“I never encountered anything like the feeling of being around the Xterminator camp during the nineties.”

In over thirty years of meeting with reggae artists and musicians in the UK and Kingston, I never encountered anything like the feeling of being around the Xterminator camp during the nineties. It wasn’t just the depth of talent that owner Philip ‘Fatis’ Burrell could call upon or even the quality of his productions, but the sense of purpose he instilled in people. At times, it felt as if he and his group of largely Rasta artists had aligned themselves with a higher power – not just in their reasoning sessions, but when someone stepped to the mic and opened their heart, as well as their mouth. If you recorded for Fatis, you went into the studio empty-handed – no lyrics – and put your trust in the Almighty. That was the rule and the artists who passed through Xterminator had to really feel what they were singing or deejaying about.
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