“I’m just thankful I’ve gotten to make music how I want — a true feeling from within,” he said in an interview in the studio’s break room, decorated with posters for international events and the label’s original certificate of incorporation. “When you do that for as long as I have, you’re filled with gratitude.”

His concerns now are ensuring that his studio carries on the traditions of roots reggae and lovers rock — the primary styles he works in — and sharing his knowledge with the younger people who populate it. “I’m like a primary doctor,” he said. “I help them with whatever part of their music I can, but I know when to offer my skill and when to recommend someone else who can do that style better.”

Barnes, known to reggae fans as Bullwackie and to friends simply as Wackie, was born in the Trench Town neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica, and joined his mother in New York in 1967. His nickname traces back to Trench Town, where his friends wanted a wild-sounding name for their crew. After deciding that their first choice was too lewd, they settled on Bullwackie Boys.

Trench Town is known as the birthplace of reggae, where bandleaders like Alton Ellis and Delroy Wilson forged the upbeat dance style of ska into the cool sway of rocksteady. Barnes recalled seeing greats like Ellis, Bob Marley and Ken Boothe around the neighborhood. He got involved with his church’s music program, helping to pump the pipe organ on Sundays, which also gave him access to other instruments. When he heard the new music bubbling up from the nascent Rastafari movement, he felt naturally drawn to it.

He would sit in on Duke Reid and Prince Buster sessions at Federal Records, the studio that later housed Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong label. Then he came across the work of the dub reggae innovator King Tubby.