Henry
Henry grew up in the 70s with reggae and dub on constant rotation at home, where the sounds of Big Youth, Dillinger and King Tubby were as familiar as Play School and Weetabix. Regular festival outings from a young age sparked off a love for loud music on open air sound systems, and at the age of 10, the family moved to St Paul's, Bristol where reggae was king, and the St Paul's Carnival was the highlight of the school calendar - far more important than the 11-plus exam happening around the same time.
Henry spent most of his early teens listening to pirate radio and making mixtapes to play on his ever-growing bedroom sound system, and at a time when the emerging styles of dancehall sent most reggae-lovers diving for cover behind a stack of their favourite roots LPs, the more up-tempo Jamaican imports of the late eighties and early nineties proved an irresistible side dish to the more contemplative dub, romantic lovers, or spiritual roots tunes that had ruled the previous two decades.
Growing up in St Paul's helped strengthen the conviction that he didn't have to be a Rasta or even a hippie to like reggae, but more importantly that dancehall was just as valid as any other form of Jamaican music. A trip to Nicaragua in the mid-nineties (where sound systems everywhere from school discos to remote farmhouses were blaring out just as much ragga and reggaeton as any Latin music) helped cement the idea that he didn't have to be a rudeboy to like dancehall either, and Henry carried on collecting Jamaican music in all its forms for the next 15 years.
Cherry-picking the good tunes from the vast shipments of unripe or just plain bad reggae and dancehall was an obsession that became an occupation with the formation of The Heatwave in 2003. In the same year, the need for fresh and exclusive tunes led to the acquisition of a dub-cutting lathe that now forms the basis of Dub Studio, Henry's successful dubplate business. He is mainly studio-based these days, engineering, remixing and mastering for The Heatwave, but also appearing on the Roots Radical show on Passion Radio, with occasional guest appearances at nights in Bristol and London.
