Kingston Dub Club is one man's yard at 7B Skyline Drive, Jack's Hill, opened to the public on Sunday nights with a wall of speakers pointed at the lights of Kingston. It is not a club with staff and a licence desk. It is a house in a residential street, which is why it feels the way it does, and also why the police once turned up.
History
Gabre Selassie and Rockers
Gabre Selassie was born Carlyle Lee in 1969, and took the name on baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He started selecting on sound systems while still at school, playing dancehall, and moved to roots and dub after taking up Rastafari.
The important connection is Augustus Pablo. Pablo, born Horace Swaby, was a melodica player and producer who owned the Rockers International sound system and label. When Pablo did not have time to run the sound himself, Gabre Selassie ran it. He also worked on Pablo's later recordings, including the Valley of Jehoshaphat album. Pablo died in 1999. Gabre carried the sound forward as Rockers Sound Station, and Pablo's son Addis now plays at the Dub Club and carries the Rockers name.
Where the idea came from
The model is not Jamaican. Gabre Selassie visited the original Dub Club in London, running since the 1980s, in 2000, and wanted the same thing at home. His account, given to Caribbean Beat, is that travelling abroad made him realise roots reggae had gone missing in the country that invented it, and the sound he heard in a London basement did not exist in Kingston.
That is the genuinely odd fact about the place. A Jamaican brought roots reggae sound system culture back to Jamaica from England. Accounts of the start date differ, generally putting the first sessions in the early 2000s, with Skyline Drive becoming the permanent home later.
Through the 2010s the Sunday session became the meeting room for the Reggae Revival, the wave of young roots artists who pushed back against dancehall's dominance. Protoje and Chronixx aired new material there, as did Micah Shemaiah, Exile Di Brave and Addis Pablo. Older figures who had recorded with Bob Marley, including Oku Onuora and Kiddus I, became regulars. So did Usain Bolt.
The night the police came
On 23 April 2017, around 11pm, police arrived on a noise complaint from a neighbour. Jack's Hill is one of the wealthier addresses in St Andrew. Gabre Selassie was pepper sprayed, asked for his permit, and arrested when he could not produce it on the spot. Under the Noise Abatement Act of 1997, amplified sound audible more than 100 metres from the source can be shut down and the equipment seized, with cut off times of midnight on weeknights and 2am at weekends.
The reaction was loud. The Mayor of Kingston, Delroy Williams, visited him the next day and acknowledged flaws in the system, and the Culture Minister, Olivia Grange, called the arrest regrettable and said it sent the message that there are two Jamaicas. The session survived. But the venue exists inside an unresolved argument about noise, class and who gets to make sound in uptown Kingston, and that argument has never been settled.
What it costs and when it opens
Sundays only. Entry is cash at the gate, generally quoted at around J$1,500 to J$2,000, so roughly US$10 to US$13. Bring Jamaican dollars.
Published times vary a lot, from about 5pm to midnight in some listings and 8pm to 2am in others. Check their social media in the week you go, because the schedule shifts. Food has usually been available in the yard, historically ital and vegan, and there is a deck bar at the back.
What it is actually like
Open air, on a slope, with Kingston laid out below and the temperature noticeably cooler than downtown. The sound is heavy and mostly instrumental: roots, rockers and dub, played loud, with long stretches where nobody sings.
The crowd is genuinely mixed: Rastafari elders, Kingston twenty somethings, working musicians, and a steady contingent of visitors. Ganja is openly present. Jamaica made possession of up to two ounces a ticketable offence with no criminal record in 2015, and sacramental use by Rastafari at registered places of worship is provided for, but the drug is not legal and there is no lawful way for a visitor to buy it.
How it fits a day
The Dub Club is the end of a Sunday, and it only works on a Sunday. YaadBinge builds the day around it: something outdoors in daylight, an early dinner in town, then up the hill for around 7pm to catch the light going over the harbour before the yard fills.
The Bob Marley Museum is closed on Sundays, so pair the club with Hope Gardens in the morning, Devon House at midday, or a Holywell run if you want the whole day in the hills. Budget three to four hours, and do not plan an early start on Monday.
