Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser (born 27 March 1955, Georgetown, Guyana) known by his stage-name Mad Professor, is a Guyanese-born British dub music producer and engineer known for his original productions and remix work.[1] He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music's second generation and was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He has collaborated with reggae artists such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, Sly and Robbie, Pato Banton, Jah Shaka and Horace Andy, as well as artists outside the realm of traditional reggae and dub, such as Sade, Massive Attack, The Orb, Gaudi, the Brazilian DJ Marcelinho da Lua, Grace Jones, and Perry Farrell.
Biography
Fraser became known as Mad Professor as a boy due to his fascination with electronics. He emigrated from Guyana to London at the age of 13 and later began his music career as a service technician. He gradually collected recording and mixing equipment and in 1979 opened his own four-track recording studio, Ariwa Sounds, in the living room of his home in Thornton Heath.[2] He began recording lovers rock bands and vocalists for his own label (including the debut recording by Deborahe Glasgow) and recorded his first album after moving the studio to a new location in Peckham in 1982, equipped with an eight-track setup, later expanding to sixteen.[2] Fraser's Dub Me Crazy series of albums won the support of John Peel, who regularly aired tracks from the albums.[2] Although early releases were not big sellers among reggae buyers, the mid-1980s saw this change with releases from Sandra Cross (Country Life), Johnny Clarke, Peter Culture, Pato Banton, and Macka B (Sign of the Times).[2] Fraser moved again, this time to South Norwood, where he set up what was the largest black-owned studio complex in the UK, where he recorded successful lovers rock tracks by Cross, John McLean, and Kofi, and attracted Jamaican artists including Bob Andy and Faybiene Miranda.[2] He teamed up with Lee "Scratch" Perry for the first time in 1983 for the recording of the album Mystic Warrior (1989).[3]
Fraser's son continues his father's musical tradition, producing dub under the alias, Joe Ariwa.
Mad Professor has released hundreds of original recordings and has worked with a number of reggae and non-reggae artists. He is perhaps best known for his 12 instalments of the Dub Me Crazy series and 5 albums under the Black Liberation Dub banner. The following is a partial discography of his original releases including collaborations with other artists and remixes.
Original recordings
1983 – In A Rub A Dub Style
1985 – A Caribbean Taste of Technology
1992 – True Born African Dub
1994 – The Lost Scrolls of Moses
1995 – It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Professor
1997 – RAS Portraits
2001 – Dubbing You Crazy
2001 – Trix in the Mix
2005 – Method to the Madness
2007 – Dub You Crazy
2008 – The Dubs That Time Forgot
2009 – Audio Illusions of Dub
2012 – The Roots of Dubstep
Dub Me Crazy series
1982 – Dub Me Crazy
1982 – Beyond The Realms of Dub (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.2)
1983 – The African Connection (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.3)
1983 – Escape to the Asylum of Dub (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.4)
1985 – Who Knows The Secret of the Master Tape (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.5)
1986 – Schizophrenic Dub (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.6)
1987 – Adventures of a Dub Sampler (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.7)
1988 – Experiments of the Aural Kind (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.8)
1989 – Science and the Witchdoctor (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.9)