Review: The Biggest Ragga Dancehall Anthems 2009 The best thing about the yearly Biggest Ragga Dancehall Anthems compilations– whose title provides you with all the backstory you need on this venerable series collecting 12 months of gems from Jamaica’s premier pop genre– is that they’re consistent enough to act as comforting listening but restlessly inventive [...]
Gateways to Geekery: Dub Though it isn’t precisely the first kind of music that involves what we now refer to as the remix, dub was arguably the first popular and influential art form to be predicated on creating entirely new music from already-existing recorded elements. Starting in the mid-’60s, Jamaican DJs began rocking dancehalls by [...]
Orlando Octave taking it higher In 2008, he gave women of a darker hue a reason to smile. Darkie, an infectious reggae tune, sang the praises of women blessed with richer skin tones. It was a major hit and catapulted Orlando Octave, aka D Original Rudeboy, into the local spotlight. In 2009, he followed up [...]
KARMA: Taking chutney soca high Affectionately called the prince of chutney, lead male vocalist of crossover band Karma, Ravi B is making waves for Carnival 2010 with his infectious song Drinka. Following hot on the heels of last year’s popular chutney Dularie Nanny which earned him second place in the National Chutney Soca Monarch, and [...]
Audrey Reid back to her roots “One more dictionary! Unu see how me haffi buy one more dictionary fi me son? I don’t know why him caan stop lose tings!” This is the greeting from Audrey Reid, dictionary in hand, as she hurriedly alights her SUV, in an attempt to make up for lost time. [...]
Jah Cure is not the father of ten-month-old child Singer Jah Cure is now requesting privacy following DNA test results that revealed that he is not the father of a child as was previously claimed. The singer yesterday released a statement after getting the results of the paternity test on Tuesday. There has been ongoing [...]
Giant Panda leads the way of the new reggae When Bob Marley wrote “Roots Rock Reggae” and “Punky Reggae Party,” he couldn’t have fully foreseen the cross-pollination that would so utterly transform the music he had helped to pioneer and the broader pop culture that would embrace it. At the end of the 1970s, Marley [...]
Shabba returns on VP CD set Before he signed with a major American record company and became the ‘Grammy Kid’, Shabba Ranks was king of the Jamaican dancehall circuit and he earned that title by racking up a number of hit songs in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many of those songs (44 to be [...]
Ashley Martin speaks about Byron Lee, going solo and Jazz Fest “I felt like my belly was ripping out,” was the passionate, teary-eyed recollection of Ashley Martin, female lead singer of Byron Lee & the Dragonaires as she revisited that Saturday in November 2008 when the Dragon was laid to rest. “Nobody could understand why [...]
‘Haffi mad it up’ says Sean Kingston of Coke Zero Concert If recording artiste Sean Kingston has his way, this Saturday’s Coke Zero concert in Kingston will be “off the chain”. Speaking with Splash from his base in Florida, the singer — best known for his chart-topping hit, Beautiful Girls — says he will definitely [...]