The official DVD release and European premiere of Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens, a documentary that chronicles the history of violence against Rastafarians in Jamaica is scheduled for February 10 in Amsterdam, Oxumgirl Productions announced. Produced and directed by John Jackson, Jr. and Deborah Thomas, along with Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn and Junior “Ista J” [...]
Jamaica’s Reggae Chess Kidz swamped the competition winning 12 trophies at the annual Miami Junior Orange Bowl International Scholastic Chess Championships in Florida. They overcame the USA, Venezuela, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and Ecuador to place first and second in taking three team and nine individual awards and a host of other prizes in the [...]
The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s 2010 gold medalist for short story writing, Jean Goulbourne, has wasted no time in producing her newest collection of stories Parable of the Mangoes published by the Abeng Press. Born in Black River on Jamaica’s south coast, Jean developed a keen eye and ear for all that happened around her [...]
Black Music Month goes back to its Reggae-Dancehall roots on Saturday, June 4, 2011, with a unique fundraising dance and culturama in aid of the establishment of a Marcus Garvey Self Sufficiency Center in Fort Lauderdale. Music lovers and party goers are in for a special treat when three noted selectors come together for the ”Triple [...]
Jennifer Lopez is on my Toronto TV as I write, singing I’m Into You, accompanied by the rapper Lil Wayne. It’s a traditional reggae bass line with a little bit of the more recent dancehall rhythm on top – a sound some of us in my youthful days called flyers rockers, associated with the likes [...]
The time has come to create opportunities for Caribbean artists on the world stage, asserts a leading regional artist, Ras Ayken-i Ramsay.
“Aunty, here you are all dressed in white in the middle of the week when it’s Fridays and weekends people here wear white.” “Really? Why only on those days?” I asked. “For funerals; in Ghana we fancy funerals,” Kofi said nonchalantly. And from what I’d observed after my relocation to Ghana, Kofi was right. Ghanaians [...]
David Emanuel may be a rather non-descript name, but if you have any British connections or affiliations with London’s music scene in the 1980s the name evokes memories of the cheeky Cockney with the megawatt grin. Smiley Culture, as he was more popularly known, died under tragic and suspicious circumstances on March 15, 2011, at [...]
Cuban multi-media talent Jesus Lara Sotelo makes art of the highest order. He paints and writes, draws, photographs, works in ceramic, sculpts. All art-forms are rendered with taste, grace and depth of meaning. The connectedness of the artist to his universe is visible in the emotional proximity with which he examines his subjects. Multiple themes [...]
Jamaicans and the global Reggae music community were rocked with the sad news of the passing of master “Lovers Rock” singer and songwriter Gregory “Cool Ruler” Isaacs on Monday October 25th. Isaacs died in his London home early that morning after losing his battle with lung cancer. The reports on his passing carried by media [...]