VP Records to Reissue Skengdon Classics — Starting with Tenor Saw’s Posthumous Wake the Town Album

VP Records will launch a 2025 reissue series honoring the Skengdon label and its founder, Jamaican producer Kenneth “Skengdon” Black, through its 17 North Parade imprint. A key figure in the Digital Dancehall era and founder of the influential Stereo-Mars sound system with Danny Dread, Black worked with artists like Sugar Minott, Frankie Paul, Nicodemus, Little John, and Tenor Saw—whose rise was closely tied to Stereo-Mars and Black’s sharp eye for talent.

The first release, Wake The Town, is out May 23. Originally issued posthumously in 1989 and produced by Sugar Minott with Black as executive producer, the album features some of Tenor Saw’s final recordings made at SKD studio in Miami. His signature vocal style cuts through the brilliantly lo-fi musical aesthetic Skengdon is known for, backed by Roots Radics musicians and mixed by Crucial Bunny.