Earl Cunningham was born October 22, 1959 in eastern Kingston, Jamaica. As a child his parents moved to western Kingston and at the age of 12 he realized music was his love. Inspired by sounds of The Heptones and Dennis Brown, Earl discovered that he was growing up in the heart of the reggae scene in Jamaica.

Earl would make sure he was at his next door neighbor’s house, Trevor McNoughton of the Melodians, to catch live reggae. After entering high school talent shows he knew being around the studios like Channel One and Joe Gibbs would get him noticed. Earl’s first 2 songs were with producer Roy Francis but were never released. Earl’s first public releases were in 1979 with “Words of the Father” for Dennis Brown and “What Kind of Woman” for Roy Cousins.

In 1981 Earl teamed with producer Jah Thomas for the hits songs, “One Away Man”, “Cool Profile”, “Want My Pay” and “Fools Fall in Love”. This led to a compilation album being released with Ranking Joe and Jah Screw at Channel One. He then followed that with the album John Tom in 1984. After touring the east coast of the United States in 1985-86 with the sound system, Black Star Sound, Earl would then migrate to southern Florida and has resided there since.