Acclaimed reggae documentary to make NYC premiere at Bronx Music Hall
On Feb. 1, the newly-opened Bronx Music Hall will host the New York City premiere of the 2019 documentary, “Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes,” which chronicles the roots of the genre beginning from a family-owned record store in Kingston, Jamaica.
The late legendary producer Quincy Jones called “Studio 17” one of his favorite documentaries at the time. “It’s documentaries like this that bring us closer to the music,” said Jones via Forbes.
The film traces the beginnings of a used record store called Randy’s, founded by a Chinese-Jamaican couple in downtown Kingston in the early 1960s. The store evolved into a recording studio and starting base for poor but up-and-coming reggae artists including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown.