5. “Nuff Man A Dead”
Don’t doubt the line “I have a bed and a sleep pan the floor” as Super Cat is obsessed with self preservation and haunted by the killing of many friends and musical colleagues especially his good friends, singer Tenor Saw and DJ Louie Lepke while in they were in the USA. Living what he preached, Super Cat did get himself a legal gun when he moved to New York and ended up shooting and killing Singer Nitty Gritty in self defense. An instant hit in Jamaica and the NY reggae scene, this was one of the songs that helped Super Cat to cross over into the New York hip-hop scene and brought him to the attention of Columbia Records. Brooklyn rapper Sean Price of Heltah Skeltah would later pay tribute to the track, borrowing Cat’s delivery on the intro to “Sean Price” from 1996’s Nocturnal. —Sherman Escoffery