am bigger than Jamaica!

Your feets not forever going be on top the dirt, but soon deep in it with your body. So, watch them toes Bob Marley. Watch them rasclaat toes.

Duncan Paterson is a writer of things, and stand-up comedian of some of those things.