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Tricky, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, The Mad Professor: Meltdown Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London

David Stubbs, The Wire, August 2003

ON PAPER, what a line-up, what a dub melding of nonconformist minds: The Mad Professor (aka Neil Fraser), who through his remixes of Primal Scream and Massive Attack has done more than anyone to popularise, amplify and expand the principles of dub reggae in the UK in recent years. Tricky, whose moment of epiphany occurred when he realised that to discover himself and his potential he was going to have to give up the security of running with his Bristol crew and make his own footsteps. And the legendary Lee 'Scratch' Perry, whose untamed, invaluable experiments in dub at his Black Ark Studios in Kingston came at the cost of his own sanity; but who has survived, sufficiently intact to curate the Royal Festival Hall's annual Meltdown festival this year.

Total word count of piece: 481

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