things and time will tell.

I'm not exactly sure why it felt so shocking a few weeks ago to hear that Robbie Shakespeare, the great Jamaican bassist, had died. Shakespeare was the "Robbie" of  Sly & Robbie  with his musical partner of four decades, drummer Sly Dunbar. The two of them were probably the most important rhythm section in the last 40 years of popular music. If you scoured the liner notes of my records, I think you'd find that the two of them played on more music that I've listen to than any other musicians. Their legendary status is not just because of tens of thousands of sides they played on, it's the influence they had over and over again as their music continued to evolve. Demand for them as backing musicians and producers expanded far beyond reggae circles starting in the early '80s and they went on to play with everyone under the sun, from Bob Dylan to KRS-ONE. Their 1980s work with Grace Jones still sounds like the future to me. They've teamed up with pop s...