Kamla, Gypsy star in Chutney Soca

From a Minister of Govern-ment performing extempo to a soca artiste serenading the Prime Minister with a classic reggae hit, the 2011 edition of the NLCB Chutney Soca Monarch final featured scintillating performances and energetic dance routines that captivated the massive audience at Skinner Park, San Fernando on Saturday night.

It was also the first occasion the People’s Partnership Administration released a $2 million prize, with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, accompanied by her husband Gregory and son Kris, on hand to present a replica cheque to new Chutney Soca Monarch Rikki Jai.

Taking it lying down

Like Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston rose from nowhere to superstardom seemingly overnight. Though he may not be in the Chris Brown or Ne-yo tax bracket, the Jamaican native has done pretty well for himself. Judging by his videos, one would assume that the baby-faced singer/rapper is a happy-go-lucky chap with a distinct Jamaican accent.

Maybe not. It’s 9.30am in Miami and seven hours later here when I first dial the supplied number for the interview. The St Lunatics rapper Nelly’s Just a Dream suddenly plays on the earpiece and, it being one of my favourite songs at the moment, I bop my head as I wait. It’s going to be good day, I think to myself.

Reggae: A German perspective

While it is important for us as a people to write our own history and tell of our experiences from our perspectives, we often make unflattering comments of outsiders who promote and highlight our music, unnecessarily and unfairly. The lack of acknowledgement of foreigners’ contribution to the development of our musical culture, is narrow-minded and simplistic. The ‘internationalisation’ of reggae music didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Converts across borders, embracing its message of one love, the end of oppression and racial discrimination, conveyed by our musical ambassadors, also played their part.

Reggae/dancehall music has never been short of journeymen. These artistes may not have many hit songs but they keep plugging away, confident the big time is just around the corner.

Singer Sophia Squire, who marks her 20th year in the music business this year, fits that bill. The soft-spoken Spanish Town native is promoting her latest single, Nature’s Calling, an original number produced by Marcus Fire.

via Hitting the big time – Sophia Squire looks for breakout year

Makeda Dread, reggae’s ambassador to San Diego

Makeda Dread ?won’t be performing at Monday’s Tribute to the Reggae Legends ?music marathon (formerly the Bob Marley Day Festival) ?at Valley View Casino Center ?(formerly the San Diego Sports Arena). ?But the festival — which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary with a 16-act lineup headlined by Bunny Wailer, ?Don Carlos ?and Horace Andy ?— couldn’t exist without Dread. She befriended Marley in the mid-1970s and helped launch the annual event named after him here in 1981.

Jurors in reggae star’s drug case to resume deliberations Tuesday

Federal jurors deliberated for about seven hours Friday without reaching a verdict in the drug conspiracy trial of Grammy-winning reggae star Buju Banton and will return Tuesday to continue their work.

Banton, 37, faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of four drug and weapons charges for arranging a deal to buy $135,000 in cocaine, prosecutors say.

Grammy-winning reggae star Buju Banton convicted in federal drug conspiracy case

Reggae star Buju Banton won a Grammy a week ago for an album whose prophetic anthem is a song in which Banton proclaims he is wrongly convicted though God knows he is innocent.

But on Tuesday a jury appeared to follow the advice of prosecutors who told them to forget the No. 1 reggae hits, nine popular albums and the testimony by reggae legend Bob Marley’s son.

If God knows Banton is innocent, jurors begged to differ

Buju Banton guilty on three counts

Jamaica’s reggae superstar Buju Banton, real name Mark Myrie, has been found guilty of three cocaine related charges. A 12 member jury a short while ago delivered the verdict in the Sam M Gibbons building in Tampa which houses the United States Middle District Court, Florida Division. Buju was found guilty on conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine.

Beth Lesser’s unique book, Dancehall, covers the scantily-documented lives, fashion choices and hang outs of Jamaican Dancehall stars in the 1980s. The book is unique, in that it has the largesse to follow the careers of obscure yet worthy artists, who in some cases made little imprint outside Jamaica, and in others examples [as is so often the case] acquired a cult following in places like the US, Canada, the UK and Japan whilst still living in the zinc-roofed shanty towns of Kingston.

Many of these stars, we noticed for the purposes of this project, wore Clarks. The predominance of Clarks in Dancehall, and general Jamaican culture, has since been documented in songs from Vybz Kartel to Josie Wales. Vybz Kartel’s song Clarks was a runaway smash last year, with lyrics like: “Everybody haffi ask weh mi get mi Clarks/ Di leather hard, di suede soft, toothbrush get out di dust fast”. And Josie Wales’ lyric, on Love I Want: “Some come from Portland, some From St Elizabet-a / Some inna Clarks, Some inna battered crepes [shoes]”. Then there’s Little John [not to be confused with the US crunk artist] who wrote Clarks Booty, where he exhorts: “Hol’ up yuh foot and show your Clarks booty…Fling out your foot ‘cause your shoes brand new”.

via Clarks Originals: Booted And Musically Suited.

About four years ago, the Jamaican label Greensleeves released a double-disc greatest-hits set called From Dubplate to Download: The Best of Greensleeves Records. The label’s been releasing music for decades now, and listening to the set felt like taking a crash course in 30 years of Jamaican anthems, from the the Wailing Souls’ slow, organic roots music to the fired-up high-BPM digital dancehall of recent years. And as compulsively listenable as From Dubplate to Download was, there was enough variety in that long arc that the stuff at the end really didn’t belong to the same genre as the stuff at the beginning. When you look back at Greensleeves’ catalog, you’re looking at a truly varied landscape.

Riddimentary: Diplo Selects Greensleeves, his DJ mix of music from the label’s past, turns out to be a love letter to a very specific period in the genre’s evolution: The early-80s moment when deep one-drop roots reggae was just starting to transform into dancehall. It was a time when all these older stars started to integrate digital drum-triggers and echoey synthesizer lines into their tracks, and when the Barrington Levy/Yellowman style of nonsensical stutter-scatting was blowing up. Riddimentary isn’t a wide-ranging dance party; it’s a mix that maintains a single mood and a single tempo throughout. You could dance to it, if you wanted, but you could also wash dishes or read a book or drive down a highway in the middle of the night.

via Various Artists: Riddimentary: Diplo Selects Greensleeves