No ‘Portmore Award’ for Beenie – Nuffy apologises
At the recently held Portmore Awards Show, held at Sugar Man’s Beach in Hellshire, MC Nuffy honoured artistes Bounty Killer, Sizzla, Lady Saw, Anthony B and others by giving them ‘Lifetime Achievement Awards’. However, ‘the doctor’ Beenie Man left without an award in his hand.
The energetic Ravi Bissembhar, lead singer with the popular band, Karma had the crowd dancing along with him as he sang at the Centre Pointe Mall in Chaguanas recently.
Ravi has toured the Caribbean, USA, Canada, Guyana, Europe and Suriname; representing TT’s culture, chutney and soca. He was also voted the Best New Artiste in 2003 by Radio 103 FM and he received the award for Best Bhajan album in 2005.
‘Straight Outta Britain’ may well be straight outta Ipswich, and most obviously straight outta reggae, but more importantly, it’s straight outta the mouth of YT, one of the most exciting performers to emerge from Britain’s home-grown reggae scene in many years. Firin’ heavyweight headshots straight to the dome, the vitality of his delivery, the ease of his flow and his literally stunning lyrical armoury, are testaments to the devotional commitment of this hardgraftin’ MC.
DJ Spooky Mixes Trojan Records
Paul D. Miller– artist, writer, and DJ Spooky– has, in the past year, put out an album with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, made a podcast using the sounds of New Orleans for a public radio show, created a “Buddhist hip-hop” mix, cooked up some ringtones, and probably been responsible for more music than you or I will ever produce in our entire lifetimes.
And today, he’s releasing a new album, In Fine Style: DJ Spooky Presents: 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records on, yes, Trojan Records. The legendary label opened its vaults to DJ Spooky, allowing him to create a two-disc mix connecting Jamaican music history to the present.
Elephant Man’s album Ova Di Wall to be distributed by Bad Boy
Elephant Man is in good spirits these days, as his long awaited album Ova Di Wall is due out in August on P Diddy’s Bad Boy label.
This is the first in a three-album deal with the label. Specifics about the deal were not disclosed, however, it was revealed that around 20 tracks will be on the set.
Oblivious to the debate in the country about whether their pending performances have been appropriately timed, Beenie Man, Shaggy and Maxi Priest are set to put down the presentations of their respective entertainment lives at the Antigua Recreation Grounds.
A ‘Gash’ in the number one spot
It appears that the recent ban on Chuck Fender’s Gash Dem An Lite Dem might have done more to promote the song rather than hurt it, as the song has hit the number one spot on local charts.
Is U-Roy the Godfather of Rap?
Near a makeshift bar serving cans of Red Stripe, a bank of battered speaker boxes blast out a huge fat bass and a crisp top end to a lively outdoor crowd. While one guy puts the records on, another talks over the top of them. But he doesn’t stop at introducing the tracks, instead he speaks with a musical lilt throughout them and the assembled masses go crazy. It sounds so good in fact that someone decides to have a go at recording it in the studio.
‘Wake Up’ to reggae’s Mystic
Boston music fans often argue about which local rapper will break big out of Beantown.But there’s little doubt which local reggae singer will explode beyond New England.
Mystic is the rare Boston-based reggae artist to make a mark in the Caribbean, too. His single, ‘‘Riding on da Clouds,†is not only getting burn from Emerson College DJs, it’s a sizzler in Jamaica, where last month Mystic cracked the island’s Top 10 chart for a second time.
We were all set, going into an interview, to pin the popular and durable DJ (admittedly one of our favourites) on the matter of his current hit, Ghetto Story (released late 2005), which speaks, in glowing terms, of criminal exploits and other vagaries of innercity life (with its signature line “we get de ting dem!”)