SIX more albums and then it is time to call it quits, says old school deejay Cutty Ranks. Once he accomplishes that feat, he plans to throw in the towel.

“I already have two (albums), they are clean and are meant to consolidate my career and take it to the next level,” said Ranks in an interview with Splash. He added that he is moving away from his hardcore image of the 1980s and 1990s.

Cutty Ranks

Ranks is set to release several new projects on his Philip Music label, including the song Full Blast for which a music video is also in the works. An album featuring collaborations with Luciano, Beres Hammond and Marcia Griffiths is scheduled to be released soon.

Cutty Ranks (given name Philip Thomas) was born in Clarendon and says he started his career at age 11 on sound systems in his home parish. He came to prominence in the late 1980s through gritty songs like Gunman Lyrics for Winston Riley.

A decade later, he made it to the mainstream with The Stopper and Fly the Gate as well as solid combinations with Beres Hammond, Wayne Wonder and Marcia Griffiths for Penthouse Records.

He was one of the top dancehall acts in the 1990s, working with a clutch of independent American labels and appearing in the 1995 movie, Dancehall Queen.

He is not impressed by contemporary dancehall, and blames artists, producers and society for the genre’s deterioration.

“I hear artist that definitely don’t have any talent and yet they are given no ends of promotion,” Ranks charged. “Then there are producers who knows nothing about music. Some are using the music as a hustling, while others do it to cover illegal activities,” he added. “Society endorse and embrace slackness while culture gets left behind.”

He does, however, have high marks for singers Tarrus Riley and Romain Virgo and deejay Assassin, whom he says have maintained a high standard.