[5] McKay then enjoyed a fruitful spell with Coxsone Dodd, recording a number of popular songs for Studio One, such as Discomix vocal and dub " Love Is A Treasure", backed by The Soul Defenders, a band that included Bobby Kalphat and Joseph Hill of Culture, [6] including "High School Dance", "Sweet You Sour You", and "Picture on the Wall", the latter the title track of his 1971 debut album.
[7] McKay enjoyed another hit in 1976 with "Dance This Ya Festival", which won the Jamaican Independence Popular Song Contest that year.
An Ossie Hibbert-produced showcase album Creation followed in 1979, featuring McKay's versions of Burning Spear's and Johnny Clarke's Creation, a cover of Horace Andy, Coxsone Dodd, and Wentworth Vernal's The Rainbow as well as a Discomix take on Dennis Brown's Here I Come.
Another album,Tribal Inna Yard, was released in 1983, backed by Roots Radics and engineered by Scientist.
McKay maintained a faithful, serious following amongst conscious roots rockers and sound system devotees until his death in 1986[2] from a heart attack,[2] shortly after finishing his final album, I'm a Free Man, cut at Joseph Hoo Kim's Channel One Studios with Sly and Robbie,Eric "Bingy Bunny" Lamont, Dean Fraser and Earl "Chinna" Smith, with backing vocals provided by The Tamlins.