Sweet Seventeen When Packy Malley, promoter of the Mid-West Reggae Fest, says, “The bottom line is, it has to be profitable,” he’s only telling half the story. The other half is that while Malley is a businessman who also works in his family business, Malley’s Chocolates, he’s one of the area’s most avid reggae enthusiasts, [...]

White reggae hits Jamaica – Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source For a small place, Jamaica exerts a big influence. It covers an area of less than 11,000kms, with fewer than three million inhabitants. But ask anyone with even a passing interest in music to name its principal export and you’ll get the [...]

Adrian Clarke: No stranger to Jamaica The newly crowned King of Calypso Monarch Adrian Clarke says he is no stranger to Jamaica, despite the fact that he has only visited the island once for a performance at the University Campus. “But I have a lot of Jamaican friends – a lot of Jamaican friends!” he [...]

Ava Leigh: the girl who fell for Lover’s Rock From Eric Clapton to 10cc, pop is littered with white guys trying to “do” reggae, with very mixed results. But now a 22-year-old woman from Chester is trying to change that. Ava Leigh has a powerful voice like retro-soul divas Duffy and Adele – but she [...]

A good rhythm lives twice Remaking a rhythm or duplicating it does not necessarily mean that a rhythm was not good enough but it might be a testament that the first was exceptional. There have been some memorable dancehall rhythms over the past two decades, and recently, there have been remakes of these older rhythms [...]

Reggae Rising Festival unites family and culture under umbrella of One Love’ Thousands of reggae music and culture fans are gathered this weekend in Piercy for the second annual Reggae Rising Festival. New this year is the availability of single-day tickets for Sunday, allowing those who may not be able to commit to the entire [...]