Secrets of the Black Ark Studio Revealed

Lee “Scratch” Perry built The Black Ark recording studio in 1973 behind his family’s home in the Washington Gardens neighborhood of Kingston. Although the space was cramped and the equipment hardly state of the art, Perry conjured magic from his low-tech gear, layig down otherworldly tracks with his shape-shifting in-house rhythm section The Upsetters. Scratch claimed The Black Ark could make more than just music. “It produce rain, whirlwind, hurricane, tidal wave, lightning, thunder, hailstone, earthquake,” Sratch explained to filmmaker Reshma B. “And it preserve life and it kill. It cripple, it cramp, and paralyze.”
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