About this item

Bunny Lee’s "flying cymbals" or "flyers rhythms" dominated the dancehalls and the charts during 1974 and 1975. The style, based on Philadelphia disco or the "Philly Bump", the sound of an open and closed hi-hat was not necessarily novel but Striker’s innovations of bringing a number of different elements into play most certainly was. Johnny Clarke’s interpretation of Earl Zero’s ‘None Shall Escape the Judgement’ not only opens this set but also opened the floodgates for the flyers style.

The story had begun the previous year with Lowell ’Sly’ Dunbar: "Sly played the flying cymbals first... I said to him that he played it on the Delroy Wilson tune for Channel One named ‘It’s a Shame’ and he also played it before that with Skin, Flesh & Bones on ‘Here I am Baby Come And Take Me’ the Al Green tune, when Al Brown sung it for Dickie Wong with the ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ sound on the hi-hat. I named it "flyers" but they didn’t know what flyers was!!!” - Bunny Striker Lee

Before too long ”Every tune we put out we put the rhythm behind it” says Lee, and every Kingston producer followed suit with their own variation of Striker’s Flying Cymbals rhythm.