Born Winston George Sparkes on September 17, 1940 in Kingston, Jamaica, King Stitt holds a distinctive place in the history of reggae. From “Count Stitt” to “King Stitt”Sparkes acquired the nickname “Stitt” as a boy because of a childhood stutter—“stitch” in Jamaican patois. By the mid-1950s, he was a familiar figure on Kingston’s sound system circuit, joining Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s Downbeat Sound System in 1956. These releases reinforced his legacy as a pioneer of recorded Jamaican deejay music. As one of the first Jamaicans to transform live deejay performance into recorded music, King Stitt stands as a pioneer who gave voice and shape to a new art form.