“I love interaction with souls; they’re like walking paintings. I don’t just look at a painting; I go inside it and sleep there.”
You don’t simply interview reggae originator Lee “Scratch” Perry. You lob a question into the air and then step back and absorb the rhyming, ripened modules of thought he bounces back your way. The man tutored Bob Marley, for Christ’s sake. He also invented dub. Conversing with him is like standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, or shining a flashlight on Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer. Only from a distance can you begin to take in the scope of his work. Throughout the 70-some albums to his credit, the 79-year-old Perry has explored many anomalous producing techniques. He’s doused tape with blood, urine, and whiskey to bring out the fidelity of the spirits within the recorded sounds…
