Reggae Mix Online
Made in Jamaica, a documentary by French director Jerome Laperrousaz which takes a look at reggae music’s political and social roots in Jamaica, receives a limited release in Britain.
The film looks at the history of reggae and its most popular modern form, dancehall. It is told entirely through the words of some of the genre’s most prominent artists.
Source: www.socialistworker.co.uk
Mel Cooke
jamaica-gleaner.com
Bunny Wailer has started the digital reissue of his extensive catalogue with the famed Blackheart Man, but he is not resting on the musical laurels he has long earned.
He is coming out with a trio of new albums, each with a different focus. Wailer tells The Sunday Gleaner that Cross Culture is “a little of this and a little of that, as far as the international marketplace and the flavour that the people have been accustomed to where R&B is concerned and rap is concerned and a little hip-hop is concerned”.
Then there is Combination, on which Wailer teams up with 11 women, doing a single track with each. Among the ladies Wailer combines with are Sister Carol, Angie Angel, Lady Patra, Ruffian and Macka Diamond. Wailer believes this approach to the duet has never been done before. “I think this is something like Bunny Wailer, because you know Bunny Wailer always like to come up with something like this,” he said.
“It’s out there and it’s getting some good reviews,” Wailer told The Sunday Gleaner, explaining that Combination has been released digitally. Cross Culture will be released shortly. Read more…
Mel Cooke
jamaica-gleaner.com
When Bunny Wailer wrote Electric Boogie for Marcia Griffiths, the track crackled with the energy of childhood friendship then intermittent contact in later years as their musical paths crossed (Wailer remembers Griffiths coming to Camperdown High to sing as a teenager, then auditioning her as part of a group at Studio One).
And, as he tells it, it seems that Wailer was plugged into the current of popular music of the late 1970s when Griffiths recorded Electric Boogie, and the amperage of music trends to come, as his prediction of a hit, even if it took a decade, became reality. Read more…
