and much of his best-known solo work was issued in the 1970s. Singles included "More Slavery" (released on Micron), "Creation" (Ethnic Fight), "Let Us Do Something" (Elevation), and "World Is Upside Down" (Island). His debut album, Life of Contradiction, had been recorded in 1972 for Island Records, but as Island boss Chris Blackwell felt that it would be difficult to market it remained unreleased until 1975, when it was issued by Micron Music, and has been described as "a seminally sophisticated work combining reggae, jazz, and rhythm and blues influences to create a new texture that would have a profound effect on the best Jamaican music to follow". As well as The Wailers, Higgs also helped several other singers and groups including The Wailing Souls. His second album, Unity Is Power, was released in 1979 and further singles followed on Cliff's Sunpower label and Bunny Wailer's Solominic imprint. His 1983 single "So It Go", with a lyric critical of the Jamaican government of the day was banned from airplay and led to harassment which would eventually lead to Higgs relocating to Los Angeles, where he lived for the rest of his life. Two further albums were released in the 1980s, Triumph (1985) and Family (1988), and in 1990 he recorded Blackman Know Yourself on which he was backed by the Wailers Band, and includes covers of the Marley/Lee Perry songs "Small Axe" and "Sun Is Shining". In 1995, his final album was issued, Joe and Marcia Together, a collaboration with his daughter. A majority of Higgs' songs were connected to his impoverished life in Trenchtown where he grew up. Higgs considered that it was out of the poverty and violence of Kingston's shantytowns such as Trenchtown and Johnstown that the reggae music had grown. Before reggae hit big on the western music scene with Bob Marley, it was understood as a "ghetto music". Higgs was the very first artist out the ghetto music scene to have lyrics which primarily dealt with every day troubles. In his own words: "Music is a matter of struggle. It's not good that it's known you're from Trenchtown. Reggae is a confrontation of sound. Reggae has to have that basic vibrant sound that is to be heard in the ghetto. It's like playing the drum and bass very loud. Those are the basic sounds. A classical reggae should be accepted in any part of the