Beyond question one of the most important figures in Jamaican music, Big Youth elevated the practice of DJing — the Jamaican term for making spoken proclamations and exhortations over the instrumental version of a record — to an art form, paving the way for generations of DJs to come with his brash delivery, inimitable personal style and uncompromising political stance. Though pioneers such as U-Roy and King Stitt originated the practice of DJing, Big Youth was the first artist to address subject matter beyond party stoking chatter and lascivious wordplay. Over the course of his seminal full-length debut Screaming Target he paints striking portraits of Kingston’s impoverished shanty towns (“Screaming Target”), decries the violence that plagued them (“Be Careful”), and trades in colorful, old testament derived moral parables (“Solomon and Gunday”), all delivered in his trademark guttural bray, punctuated by exuberant whoops, wild ad-libs, and eccentric phrasing. What’s more, Big Youth had impeccable taste in rhythms, and the instrumentals he toasts over, Dawn Penn’s “No, No, No”, Gregory Isaacs’ “One One Cocoa”, and Horace Andy’s “Skylarking” foremost amongst them, are all classics. Trojan’s impeccable reissue of Screaming Target includes 14 bonus tracks, ranging from thunderous dub to soothing Lover’s Rock, making this set essential for aficionados and neophytes alike.