Wuk affa mi gully bop biography

For decades, Jamaican music has produced rags to riches stories unlike anywhere else. From reggae icons like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh to scores of dancehall contemporaries, Jamaican artists have escaped the grips of extreme poverty to find global influence and fame with tirelessly unique styles and sounds.

The latest artist to storm the scene is Gully Bop, who was all over the radio on the island weeks after an amateur video of him freestyling went viral—think dancehall's answer to Bobby Shmurda's "Hot Nigga." But a few things set him apart: Gully Bop is 50 years old, and was rumored to be a drug addict, mentally ill, and homeless.

Bop's earliest looks were two jagged, cellphone videos uploaded to Facebook, featuring a disheveled man in rags freestyling a cappella, with a quick-lipped flow that recalled formative deejays like Ninja Man and Shabba Ranks.

Soon, local DJs ripped the audio and laid Bop's a cappellas over clean riddims that mimicked the minimalist, lyric-driven '80s