Ellen G

Israeli selectress Ellen G may be part of a couple, one-half of Tel Aviv reggae DJ/party My Lord Sound, but she has a style that is all her own.

While Ellen’s artistic roots go back to childhood, her reggae art has grown alongside her love of the music and its many sub-genres. From her home in Ramat Gan, a few miles outside of Tel Aviv, Ellen designs album covers, posters, flyers, and more for reggae artists and her own parties under the banner My Lord Graphics.

Ellen has created album art for Lee Scratch Perry, Mungo’s Hi-Fi of Scotch Bonnet Records, Jahtari/Disrupt, Out On The Floor Records, Supertone Records, Manudigital, and many others. Her poster work has big-upped Yellowman, Tippa Irie, Scientist, Sister Nancy, and many more. Inspired by the bright, bold, and eye-catching work of legendary reggae designers/illustrators like Limonious and Jamal Peete, Ellen’s own designs are colorful and innovative—unconstrained by adherence to a particular style but buoyed by a deep love of reggae music. 

As My Lord Sound, Ellen and her husband Ron (aka Ranking Levy) have led the charge to bring rub-a-dub, rocksteady, and other reggae from the ’70s and ’80s to Israeli ears since 2003. My Lord Sound has culled a small but mighty reggae scene through their parties and brought multiple Jamaican legends to Tel Aviv—including Sister Nancy, Ranking Joe, U-Brown, Al Capone, and others. 

“Nobody played that type of music in Israel. There were reggae sounds, and there were dancehall sounds. Nobody thought it would draw a crowd to play the rocksteady and DJ stuff from the ’80s and the ’70s. It was mainly a dub scene,” says Ellen. “And then we had this small gig, which was our first, which I actually played alone. And people loved it. The next time, Ron joined me, and it was crazy.”

The breadth and depth of reggae music are the perfect match for an artist-DJ who loves experimenting with different styles and researching her favorite albums’ lyrics, productions, and designs. A world away from its musical origins, Ellen G and My Lord Sound have staked a claim for the Israelites.

 

 

Ellen, how long have you been collecting records?

Since 2003 [when] we started our sound system, which is not an actual, physical sound system, but we began to play records. Ron, aka Ranking Levy, is the MC (or DJ, as it is called in Jamaica), and I play the records. He started the collection when he was 14, maybe. Since then, we’ve collected records together.

 

 

How did you get interested in reggae? Israel is quite far from Jamaica…

That also is an influence of Ron. I used to like various music genres—more jungle, drum and bass, ragamuffin, and ska. I thought [reggae] was only Bob Marley, but then he introduced me to various branches of it, and I fell in love. Rocksteady was the genre that hit me when we first met. My other favorites are Calypso, rub-a-dub, and the ’70s DJ style. 

Why do those sounds appeal to you? Was what you were listening to growing up or in your early 20s set you up for it?

That’s a nice way to put it. Drum and bass is really a deconstruction or development of the main sounds of the type of reggae that I like. I really love the minimalistic but precise productions of the ’80s rub-a-dub style and the lush sounds of the ’70s riddims as well. Reggae musicians throughout the years have the phenomenal ability to create the perfect combination of low and high frequencies, which allow the singer/DJ the exact space to fit in—as if nestling the vocals while highlighting the essence of it.

 

 

 

 

Was that the sort of thing that you and Ron were playing out before the pandemic?

Oh, yeah. We started playing because nobody in Israel has played that type of music. There were reggae and dancehall sounds; nobody thought it would draw a crowd to play rocksteady and DJ stuff from the ’80s and the ’70s.

 

 

When did you start the sound, and has the scene grown due to your guys’ work?

We started in 2003 after we went to Jamaica together.  Some friends told us, “No, there’s no way. You can’t just do it; you must attend a DJ school to learn.” There was a DJ school here in Israel. 

But we just started, and it worked out, playing strictly vinyl, 90% oldies, while Ranking Levy toasting on the riddim section. The scene really has grown after that. A few sounds started playing the same stuff, and even some guys ripped our playlist on mp3. Our dream was to bring the original godfathers of the DJ style; promoters used to bring the “usual suspects” kind of artists, but not the lesser heard of artists.

 

You selected for Ranking Joe, right?

I had the absolute honor! He was the first DJ we ever brought for an actual sound system session. He was so good—it was three hours straight, a wild show. It was supposed to be one hour or a half, but he kept singing and DJing on the riddims. The most incredible part was that he didn’t bring a CD with a set of riddims, like 99% of the artists do. He allowed us to run it the traditional way—to play tunes from vinyl so he could ride the riddim on the flip side.  

 

 

Who are some of the other DJ superstars that you hosted? 

Everyone is a superstar for me. Sister Nancy was the one we hosted after Ranking Joe, and then several more times [afterward]—each time it was a spectacular performance. [We hosted] Al Campbell, Echo Minott, U Brown, and Al Capone. Trinity, who sadly had just passed away recently, was an unforgettable performance. I was sure we were going to see him a lot more.

We hosted General Levy a few times. One was on my birthday, and then he decided to come for his birthday a year or two after that. 

Each one of these shows is like a dream come true. Select an artist that you grew up on and are a fan of, listening to and then playing their songs in a dance. I get excited every time, like a fan who managed to get backstage. 

 

 

 

 

So tell me, what about Toyan’s How the West Was Won speak to you about? 

I love his voice. And the vibes of his toasting. I have this theory that he is one of the lineage of DJs with this profound voice, and they inherited each other throughout the years. 

In the ’70s, it’s Trinity; then in the ’80s, Toyan and General Trees; then Shabba Ranks; after him, it’s Bounty Killer and Vybz Kartel. They all have this heavy, rough, rockstone voice and a style that seems as if it’s developed from the same root. And then you have some kind of parallel lineage of DJs like Supercat, Beanie Man, and Shaggy. I can’t really explain that artistic bond; maybe I’ll develop a more thorough thesis on that someday.

 

 

 

What do you like in a DJ? Are there any sort of vocal stylings or techniques that, as a listener or as a DJ, really speak to you?

As a listener, I really like how a DJ plays with lyrics and how they ride the rhythm. I like a DJ who unexpectedly changes the tempo or the lyrical pattern throughout the song but still holds it tight. Also, I really love the hard patois and the unheard expressions. The more inaccessible it is, the more I like it. 

I also really love the topics. Mainstream artists sing about feelings and personal emotional stuff, some social commentary, but they’re apparent themes. In Jamaica, artists sing about really particular topics; it comes from mento and calypso traditions. Jamaican artists tackle these themes uniquely, loaded with humor, even when the topic is not exactly funny. It can get outrageous sometimes or abstract, allowing you to complete the meaning with your own associations. To be poetic about simple stuff is really inspiring for me, especially in my art. 

 

With that in mind, tell me about how you got into Calypso. 

I think it just came along with playing reggae and exploring the roots of it. I can hear the Calypso melodies in Jamaican music throughout the years until today. 

I just love minor key everything. I like a minor key in melodies; I Love the dark side of melodies, even though I’m not a fan of sad songs. The mento/calypso gloomy harmony is not depressing for me—on the contrary, it feels like the scary children’s stories that have gone too far sometimes. We usually play them when we start the dance, just to build the right spooky, minor key vibe!

 

 

How do you fit gospel into a dance?

You can just be in the middle of a crazy, I don’t know, rub-a-dub/ragamuffin session. And when you put on the gospel, everybody likes it, whether it’s roots or dancehall fans. It never fails you. I don’t know how and why, but the crowd always loves it.

 

 

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a reggae dance where they played gospel.

I wouldn’t say that the crowd always knows what the song is about, but it seems like they are really into the melody. I doubt that the people in the dance get excited about the religious topics; instead, they just admire the R&B feeling you can dance to. If you ask some young folks from the crowd what genre it was, I am not sure they would say, “Oh, it’s gospel.”

 

 

You’re also into music from the Seychelles, like Creole music. What else are you interested in?

The Creole collection happened because Ron’s mother went to Seychelles and got stuck there for three months. She went there in December 2020 when the sky had opened, and she was planning to stay there for a week or so. Ron told her, “Maybe if you are already there, you can just look for music.” She found some amazing stuff I’d never heard of.

I love different genres. I love classical music. Lately, I listen to classical music when I study because I need music without words. I also started playing piano recently, since my son started playing.

 

 

You’re really into that Nicodemus record. What do you like so much, and can you remember when you first heard it?

I can’t remember when I first heard it because it was long ago. Probably when I first met Ron. I really love the production of it. Nicodemus is great; he is amazing every time. It’s like the perfect everything: the production, the perfect cover, the perfect DJ, and the perfect themes as well. I love his lyrics and rhymes. It gives me really wicked vibes every time. 

 

 

Is that your desert island record? 

That’s a hard one. No, I think I would probably pick a compilation, a record with a live DJ session, so I can enjoy various DJs and styles. There is one called A Live Session with Kilimanjaro … I’m not sure if it would be that specific one—there are too many. I have to think about one!

 

Let’s get into art, then. So you obviously have an incredible affinity for and talent for sleeve and cover design. What appeals to you about the art on reggae albums?

I really admire how precise it is. When you see it from afar in the record store, you just have to pick it up and see what it is. It’s really important to have a cover design. For example, when you pick a record you aren’t familiar with because of the cover, you discover some amazing music afterward. There are some hilariously horrible reggae record sleeves, and there are some that I think are pure genius. I learned as much as I could from it and am still discovering new details: fonts, colors, and composition. It’s so minimalistic sometimes but so genius, which makes it so precise.

 

 

 

 

 

One of my greatest inspirations is a Jamaican poster artist named Sassafrass. Our friend was lucky to meet him in Jamaica a few years back. He used to make these bold, handwritten font posters, including some brilliant patterns and small drawings inside the font or beside it, using different types of printing. He’s a genius as far as I’m concerned and set a timeless trend. 

When I first discovered his works, I tried to recreate each of his fonts and wanted to collect all of his posters. I don’t remember how I was exposed to his works, but maybe some Japanese websites. He’s one of my biggest influences in the font field and poster art composition because he’s so clear-cut, crisp, and precise.

 

 

 

Precise is an exciting term. I’m not an artist, but precision isn’t necessarily what comes to mind when I look at Toyan or Limonious. I just think about fun, or I feel about cartoons.

 It’s not so precise when you view it from a realistic painting point of view. But Limonious, Jamaal Pete, Sassafras, when they depict some sort of a character or combine specific colors, it’s like it couldn’t have more of something and couldn’t have less. It’s precisely how it’s supposed to be, and you wouldn’t want to change a minor detail. 

The themes of the artworks make you admire them even more. I think it’s what makes great art, the accuracy you feel, even if it’s the roughest or rudest thing you’ve ever seen. When you’re not sure what’s stylish about it or why it fits so well together… But if you make the dots bigger or change the shade of the pink, it will be completely different and wouldn’t work so nicely. That’s the precision I’m talking about.

 

 

 

Of the artists that I follow, some are dead now, but some are alive, like Tony McDermott, who is active today and very sought after. Some sadly have passed away like Limonious and Jamaal Pete, who is one of the first who inspired me to draw an album sleeve. He’s more of a realistic painter; he’s done many covers for Yellowman and many other superstars. 

 

Your style is so varied. How would you describe it?

I like to challenge myself. And I don’t want to stick to one style because, when you see artists with this defined style like Limonious or Jamal Peet, you understand that they really had to stick to that style and develop it because they had to establish it. But they already did so, and I just feel free to enjoy doing it, trying each because I think according to the record I draw for. I love to experiment with it and experience each of them.

 

 

What’s the curious story behind this following album?  

I did the cover for it when I had just gotten pregnant, so I used to get nauseous each time I saw it because I worked on it in the second or third month. The guy who had ordered it was an Italian guy from London who worked in the legendary Supertone Records shop alongside the label owner; they were really eager to reissue it because nobody had the original 12-inch press. I had a really tight schedule for drawing it, a weekend or so because we were supposed to fly to the UK for a couple of gigs, but when you are asked to do something for a label as prominent, you just can’t refuse it.  

The following week or something, we went to Sheffield for a gig with General Levy, and during the stay, we visited a little Jamaican-owned grocery store. As usual in these situations, Ron had inquired about some records with the owner. He had kindly invited us to a basement packed with vinyl, where I was so lucky to find the original piece—that same 12-inch I had designed the cover for just a few days ago! We took it back home and sold it for more money than I did for making the sleeve. It was kind of a treasure hunt story!

 

 

I’m surprised you didn’t keep it!

We should have kept it, but we had the copies we got from the repressed issue, and also, we were young parents and needed the money. 

I would love to learn more about your creative process and how you made the illustration for this Serious Times double LP.

When I develop an album cover, I work three ways: the artist or producer, who has an idea sometimes but sometimes just gives me the artistic freedom; Ron, who is my creative director and advisor, at times has a solid vision of the theme, and sometimes we brainstorm together; or I just have a scene in my mind that I think would fit the vibe. 

For the Serious Times cover, Mungo’s crew from Glasgow, one of our all-time favorite massives, had this idea of an apocalyptic time of flood when everything collapses into the storm. Still, the music survives in this kind of sound system ark. [It was] all an homage to Hokusai’s famous painting, which was also the idea of the Mungo’s Hi Fi guys. When designing for them, I experimented with a wide range of influences, starting with the leading Jamaican record sleeve artists and some artists with nothing to do with record cover art, like Roy Lichtenstein or Mucha.

 

 

The spread of the sleeve depicts all of the artists recorded on the album, holding a sound system session inside of the Mungo’s ark with a mad crowd that includes some raggamuffin animals as well—a direct influence of Limonious, of course. The drawing style is an homage to Frans Masereel, a German artist, who we got familiar with from a series of books Ron’s grandfather had and used to browse through with us. He has a unique series of woodcuts that look like a white-on-black painting, and because it was a scene that took place in the darkness of an ark, I thought it would fit the atmosphere nicely.

 

 

The breadth of your style is really, really cool. Like the Ras Records album with U-Roy toasting on some Bob Marley songs, it is in a totally different style. Why was that one one of your favorites?

When I did it, I enjoyed experimenting with watercolors and was delighted to try to make it look like a Renaissance painting. The producer who had ordered had referenced the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet album sleeve. I think it’s one of the most detailed paintings I have ever done, and I’m really satisfied with how the portraits came out. I really like the atmosphere on that one. 

I enjoyed working on the search for references, and the painting is full of small symbolic details that I could weave in. For example, there is a Star of David wooden pattern on the glass doors of the closet in the background, which refers to Bunny Wailer’s Solomonic label. There’s a lion cub under the table, and the fruits have their references. If you look closely, you’ll find more, maybe some of which I haven’t even thought of and added unconsciously!

 

 

I’d love to learn more about the cover illustration you did for Trilion, the Israeli collective.

The collective is Ron’s initiative. A futuristic rub-a-dub collective of DJs. All of them, except Ron, used to DJ on the Easy Rider sound from Haifa. When we started My Lord Sound, we were really alone playing that style of Jamaican music. They invited us to play in Haifa, and we saw these fellows holding the mic real proper, playing the records we love and could only hear in Jamaica. It was really heart-rending. 

On this Trilion record are all the MCs who used to hold the mic on that sound: General G, Guma Ranks, Mentor Irie, Sharon, aka Miss Red, and Yota B. The producers are 3421, a super-talented duo that includes Deso on the drums and Pupa Mellow on the synth and production. On the cover, I portrayed each of them in a mixed composition where everyone is depicted in the scenario that appears in his/her song.

 

 

 

Has art influenced your collecting at all? 

I don’t know if it influenced the collection, but it just goes together. It has some good cover art, and you usually have a good album under it. It’s an additional value and not a reason. You just enjoy having pretty records, and if you can get the vibes of the music while exploring the cover, you can’t ask for more.  

Back to Trilion. Do you think that there’s anything unique about reggae that’s created in Israel? And why is it particularly resonant there? 

Maybe there is this social climate of being in a crazy, unstable environment. It’s similar to Jamaica, where this sense of unpredictability is the routine. Even though Jamaica doesn’t have a constant war situation, they have this inter-social craziness going on; all the violence involved when you have loads of ammunition available and gangs super engaged in the everyday environment.

So you have this absurd situation where you can suddenly die for some obscure reason. And then you have the people who created that crazy, violent environment, and you have the people who want to create in it. So I think you can make a parallel [to Israel] there. 

Jamaican artists who come here always say that they feel really at home. Maybe it’s because of the Bible-related locations, but they can really connect with the people; they always emphasize this more friendly connection.

 

What’s going on next for you? Are you working on any projects that you want to mention? 

We will start coming back very slowly with the sound. Ron’s birthday was our first real dancehall session since the pandemic hit. It was on a Sunday, like Monday everywhere else, and was lively. And then we have a dance on Saturday, which is an obscure oldies dance, which is a takeoff of the dances the Jamaican community holds in New York, where you can just play Celine Dion all of a sudden.

I think Ron is already in touch with some artists he wants to invite here. But we’ll have to see how it all works. Regarding my work, I fortunately was busy all that time, because, surprisingly, people still released records. I just made my first poster since the lockdown era started for a place in London that I used to work with regularly.

I recently finished a cover that is a tribute to record shops and was supposed to be released on Record Store Day before the pandemic. It’s finally released now: a dub album by the Tuff Scout label, based in London, depicting the prolific Out on the Floor record store owned by the label producer. 

 

 

How has your collecting changed or evolved over the pandemic? 

Throughout the pandemic, we bought more from the record stores in Israel. Usually, we just order it online, keeping in mind the next session we have. When you don’t play in a dance for a while, you feel free to buy different genres you wouldn’t necessarily aim for as a dancefloor hit.

 

Yeah. Which is kind of refreshing. Right? Like, play a little bit more for yourself. Do you have any favorite local record stores?

Of course. One is Hod Hamahat and the other is Nuweiba. There is one big record shop that used to be a video cassette library, Third Ear. I used to rent movies there as a teenager. 

Hod Hamahat has been going back a long time, and its owner sadly passed away recently. But some young folks took it to the next stage and continued its tradition, which is really nice. Nuweiba is also a bar, so it’s lovely to chill there while browsing through the record collection. Both places hold record-playing sessions regularly, so there are always good times while visiting there. 

 

Who would you like to see next on Dust & Grooves? 

There are so many; it’s hard not to miss out on someone! I could narrow it down by picking the collectors who I know for certain have a lot of records I’d enjoy personally. When I dig through records, I am mainly interested in discovering new tunes that would make me fall in love with and melodies that would blow my mind and less in the aspect of how rare, or costly it is. So I would pick three collectors: Kalbata–he is a brethren and each time at a dance we keep together he manages to surprise with the next killer tune. Albert “Ilawi” Malawi Johnson–the selector for Jah Love Muzik–is one of my favorite sounds. That would be a piece of history, and so many mysterious magical tunes would be revealed. Natty Bo–we hosted him for a DJ set a good couple of years back (probably around eight or ten already!), and I was overwhelmed by the number of mad tunes he played! I hope we’ll have these kinds of sessions again soon.

 

Ellen G has been designing covers for reggae artists for over fifteen years, and you can check out her work below on her Illustration portfolio.

Instagram

Illustration portfolio (amazing!)

My Lord Sound:

Instagram

Facebook

Mixcloud

 

Interview edited by Sam Cohen.

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