Eek-a-Mouse

Eek-a-Mouse, stage name of Ripton Hylton (Kingston, Jamaica, November 19, 1957), is a Jamaican singer and one of the country's first reggae stars. He is responsible for the reggae genre known as "singjaying", and became famous for having performed more than 200 shows in one year in the United States of America, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and the West Indies. He began his career when he was in college, and released two roots reggae singles under his own name. The singles were produced by his math teacher, Mt. Dehaney. Pablo Moses was one of Eek-a-Mouse's earliest influences. He then went on to work with various sound systems over the following years and also released a few other singles.

He adopted the name "Eek-a-Mouse" in 1979, after a racehorse he always bet on. He began recording with Joe Gibbs in 1979, where he had his first big hit, "Once a Virgin", clearly influenced by Ranking Joe. Soon after, the hit "Wa-Do-Dem" - produced by Douglas Boothe - and "Modelling Queen", marked the beginning of the partnership with Linval Thompson, who also produced her debut album "Bubble Up Yu Hip". In the late 1980s he teamed up with product Henry "Junjo" Lawes, with whom he released major hits such as "Virgin Girl" and a re-recording of "Wa-do-Dem", both from 1981.

He was then the star of that year's Reggae Sunsplash festival, attracting a crowd still saddened by the recent death of icon Bob Marley. His partnership with Lawes produced good singles and albums, such as the renowned "Wild Like a Tiger", "For Hire and Removal", "Do You Remember", and "Ganja Smuggling". In the same year he released his second album "Wa-Do-Dem". The single "Operation Eradication" showed a more serious side of Eek-a-Mouse. The song was inspired by the murder of friend and companion, DJ Errol Shorter.

Further albums were released in 1983, such as "Mouse and the Man" - produced by Linval Thompson, and 1984's "Mouseketeer", produced again by Lawes. At the time, he was also featured on several dancehall live albums, including the "Aces International" and "Live at Skateland" collections.

In the second half of the decade, his popularity began to decline slightly, and he focused on the United States with the 1985 album "Assassinator", produced by Anthony and Ronald Welch. This was its first release in North American territory. In the same year, he traveled to the United Kingdom to record "The King and I", an album that focused on a more rock audience, with which he began to become interested. The 1988 album Eek-a-Nomics saw the singer begin to build his international fan base, mainly due to the dance hit "The Freak", which earned him a contract with Island Records in 1989.

Still maintaining the rock n’roll footprint, he returned to stardom in 1991 with the album “U-Neek”, which even included a version of Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er”. He spent a period out of the spotlight before returning in 1996 with the album "Black Cowboy." In 1991, he starred in a gangster film called "New Jack City", playing a Rastafarian drug dealer called Fat Smitty, who even has a tragic ending. He participated in the reggae duo called Michigan and Smiley, and also on the album "Satellite" by the nu metal band P.O.D., giving his voice to the song "Ridiculous".