West was born to a
Jamaican father and a
Welsh mother. In the late 1980s, West formed the
group Double Trouble with Michael Menson, Karl Brown (more commonly known as the
UK garage DJ Karl 'Tuff Enuff' Brown) and Leigh Guest. These would appear shortly after on his debut album
Rebel Music. In 1991, West released his second album,
Black Meaning Good, which combined his former hip house and
pop-rap influences with radical political, spiritual consciousness and a stronger
roots reggae, dubwise and
breakbeat edge. The album featured notable reggae and
dancehall artists such as
Barrington Levy,
Tenor Fly and
Dennis Brown. His third album
Word, Sound and Power (released in 1992) represented further exploration of increasingly politicised awareness, breakbeat hardcore,
house, conscious spiritual
roots reggae, dubwise, and
hip hop, with two singles "Rich Ah Getting Richer" and "I Can't Get No Sleep" released from it. On
Word, Sound and Power Rebel MC also built tracks around samples and melodies from
Yabby You,
Lincoln Thompson and the Royal Rasses ("Humanity") and
Burning Spear's "Creation Rebel." The track "African" samples
Lloyd Coxsone’s
King of the Dub Rock part two, and
Johnny Clarke’s vocals from
Bunny Lee productions. The album track “Revolution” is largely based on
Dennis Brown’s track of the same name. Whilst West was enjoying further commercial success with "Tribal Base" featuring
Barrington Levy and
Tenor Fly, he was also experimenting with
white label releases on his X Project label. The first of these would be "Walking in the Air" (which contains samples from
The Snowman track), followed by a further five releases which by this time were
jungle. West is often noted for having popularised the term "jungle". In the book
Energy Flash by
Simon Reynolds, MC Navigator of
Kool FM is quoted as saying: "Rebel got this chant - 'all the junglists' - from a yard-tape" (referring to the
sound system tapes from
Kingston, Jamaica). "When Rebel sampled that, the people cottoned on, and soon they started to call the music 'jungle'". In 1994, West converted to
Rastafari. As Conquering Lion, he would release a classic jungle track "Code Red", with vocals from
Super Cat. This was picked up for major release by
Mango Records, a
subsidiary of
Island Records, which was followed by "Champion DJ" (featuring Top Cat) and "Junglist" (featuring Peter Bouncer), both released on his Congo Natty label that would be prolific in the mid-1990s to early 2000s. In 2013, West returned with the album
Jungle Revolution, featuring
Jah Shaka's son, Young Warrior,
General Levy, Top Cat,
Tippa Irie,
Tenor Fly, and Nãnci Correia. ==Discography==