Mad Professor

Mad Professor is the recording name of Neil Fraser, a dub and reggae producer and artist born in 1955. He is originally from Georgetown in Guyana and later moves to London at the age of thirteen. He works from his own studios and builds a reputation for using electronic equipment and studio techniques in his productions.

Background and early work

Fraser earns the Mad Professor name from his childhood interest in electronics. As a child, he builds a radio from scratch, and in 1975 he buys a semi-professional reel-to-reel tape recorder. When he cannot record in sync, he keeps adding equipment and begins experimenting with dubbing by the following year.

Recording output and collaborations

Across his career, Mad Professor oversees more than two hundred albums. He is known for dub releases and for remix work for Massive Attack, Sade and Pato Banton. His dub catalogue includes 12 parts of the Dub Me Crazy series and five albums issued under the Black Liberation Dub name.

He works with many reggae artists from the UK and Jamaica, including Jah Shaka, Pato Banton, Johnny Clarke, Lee Perry and Horace Andy. Other collaborations associated with his Ariwa catalogue include The Orb, The KLF, UB40, Jamiroquai, The Beastie Boys and Rancid.

Labels and projects

Mad Professor is associated with Ariwa and Ariwa Sounds Ltd. His musical output spans ambient dub, dub, reggae, roots reggae and lovers rock. He is also linked with Mission Control, Crazy Caribs and Madorb.

Later activity

He continues to release records and perform live internationally.