Cliff advocate thrilled with HOF nomination

Charles Earle, the American music buff who launched a Cyber petition to get reggae superstar Jimmy Cliff inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (HOF), says he is “absolutely thrilled” that the singer
has been finally nominated.

“I hope the voters see fit to give Mr Cliff his much-deserved place in the Hall of Fame. He is close now, and it is just a matter of the voters acknowledging his enormous influence,” Earle told The Gleaner last Friday from his home in Birmingham, Alabama.

Julian Marley spreading message of ‘oneness and unity’

It’s obvious that Julian Marley has been in town. He has been doing all the right “pee-arrey” stuff – morning television, lots of radio and some print in which he has been enthusiastically talking about his latest CD, Arise and his upcoming US tour of the same name with his 7Uprising band.

The tour was scheduled to kick off last night in Jacksonville, Florida, and Julian told Splash last Friday that he has been doing rigorous preparation for the six-week journey. “It has been four weeks of solid rehearsals everyday, getting the voice and everything up to date,” he said.

No gay reggae in the MIA

In 1988 as a 15-year-old up and coming reggae singer, Buju Banton wrote a song titled, “Boom Boom Bye,” in which his lyrics told gay men he would like to, “burn him up bad like an old tire wheel,” or shoot them with an Uzi or an automatic weapon.

Two decades later, the song continues to anger the GLBT community, leading to protests of Banton’s concerts all across the United States, including his scheduled October 31 Reggae Fest performance at the James L. Knight Center in Miami with other well-known Jamaican artists Beenie Man, Wayne Wonder and Red Rat.

Bounty Killer Denied Entry Into TT

Jamaican Dancehall DJ, Bounty Killer, who was one of the main acts in last night’s “Cease Fire” concert at the King George V Park in Port-of-Spain, failed to show, as he was denied entry into the country on Friday night by Immigration officers at Piarco International Airport.

Sunday Newsday was reliably informed that the artiste, whose real name is Rodney Price, arrived at Piarco at 8.07 pm on Friday onboard flight BW 415. However, when he disembarked the aircraft and made his way to the Immigration section he was told by officers that he was not granted permission to enter the country and that he would have to leave for Jamaica on the next available flight.

No daggerin’ on Jamaican TV and on Worldfocus

At the center of the music ban in Jamaica is daggerin’. Earlier this year, Jamaica’s national broadcasting commission banned sexually-explicit and violent lyrics and images related to daggerin’.

Worldfocus — based in New York City, not Kingston — also decided not to air these images because we thought our audience might be alarmed by the graphic nature of the dance. (Tell us below what you think of the daggerin’ images!) We didn’t mention daggerin’ in our video story because it begged the question…what is daggerin’?

Jamaica considers cashing in on its image

Usain Bolt had just been crowned the undisputed sprint king when a businessman boldly walked into the government office here hoping to cash in on the Jamaican track star’s record-setting dash. The visitor from the Cayman Islands sought to brand his creative ideas: U-Sane Energy Drink and Lightening Bolt Energy Drink.

“Our antennas went up immediately,” said attorney Carol Simpson, who heads the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, which oversees trademarks, patents and copyrights. “The truth is we are very, very careful in looking at instances like this.”

Lost legends of reggae

As we enter black history month, Davina Morris salutes some of reggae music’s past pioneers

It’s impossible not to think of the late great Bob Marley when considering reggae icons. But, of course, there were countless artists before and since Marley who made a massive impact on the Jamaica-born genre.

Hip hop book taps into Jamaican roots

The love of hip hop has taken Dalton Higgins, a music programmer, pop culture critic, author, broadcaster and journalist, around the world, but it was a visit to Germany that inspired him to write a new book, Hip Hop World.

The Canada-born writer of Jamaican parentage takes a uniquely intelligent look at the multiculturalism of hip hop, profiling the movement globally, and includes an examination of Canadian and Aboriginal communities.

Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae

The lovingly conceived, brilliantly executed, multi-platform Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae aims to achieve the same sort of museum piece-to-modernity transformation for Jamaican rocksteady that Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit, 1996) created for Cuban music of an earlier era. As with Buena Vista, there’s a CD, a movie and a package tour. The CD features eight surviving rocksteady vocal stars of the late 1960s revoicing some of their biggest hits of the era (or those of departed contemporaries), accompanied by a brilliantly well-qualified and still kicking studio band made up of fellow survivors, many of whom played on the original 7″ singles. As an added treat, the inimitable and enduring DJ and toaster (rapper/poet) U-Roy, who honed his art working with Jamaica’s mobile “sound systems” during the rocksteady years, voices one track, “Stop That Train.”

Just let the music play. without set quotas

Large radio stations won’t increase local content to suit the Jamaica Music Society (JAMMS) which says the dominance of foreign music is costing the country millions in royalty payments at the expense of national development.

“We are not supportive of giving up flexibility and ability to respond to our audiences’ interest by having specific quotas set,” said Gary Allen, managing director at RJR Group which controls 50 per cent of the radio market share among its three channels – one of which plays local content only.