Also in 1993, Bounty Killer's lyrical feud with rival Beenie Man first flared up in an on-stage DJ clash possessed of similar vocal deliveries, each claimed the other as an imitator, and they took their battle to record on the 1994 clash album Guns Out. He had a breakout year in 1992 with several major hit singles, the biggest of which were "Copper Shot" (also an underground hit in New York) and the anti-informant "Spy Fi Die." Other songs from this era included "Guns Out," "New Gun," "Kill Fe Fun," "Gunshot Fi Informer," and "Lodge." Many of them appeared on Bounty Killer's debut album, Jamaica's Most Wanted, which was released in 1993 and later issued internationally under the somewhat deceptive title Roots, Reality and Culture (after a socially conscious hit from 1994). He subsequently changed his name to the fiercer and less common Bounty Killer, and accordingly ratcheted up the confrontational tone of his lyrics. Still working under the name Bounty Hunter, one of his early tunes, "Dub Fi Dub," became a huge dancehall hit as a sound system dubplate. Eventually, he met Jammy's brother Uncle T, who produced his first recordings in 1990. Meanwhile, he and his friends hung around King Jammy's recording studio, hoping to catch a break. Fortunately, he made a full recovery, and soon began performing under the name Bounty Hunter for area sound systems like Metromedia, Bodyguard, and Stereo Two. At age 14, he nearly fell victim to the gun violence he would later document so thoroughly in his music while walking home from school, he was hit by a stray bullet from a gun battle between rival political factions. His father owned a small sound system, and he first tried his hand at DJ chatting when he was only nine years old. One of nine children, he spent much of his childhood in another ghetto, Riverton City, which was built on the former city dump his family later moved to the rough Seaview Gardens area. Making his name in Jamaica during the early '90s, Bounty Killer was working extensively in hip-hop crossover territory by the end of the decade, but retained his hard edge no matter what the musical context.īounty Killer was born Rodney Price in the Kingston ghetto of Trenchtown on June 12, 1972. With such seeming contradictions in his personality, his image in Jamaica was not unlike that of 2Pac in America, though of course he was a far less tragic figure. There were many other facets to his music - condemnations of corrupt authority, collaborations with hardcore hip-hop artists, tributes to his mother, an ongoing DJ rivalry with Beenie Man - but his main persona was so dominant that many fans instantly associated him with his more violent material. Bounty Killer was one of the most aggressive dancehall stars of the '90s, a street-tough rude boy with an unrepentant flair for gun talk.
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