[4] Katz is the author of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee "Scratch" Perry,[5][6] Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae,[7][8] and Caribbean Lives: Jimmy Cliff.
His writing and photographs have appeared in many international publications, including The Guardian,[10] The Telegraph, The Independent, Newsweek, Mojo,[11] Q, Wax Poetics, Riddim, Caribbean Beat[12] and Murder Dog.
Katz has coordinated and annotated more than 100 retrospective collections of Jamaican music, has released original records in the UK and France, and has co-hosted reggae radio programmes on three continents.
Katz holds a regular residency as a disc jockey, presenting the "Dub Me Always" reggae vinyl nights[16] at the Ritzy in Brixton, London, and has played at venues and festivals throughout Europe, the US, Japan and Brazil.
[20]Mike Atherton, writing in Record Collector, said of the book People Funny Boy: From this chaotic life and oeuvre, Katz manages to create an orderly and highly readable narrative, charting Perry's rise alongside Kingston’s musical heavy hitters Clement Dodd and Prince Buster, and his subsequent international success with The Upsetters.
Exhaustive research and interviews with musicians and family members shed light on the driving forces that led Perry to create such hugely influential reggae in his Kingston garden studio, before throwing success away.
[21]A review in Spannered of the book Solid Foundation says: This excellent collection of interviews by reggae historian David Katz is a significant step in the archiving of the formative years of Jamaica's most commercially successful and internationally recognised cultural export.
This epic labour, pursued across the ghetto yards of West Kingston and the green hills of Jamaica's rural parishes, enables Katz to let the pioneers and innovators of the music speak for themselves with only the lightest authorial touch.