Two for Reggae Two female artists with distinctively different styles will share the same stage this week at the nightclub Room 960. The first is Etana, who, along with Queen Ifrica, is leading a female roots-reggae revival. The other, Barbee, is an up-and-coming dancehall singer overflowing with sex appeal. The reggae world was introduced to [...]
Reggae gurus Black Uhuru was a socially responsive outfit that proved to be a winner in more ways than one. REGGAE’S relationship with the rest of the music world is a strange one. It seems like everybody knows Bob Marley and a few sanitised (read: “whiteâ€) hits in reggae fashion. This can mean anything from [...]
From record shop to reggae empire Reggae producer Clive Chin tells Davina Morris about the musical legacy of his father, VP Records producer, Vincent Chin. On Friday, Brixton Town Hall, England, hosted a launch party to mark the release of the two CD/DVD collection, Reggae Anthology: Randy’s 50th Anniversary.
Matisyahu strays too far from genre on new EP It’s not that Matisyahu or his cast of bandmates are inherently bad musicians. In fact, that’s pretty far from the case. Matisyahu’s sometimes hard-to-find first album, Shake of the Dust…Arise, is notable for some truly novel moments and at representing a time in the Hasidic-Jewish reggae [...]
Merritone closes 58th anniversary at The Deck When Merritone Music was started in St. Thomas, approximately 14 miles from where Paul Bogle began his epic march to Spanish Town in 1865, Alexander Bustamante had been out of detention at Up Park Camp for nine years and it would be 14 years before Marcus Garvey’s body [...]
Day 3: Ari Up and Away Most CMJ bands play indie and rock, but sprinkled throughout the week there is also some world flavor. At Santos Party House last night for the DubShot Records showcase, I saw three interesting and different bands— all playing variations on reggae music. First was the racially mixed Fear Nuttin [...]
Golden State lauds veteran reggae group Third World In their 35 years as ‘Reggae Ambassadors’, Third World has travelled far and wide and much has been written about them. However, when they played the 18th annual Jazz at Drew Festival, held at the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California in [...]
Lucky Dube: Invocations of a reggae icon One year after the gruesome murder of Lucky Dube, philosopher, poet, messenger, entertainer and lyricist, his eminent position and the vacuum created as a result of his death is yet to be filled in the world of reggae. It is unarguable that Dube secured a place among the [...]
Alton Ellis king of soul I’ve lost my musical hero and icon, Alton Ellis, but my mourning is mixed with enormous celebration of a professional life well lived. Comparisons are said to be odious, but apart from Bob Marley, Alton Ellis was the single greatest artiste Jamaica has produced and we are a superpower in [...]
King of reggae Nesta Robert Marley was born Feb. 6, 1945 and died of cancer May 11, 1981. Over those 36 years he emerged from crushing poverty in Jamaica to become one of the biggest musical and cultural icons of our time. In Bob Marley: A Life, veteran UK and Canadian journalist Garry Steckles traces [...]