Bunny Lee's flying cymbals or flyers rhythms dominated the dancehalls and the charts in 1974 and 1975. The style, based on Philadelphia disco and featuring the sound of an open and closed hi-hat, was not necessarily novel, but Lee's use of a number of different elements most certainly was.

Johnny Clarke's 1975 interpretation of Earl Zero's "None Shall Escape the Judgement" opened the floodgates for the flyers style. The story had begun the previous year with Lowell "Sly" Dunbar: "Sly played the flying cymbals first... I said to Sly, 'You played it on the Delroy Wilson tune for Channel One named 'It's a Shame' and Sly played it before that with Skin, Flesh & Bones on 'Here I Am Baby (Come and Take Me),' the Al Green tune... with the 'tsk, tsk, tsk' sound on the hi-hat, I named it flyers, but they didn't know what flyers was!" -- Lee.