Hidden treasure Jennifer Barrett serves warning One of the paradoxes of Jamaican music at this time, in that while she is steadily creating a name for herself on the European circuit, on the home front, very little is known of her. Having honed her vocal ability while touring with the internationally famous Wailers Band, Jennifer [...]

Busy Signal Steps Out in a big way Nearly two years after his explosive single Step Out was released, dancehall toaster Busy Signal emerges with a focused album, also titled Step Out. The album doesn’t sacrifice Busy’s intensity as a deejay. It, however, sharpens his street credibility as a ‘voice’ for the ghetto youths.

Splicing Wars – Selectors cut and paste, artistes fume Local sounds are faking artistes’ voices and selling the dubs for their own benefit. The practise of cutting and dubbing another person’s voice over a recording done by an artiste is called splicing and according to some artistes, this is a big problem often worthy of [...]

Turbulence’s Silly Girl creating waves Silly Girl, the first single off Turbulence’s new album Ex-Girlfriend (Tads Records), has been creating quite a buzz. According to Turbulence, the song, which is currently making strides on the charts, wasn’t directed towards his former lover, singer Sasha. “Silly Girl is my favourite song on the album. People say [...]

Reggae rebelution: For Jamaican singer-songwriter Tanya Stephens, politics is only half the battle Tanya Stephens has already been a dancehall diva and a Swedish rock star. So on her extraordinary sixth album, the Jamaican singer-songwriter went for broke. Wearing a red beret and combat fatigues and singing movingly with the kind of sweeping vision that [...]

Singer, minister, now Dr Carlene Davis Carlene Davis has been dialling in quite a few numbers in recent years. Apart from the 15 secular albums she produced between 1980 and 1994, she has been racking, up a few gospel albums, to date, six and counting. The figures do not stop there, as Davis recently completed [...]

Watch what you say! Artistes and members of their entourage have defied the laws of the English language and have rebuilt their own words and interpretations of their meanings. Call it what you may, whether a new fad, way of thinking or another state of mind, the trend has been spreading like an epidemic.

Recovering the Skatalites The current keyboard player for the Skatalites admits he didn’t know much about the band – or ska music, in general – when hearing them live for the first time in the late ’80s. Despite his ignorance, the experience was nothing short of life-changing for the American-born musician. “I was just in [...]

Haunted by one song Buju Banton is the dancehall artiste targeted most by the homosexual community. Over the years there have been cries from the community for his shows to be cancelled, his music banned and for him to be imprisoned. Still, unlike some of his counterparts, he has refused to apologise for his 1992 [...]

All worn out However, while some patrons may tire of seeing the same popular acts over and over (and over again), the promoters and others seem to need them to breathe life into the entertainment industry. The argument of bored patrons and popular artistes coming to every stage with no new gimmicks, is apparent; but [...]