Scientist is Hopeton Brown, the Kingston-born dub producer who apprenticed under King Tubby in the late 1970s and became one of dub's foundational figures alongside Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry. His early-'80s Greensleeves run — Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires, Scientist Wins the World Cup — is the place to start. Shop Scientist vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Hopeton Brown, performing as Scientist, was born in Kingston, Jamaica on April 18, 1960. He launched his recording career in the late 1970s as an apprentice to King Tubby (Osbourne Ruddock) at the foundational Kingston dub studio - the foundational location for the development of dub music as a recognized genre. He is widely cited as one of the most important figures in the foundational dub music tradition alongside King Tubby (his mentor) and Lee Scratch Perry, with influence on the contemporary dub revival and broader contemporary electronic music. His Greensleeves Records catalog of the early-to-mid 1980s - featuring sci-fi and horror-themed cover art and conceptual dub albums - has been influential. His dub mixing of Roots Radics rhythm tracks established the foundational template for contemporary dub music. He has continued recording and performing across multiple decades, with recent activity in the contemporary dub revival.
Scientist's sound is foundational to dub music as a recognized genre - combining dub, reggae, roots reggae, electronic, instrumental reggae, and dancehall with virtuosic mixing-desk technique (use of echo, delay, reverb, and innovative studio production), foundational sample integration approaches, and arrangements drawing on classic Jamaican reggae traditions transformed through studio production.
Original Greensleeves Records and Kingdom Records pressings of the Scientist catalog are foundational items in dub and reggae collecting.
Listeners new to Scientist typically start with Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires (1981) or Scientist Wins the World Cup (1982).
