Alton Ellis for reggae Hall of Fame One of Jamaica’s leading hitmakers, Alton Ellis, who is this year celebrating 50 years in entertainment, will be inducted into the International Reggae and World Music Awards Hall of Fame this year. Ellis will be joined by his Caribbean counterpart, Guyanese Eddie Grant. Both will be honoured during [...]

Understanding Caribbean Music You hear it frequently these days: “What’s happening to Caribbean music? Where is calypso? Where did we get these strange songs with no melody and just boom, boom?” The short answer is that it’s not strange at all. Change is always the norm in popular music; thirty years ago, Lord Shorty, propelling [...]

Sean Paul: “The Trinity” World Tour Riding high off an incredible year that saw him shatter the record for most reggae sales in a single week and had the whole country jamming to “We Be Burnin” and now “Temperature, ” Sean Paul announces the U.S. leg of his “The Trinity” World Tour. On the tour [...]

Is calypso terminally ill? It’s Carnival season in a number of Caribbean locations as well as elsewhere. Trinidad and Tobago’s celebration is of course one of the more popular Caribbean versions of this annual rite. But how ironic that while some have paused to note that this year marks the 50th anniversary of rather memorable [...]

Mighty Arrow for Music Festival The return of the Mighty Arrow, Montserrat’s most famous soca son, is a feature of the 10th anniversary of the Music Festival this year. The calypsonian of international renown, appeared on the first Music Festival in 1996 and is now the latest in the line-up of quality acts signed this [...]

Keeping Score…..Gold & platinum discs among reggae artistes Damian ‘Junior Gong’ Marley’s recent gold certification by the Recording Association of America (RIAA) for his smash album Welcome to Jamrock has also helped the disc to further increase sales, following as it did on his double Grammy win. As it turns out, Jamaican artistes, including Damian’s [...]