420 Celebration With Pato Banton

Patrick Murray, Birmingham, England. Murray’s unusual stage name came from the Jamaican patois for ‘wise owl’ (Pato) and disc jockey slang for a ‘heavyweight DJ’ (Banton). He first came to the public’s attention in 1982 on the Beat’s Special Beat Service album, duelling with Ranking Roger on ‘Pato And Roger A Go Talk’, before releases on the Fashion Records and Don Christie labels.

His debut single, ‘Hello Tosh’, was a novelty take on the Toshiba advertising campaign of 1985. His first long-playing effort saw him paired with the wizardry of the Mad Professor, a combination to which he would return four years later for the Recaptured set. On his solo debut Banton was backed by the Birmingham-based Studio 2 house band.

Throughout, he coloured his Rasta toasting/dub with comic impersonations of the characters populating his songs. Since then, his records have leaned progressively towards pop and soul, blurring the dividing lines between Jamaican toasting and American rap. For 1990’s Wize Up!, which contained an unlikely alternative radio hit in his cover version of the Police’s ‘Spirits In The Material World’, Banton was joined by David Hinds of Steel Pulse.