Musical Youth’s Drummer Frederick Waite Jr Dead At 55

Tributes have been flowing in following the death of Frederick Waite Jr., former drummer of British Reggae band Musical Youth.

The 55-year-old’s death was announced on Twitter last Wednesday by his former band members, who described him as a “musical legend” who “inspired many young musicians”.

“We are sad to announce the passing of Musical Youth’s drummer Frederick Waite Jr. Our thoughts go out to him and his family during this sad time. We have lost a musical legend, who inspired many young musicians over the last 40 years. Rest in Eternal Peace,” they wrote.

Waite passed away almost one month ago, on July 20, in Birmingham, according to a city council notice.  No cause of death was reported.

Musical Youth was formed in 1979 as an all-boy band, with members Dennis Seaton, Michael Grant, Kelvin Grant, Mr Waite Jr and Patrick Waite.  The members were between the ages of 11 and 15 when their hit song Pass The Dutchie was released in September 1982.

The track, which went on to sell more than five million copies worldwide, was a cover of the Mighty Diamond’s 1981 hit song Pass the Kutchie and recently made a comeback after it was used in Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 4.

According to the BBC, band member Dennis Seaton said that Waite, as a youth could have been classed as the “best drummer in the world for his age”, noting that he “led the band with commitment and hard work”.

While Musical Youth rose to global stardom with the cover of Pass the Kutchie, it was not without controversy, as it was plagued by issues of royalties and publishing ownership.

In 2012, the Guardian reported that the ex-members of the child reggae band, “that hit the heights with a song about a stewing pot 30 years ago”, had lost a legal battle with their former lawyers, as a high court judge had ruled in favour of partners in the law firm Woolf Seddon, which no longer exists, declaring that their case “had no merit”.

According to that report, members of Musical Youth had claimed that solicitors gave them bad advice about the royalty money they might make from Pass The Dutchie.

The ex-members had begun legal proceedings in 2004 claiming that solicitor Tony Seddon – and other partners in Woolf Seddon – had “been in serious breach of their duties” by failing to “protect a distinct copyright” held by Musical Youth.

They had also argued that Pass The Dutchie was a “sufficiently original work to attract distinct copyright even though it was an arrangement of Pass The Kutchie” and that Woolf Seddon was in breach of duties because lawyers had failed to protect that distinct copyright by agreeing to a division of publishing royalties on the basis that the two songs were subject to the same copyright.

However, the judge had ruled that Pass The Dutchie was an adaptation of Pass The Kutchie recorded by the Jamaican group The Mighty Diamonds.

In a footnote to his written ruling, the judge had explained that “Kutchie” was Jamaican slang for a “pot in which marijuana is kept” while “Dutchie” was the Patois name for “Dutch stewing pot”.

The judge had stated in his summation that Musical Youth, “enjoyed a short but spectacular success in the early 1980s” and that Pass The Dutchie, which was “released in September 1982, became the fastest-selling British single of that year and sold over 100,000 copies in one day”. 

He also noted that by 1985 there was dissension between the members of the band following which several of the members left “and not long afterwards Musical Youth broke up”.

As for the original Mighty Diamonds’ Pass the Kutchie, aside from Musical Youth, it has been sampled by many other artists, including Lauryn Hill, Michael Franti and Wyclef Jean, and was also used in the Scooby Doo movie.

Pass the Kutchie, which was produced by legendary producer Gussie Clarke, also appeared on Billboard’s 20 Smokin’ Songs about Weed list In April 2012.  At the time of its release, the track stayed on the Jamaican chart for 52 weeks.

Last year, Judge Diamond had said that even though he was proud of the impact of Pass the Kutchie, the success had been almost marred by issues of unpaid royalties and publishing, and plagued by the actions of greedy persons in the global music industry.

Judge had said that the publishing rights were to have been spilt 50/50 between his group and the musicians who did the Full Up riddim, but that attorneys and “persons from overseas got involved and eventually the Mighty Diamonds signed their publishing with a company out of France that advanced them US$17,000, and were never heard from again.

In 2014, Gussie Clarke, in an interview with United Reggae, explained that the song had come about after he decided to “lick over” a Studio One riddim and give it to the Diamonds to write a song.   The use of that riddim, he had said, “made the copyright very confusing” and with The Mighty Diamonds themselves saying “there were too many cooks involved”. 

He had also said that he had never interacted with Musical Youth or anyone having anything to do with them, as they were “dealing with the Diamonds because basically it was a copyright issue”.

Clarke had also said that following the shenanigans with the royalties and copyright issues associated with the song, he decided that going forward he would ensure he understood “this whole matter of copyright” and ensure he and his artistes have controlling interests in respect of copyright, while he had “created all of this from concept”, he realised that “everybody is going to make some money and I won’t be party to it”.