A rough guide to the genre of music known as Lovers Rock – Clubbers’ Decktionary: A guide to the myriad genres of clubbing Lovers Rock adj. romantic style of reggae music cultivated on the London reggae scene, c. 1975-1985. While contemporary strands of reggae (dub, roots, rocksteady etc) were becoming increasingly politicised and serious, Lovers [...]
Smiley Culture stabbed himself, inquest hears. British reggae star Smiley Culture stabbed himself with a kitchen knife during a police raid on his home in Surrey, an inquest has been told. The singer, whose real name was David Emmanuel, died at the property in Hillbury Road, Warlingham, on Tuesday.
Taking reggae gospel to wintry Edmonton SINGING D sees himself as a crusader for reggae music in chilly Edmonton, the major city of the province of Alberta in Canada.And in a city where rock and roll, heavy metal, blue grass and country and western genres cater to the taste of a pre-dominantly Caucasian citizenry, the [...]
Q&A: Diplo On The Joys Of Dancehall, Kanye West, Social Work, Owning A Label, And Twitter Where do we even start with someone like Diplo? Wes Pentz is a DJ at his core, but he’s also a producer (having worked with Lil Jon, Kanye West, and most notoriously M.I.A.), the founder of left-field record label [...]
Reggae Rising festival in jeopardy The sun may be setting on the Reggae Rising music festival. Eight months ago, when the Humboldt County Planning Commission denied the three-day festival a permit for August 2010 citing poor planning, event organizer Tom Dimmick pledged the annual party on the Eel River would return in 2011. Dimmick, however, [...]
Corporate Jamaica’s embrace of dancehall artistes Last week’s conviction of dancehall star Buju Banton on drug and gun charges, which could see him facing a minimum of 15 years in jail, tugged at the heartstrings of most of the country who had hoped that he would avoid a guilty verdict. For some time now Corporate [...]
Stop the soca, chutney invaders As judges in the Power Soca and Groovy Soca contests we are clear in our minds what we are looking for. Nothing that is calypso or remotely resembles that genre gets past us. I am not a chutney soca judge but I can guess that they too have clear guidelines. [...]
Al Campbell is ‘Man from Studio One’ It’s been a while since singer Al Campbell graced the Jamaican stage, but he is very much active on the music circuit internationally. Japan, Italy, France, USA, Germany are among some of the countries where he has been plying his trade. The last time Campbell performed in Jamaica [...]
VIDEO: Kartel on his publicity stunts Controversial deejay Vybz Kartel has admitted that many of his actions are engineered to draw attention to himself and by extension his musical career. Speaking in reference to the bleaching of his skin, Kartel noted that “people are like sheep and I am the shepherd, they are easy to [...]
Sticky Situation: Lady Chann Born in the soundsystems of Jamaica, dancehall made its way to the UK in crates. Shipped across the Atlantic, the discs came bursting out giving the Caribbean community a flavour of what was current in the mother country. Taking seed, Britain now has a thriving – but largely un-credited – dancehall [...]