LargeUp Exclusive: An Interview With Elusive 90s Dancehall Star Terror Fabulous

LU: Talk a little bit about your beginning with Dave Kelly and how you came to work with him.

TF: I left school in 1990 and I buck up Dave Kelly at Penthouse Studios. I slept, record and wrote in the studio. Me, Buju Wayne Wonder, Frankie Sly, Daddy Screw, Donovan Steele, Gary Minott, the whole a we you know, we were writing together.

LU: And most of those people were between Penthouse and Madhouse production, right?

TF: Yea.

LU: Your first really big song was ‘Big Man Have The Money’ on the Bogle rhythm and most people thought it was Buju Banton.

TF: Nah man it was Terror Fabulous but because Buju was hot dem time and hot right now still, so people might have mixed us up.

LU: What did Terror Fabulous bring to dancehall that was not there before he came?

TF: Just more niceness still, cause when I say ‘show me your hand,’ it means show me your gun hand or gun finger, not the real gun. Because we already know about the gun but we are not promoting that, but the gun done mek already, so if we can turn it into fun and make them leave the gun, it’s a good thing. Nothing really new, just more niceness, more understanding, more Rasta vibe, a Fabulous thing.