Derrick “Duckie” Simpson , born June 24, 1950 in Kingston , Jamaica , is a Jamaican reggae singer . He was one of the founders of the reggae band Black Uhuru , who received reggae history’s first grammy in 1985. Duckie Simpson has almost always been in some of the Black Uhurus’s different constellations over the years, but has remained in the background and been the band’s “anchor” while others have taken the places as a lead singer.

Black Uhuru was founded by vocalists Simpson, Ervin “Don Carlos” Spencer and Rudolph “Garth” Dennis in the late 1960s. Everyone was raised in the slum district of Waterhouse in Kingston’s inner city. At the end of the 1970s, Don Carlos and Garth Dennis had been replaced by the talented Michael Rose (First Vocalist), also from the Waterhouse, and the American Sandra “Puma” Jones . The drummer Sly Dunbar and the bassist Robbie Shakespeareresponded to production and new, creative grips, and the band lifted and became the world’s leading reggae band in the years 1983-85. The album Anthem was released in an original version in 1983, blended for an American and European audience in 1984, and it was this remixed version that received the Grammy Award for this year’s best reggae album.

In 1985, Michael Rose left Black Uhuru for a solo career and was replaced by Junior Reid , and Puma Jones died of breast cancer in 1989. In 1990, Simpson took in the two original members Spencer and Dennis for a new constellation.