Steely & Clevie: The Beatmakers Who Changed Reggae Forever

A One-Hour Mix Celebrating the Legendary Duo Behind Dancehall's Digital Revolution

Dubmatix

Jul 04, 2025

Transcript

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Who Were Steely & Clevie?

Wycliffe "Steely" Johnson (1959–2009) and Cleveland "Clevie" Browne (b. 1953) were a groundbreaking Jamaican production and rhythm duo who helped usher in the digital era of dancehall reggae. Their pioneering work in the 1980s and 1990s laid the foundation for modern reggae, dancehall, and even reggaeton.

Steely: A classically trained keyboardist who debuted with Sugar Minott's Youth Promotion collective in the 1970s. He played keys on Minott's 1978 album Ghetto-ology. Known for his melodic synth work and signature basslines.
Clevie: A skilled drummer who was one of the first to pioneer drum machines in reggae. He had roots in Studio One and played with The In Crowd.

The two met and first played together at Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark Studios in the late 1970s. In 1986, they became the house band for King Jammy's studio, where they played a pivotal role in driving the digital revolution in Jamaican music.

Steely & Clevie worked with nearly every major reggae and dancehall artist from the 1980s through the 2000s:

Studio & Label Affiliations

Studios: Early work came from Tuff Gong, Mixing Lab, Black Ark, King Jammy's, and Anchor Studios in Kingston. They eventually built their own digital studio.
Label: In 1987, they formed the Steely & Clevie label, which became a significant platform for digital riddims and dub-infused production. This was the same year digital reggae began heavily influencing Bronx hip-hop production by artists like Ced Gee and KRS-One.
Worked with international and crossover acts such as The Specials, Billy Ocean, and No Doubt.

They also collaborated with top-tier producers like Bobby Digital, King Jammy, and Donovan Germain.

This is the machine that kicked off the dancehall revolution, the Oberheim DMX

Steely & Clevie laid the blueprint for digital reggae and modern dancehall. Their innovations in rhythm sequencing, MIDI drum programming, and sampling gave rise to an entire generation of producers. Sadly, Steely passed away in 2009, but their legacy lives on in countless tracks, remixes, and riddims still in rotation today.