Ranking Dread - Kunta Kinte Roots (Vinyl)

Text below from chapters in the book 'Ruthless - The Global Rise Of The Yardies', the book on Yardie violence by Geoff Small.

Ranking Dread, sometimes spelt as Rankin’ Dread, is thought to have first entered Britain in 1978 where he soon became a fixture at the Four Aces Club in Dalston, east London. Lloyd Coxsone, operator of the Sir Coxsone sound system, was the club owner and gave Ranking Dread a spot as a DJ. His first experiences as a deejay earning recognition were with the Ray Symbolic sound system in Jamaica in the 1970s before moving to London. He released his first album, Girls Fiesta, in 1978 and in 1980 released a popular single ‘Fatty Boom Boom’, however, his recording career was over soon after.

Ranking Dread was born as Winston Brown in 1955 although he was also known by up to twenty aliases including Robert Blackwood, Michael Dicks, Errol Codling and Boyark, or Bowyark. By 1987 Scotland Yard and the National Drugs Intelligence Unit (NDIU) had gathered intelligence files on ‘Yardie mobsters’ in Britain who they believed were out to control ‘West Indian’ crime. Among their hit list was Ranking Dread who they believed to be involved in drugs, prostitution, and gangland murders. It is thought that Ranking Dread left Jamaica as a fugitive, wanted for questioning in connection with a string of crimes which included the shootings of four police officers.

In Jamaica he’d reportedly been an enforcer under JLP (Jamaican Labour Party) don Claude Massop who led a posse in the ‘garrisons’ around Rema, Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town in Kingston, Jamaica. Massop’s JLP aligned group would later become known as the Shower Posse and Ranking Dreads alias of Boyark was linked to the killings of at least 29 drug dealing rivals aligned with PNP (People’s National Party) posses. After jumping bail for one of the police officer shootings he fled to London under the name of Errol Codling in 1978 and after authorities failed to extradite him from Britain a year later, he set up base from an address in Darenth Road, Stamford Hill.

Ranking Dread became a recognised name and face across Black London including Stoke Newington, Clapton, Brixton and Peckham. He also moved throughout Britain and abroad, having set up networks in Nottingham and New York. In fact, Ranking Dread was deported from the United States in 1983 after receiving a conviction for possession of cannabis. From his base in Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington in north London Ranking Dread established a drinking club, a prostitution network, and through armed robbery funded a series of shipments of cannabis to both Britain and the United States.

In 1986 Ranking Dread became Scotland Yard’s number one suspect in the murder of Nigerian drug dealer Innocent Egbulefu who was thrown out of the window of a high-rise flat in Islington, eight floors at a height of ninety feet.

Source: Discogs