Scientist (musician)

Hopeton Brown (born 18 April 1960), better known as Scientist and sometimes known as Overton Brown, was a protégé of King Tubby (Osbourne Ruddock), one of the originators of dub music.

Biography

Brown was introduced to electronics by his father, who worked as a television and radio repair technician. He began building his own amplifiers and would buy transformers from Tubby's Dromilly Road studio, and while there would keep asking Tubby to give him a chance at mixing. He was taken on at Tubby's as an assistant, performing tasks such as winding transformer coils, and began working as a mixer in the mid-1970s, initially creating dubs of reworked Studio One riddims for Don Mais' Roots Tradition label, given his chance when Prince Jammy cut short a mixing session for Mais because he was too tired to continue. His name originated from a joke between Tubby and Bunny Lee. Having noticed Brown's forward thinking ideas and technical aspirations, Tubby remarked "Damn, this little boy must be a scientist."