About Yellowman
Winston Foster OD, or 15 January 1959) better known by the stage name Yellowman and also known as King Yellowman, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay. He first became popular in Jamaica in the 1980s, rising to prominence with a series of singles that established his reputation.
Yellowman is considered to be one of the genre's pioneers and has been credited with "almost single-handedly the coarse, crude and fearlessly direct sound of today's dancehall." Spearheading the first generation of dancehall deejays, he brought the genre to an international audience.
Winston Foster was abandoned by his parents and grew up in the Maxfield Children's Home and the Catholic orphanage Alpha Boys School in Kingston, the latter known for its musical alumni. He was shunned due to having albinism, which was not typically socially accepted in Jamaica. In the late 1970s Yellowman first gained wide attention when he finished second to Nadine Sutherland in the 1978 Tastee Talent Contest, a competition he would go on to win in the following year's edition, launching his professional career. Like many Jamaican deejays, he honed his talents by frequently performing at outdoor sound-system dances, prominently with Aces International. He had success as a recording artist, working with producer Henry "Junjo" Lawes during the early 1980s. In 1981, after becoming popular throughout Jamaica, Yellowman became the first dancehall artist to be signed to a major American label .
His first studio album release was in 1982 entitled Mister Yellowman followed by Zungguzungguguzungguzeng in 1983 earning instant success. Yellowman's sexually explicit lyrics in popular songs such as "Mad Over Me", boasting, like other reggae singers/deejays, of his sexual prowess, earned Yellowman criticism in the mid-1980s. In response he has proclaimed: "I never know why they call it slackness. I talk about sex, but it's just what happens behind closed doors. What I talk is reality."
During his time at Aces, Yellowman would often perform at live shows with Vernon "Fathead" Rainford, whom which he would collaborate in some studio releases over the following years. Overall, the 1980s were Yellowman's most productive decade, going on to release around twenty albums under different labels, such as Mister Yellowman, Duppy or Gunman, Bad Boy Skanking, Zungguzungguguzungguzeng, among others.
Yellowman appeared in Jamaican Dancehall Volcano Hi-power 1983 which featured other major dancehall musicians such as Massive Dread, Josey Wales, Burro Banton and Eek-A-Mouse. His 1984 release and debut under the Columbia label proper, King Yellowman, was met with negative reception and proved a commercial failure. Yellowman was persuaded to incorporate elements from rhythm and blues and disco which did not please international dancehall fans. Ultimately, CBS dropped Yellowman, who returned to his classic riddims and slackness, and his career quickly recovered.
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