Look, up in the ska ‘When I’m on the street postering, people always me what ska stands for,” says Dane Roberts, executive director of this weekend’s Eighth Annual Victoria Ska Festival. “They think it’s a synonym for something.”
Feeling irie Old-school roots reggae is going the way of vinyl and CDs, displaced by new-school dancehall. But international audiences raised on Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Toots & The Maytals are still paying for concert tickets. So, after the financially strapped Montreal International Reggae Festival cut a new deal with the Old Port
Budding Superstar It may well be a Jamaican export, but reggae music is, of course, by no means exclusive to its country of birth. Having already spawned German talents (think Gentleman), white English talents (think YT) and Jewish, erm, ‘talents’ (think Matisyahu), reggae’s latest export is a proud representative of Bermuda…
Half Pint brings Unity to Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest Thus sings conscious crooner Half Pint on his latest release Unity. It’s a theme he has visited several times over the three-decade span of his career, as fans of One Big Family and Level The Vibes can attest. Half Pint’s sense of the spiritual origins of [...]
Dancehall veterans stand out at ‘sevens Clash’ Sevens Clash, a party marking July 7, 2007, as well as producer and owner of The Candy Shop, Claude ‘Big Stone’ Sinclair’s 50th birthday, began on the landmark date and ended in the early hours of yesterday morning. At least, the music started on 7/7/2007, but with very [...]
Fireball’s ‘What I Want’ heats up European dance chart Fireball has finally gotten what he wants. The burly Laventille-born entertainer, real name Rohan Richards, is sitting atop the European Club Music Charts this week following the release of a reworked version of his 2007 Carnival hit single “What I Want” in France last month.
The World Seems the Same From Inside a Hotel I spent my summer vacation in the Maldives. I snorkeled, I snoozed. I caught up on back issues of the New Yorker. I got to know the local marine life, from the baby sharks and rays that swam up to my villa to a black-and-yellow fish [...]
‘Telephone Love’ connects from England There is so much to say about J.C. Lodge. Let’s skip the obvious, like she sang the all-time favourites Telephone Love, Someone Loves You Honey (the remake) and Love Me Baby, among others. Instead, let’s start with this detail: a conversation with a singer whose music transcends time, but matter-of-factly [...]
Raised by the People On his debut solo album, Raised by the People, New York-based crooner/rapper Notch is a sonero, by definition a well-trained songsmith in the prime of his career. He´s already endured a strange musical journey; from his days in the reggae duo Born Jamerican to his later dancehall days to his latest [...]
Rapper Fabolous coming The 11th staging of the annual beach event, Fully Loaded, will take place on Sunday, July 29 at James Bond Beach in Oracabessa. The event will feature the top sound systems of the day as well as a performance from top US rapper Fabolous. Fabolous, who recently released the album From Nothing [...]