Cousins worked for the Jamaican Post Office for many years after he left school, and had formed his first vocal group in 1962, to attend the Junior Festival Competition. This soon folded, but he returned with the Tamoki label in 1972 and the Wambesi label in 1974. In June 1977, Cousins left his Post Office job to concentrate full-time on music, resulting in 1978's
Pick Up The Pieces album, a collection of tracks from Royals 1970s singles, which is now considered one of the great reggae albums. Its success led to a contract with Ballistic Records, licensed to
United Artists, with two further Royals albums following. Cousins-produced
dub albums also appeared (
Freedom Fighters Dub and
Liberated Dub). In 1979,
cataracts almost led to Cousins losing his sight. After recovering, Cousins began to concentrate on production, introducing the
dancehall deejay Charlie Chaplin, as well as releasing a series of LPs and
roots reggae vocal and dub
Discomixes, producing artists such as
Cornell Campbell's 45,
Jah Give us Love in the Morning,
Earl Sixteen, Naggo "Dolphin" Morris (also of
The Heptones), and
The Meditations with tracks such as "Stranger in Love" and "Unity". These releases were mostly backed by
The Roots Radics and engineered by
Scientist, with The Royals' "If You Want Good" and the Dove label
Junior Reid 45 release "Oh Happy Day", in demand on
Jah Shaka and
Lloyd Coxsone sound systems in the UK. Cousins produced Prince Far I's final album in 1983,
Umkhonto We Sizwe, the
chanter being fatally shot before it was finished. This prompted Cousins to emigrate to
Liverpool, England, where he set up a record shop, Cousins Cove, and continues to release records on his Tamoki-Wambesi and Dove labels, both from his back-catalogue, and new recordings of visiting Jamaican artists. Another Cousins-produced track from this era is "Skanky Producer" which featured Charlie Chaplin and
Black Uhuru singers
Don Carlos and
Junior Reid. ==References==