On July 1, International Reggae Day (IRD) will be observed globally, this time around being the special half-century celebration of reggae as a genre of Jamaican popular music. Tracing the movement from rocksteady to reggae, Andrea Davis of Jamaica...
Dr L'Antoinette Stines, founder and artistic director of L'Acadco - A United Caribbean Dance Force, was "so shocked" when she learnt of being nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award in Canada.Of course, it was a pleasant shock, and she is intent on...
Actress Karen Harriott closed off her latest stage role as Pam in Something Fishy, written by Angela Jarrett, on Father's Day at the Little Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, on Sunday. During intermission, The Gleaner saw an appreciable number of...
As a committed non-football fan, the next few weeks of World Cup 2018 frenzy mean very little to me. Sure, there will be the moments that make an impression - the spectacular free kicks, the hot girls in the stands who stretch the names of the...
Trumpeter Edward 'Tan Tan' Thornton went to the Alpha Boys' School (now Alpha Institute) on South Camp Road in 1945, and kept a place at the 'old boys' home' even after finishing school in 1951, as the nuns who ran Alpha made room for some former...
Orlando Sinclair, play producer who will make his debut as a director with Young & Wreckless later this month, is clear about his financial objective as he is not into the business of theatre to lose money...
As an audio-mixing engineer, Orlando Sinclair was presented with recordings of voices and music, which he was responsible for shaping into a cohesive, compelling song. Now that he is making his debut as a play director with Young...
I tried to talk to John Holt about the writing and recording of Police in Helicopter, one of thepro-marijuana anthems, a few years before he died in 2014. The initial call was answered and I explained what I wanted, but subsequent calls went...
On his 2000 album Unchained Spirit, Buju Banton sings Sudan for the beleaguered African country. In Land of Promise, Damian 'Jr Gong' Marley and Nas' remake of Dennis Brown's Promised Land on the 2010 Distant Relatives album, Marley delights in the...
In yesterday's Gleaner publication, Downsound Records' Josef Bogdanovich said that going all-Jamaican with Reggae Sumfest has not hurt the company financially, although he noted that Jamaican acts were not cheap to hire. I enthusiastically applauded...
There was a time when Robert 'Toney' Owens (the first, as he emphasises to distinguish himself from others of the same name in the music business) stopped releasing songs that he had produced. "For about 10 years, I stopped putting out music," he...
There isn't the slightest hint of laughter in Leighton Smith's voice as he refers to his fourth-place finish in the 2006 Comedy Buss competition. "It was a spiritual thing for me, placing like Lazarus when Jesus told him to come forth," he told The...
As the police, especially those in western Jamaica, deal with the motorcycle (especially low-cost ones) as a tangible focal point of scamming and road-safety issues, it strikes me just how much the two-wheeled transportation is entrenched in...
Yaniq Walford is part of the second generation in the family's sound system business, Bass Odyssey, based in Alexandria, St Ann ("From waaay out in the country!" as Bounty Killer says on many a dubplate). She was central to the trans-formation of...
Deejay Michael 'Flourgon' May's lawsuit against singer Miley Cyrus and Sony Music, claiming US$300 million in damages, has naturally stirred interest in the music industry and further afield. That includes persons who believe they may be in a...
Many persons have performed at Redbones over its 21 years at two New Kingston locations, Braemar Avenue and Argyle Road. And many of them are a part of The Best of the Best, which marks the restaurant and cultural hub's final week before relocating...
Each Boxing Day, Jamaica's year-end commercial theatre season opens with a slew of productions with extended runs well into the new year, when they are joined by other productions of varying run lengths.In addition to the major commercial theatrical...
It may just be my lack of exposure and currency, but it appears that there are fewer large drawings of Jamaican popular music performers on walls around Kingston (at least, the places that I frequent). While I am sure that there is healthy does of...
Deejay Michael 'Flourgon' May's We Run Things is listed by discogs.com as having been released in 1988 by the Redman International label as a seven-inch single. However, after his lawsuit against American singer Miley Cyrus for her use of the phrase...
There are tears in the 15 minutes of Kinto, shed by lead actor Sekai Smart-Macaulay, when the really hard times as a windshield washer literally hit him in the form of a group of thugs who rob and beat him in New Kingston, just after he happily buys...
Among the performers for Jamaica Fun in the Son 2018, which takes place on July 14 at National Heroes Park, are: Kevin Downswell, Papa San, Chevelle Franklyn, Rondell Positive and Carlene Days.However, even as he speaks about the line-up and notes...
The invitation to Saturday's film screening at Redbones in New Kingston was to a Naija Night and ('naija' a word for Nigeria, which also expresses pride and strength), and some of the country's products were duly on display at the rear of the...
The acknowledgement of one's peers is a complement, and August Morning poet (and painter, as the cover art attests to) St Hope Earl McKenzie's work is repeatedly complemented by the voices of his contemporaries. This is done through their reading...
Dramatist, poet and novelist A-dZiko Simba has been living in Jamaica since the beginning of her 21st year. And it has been 21 years since she was last in England. That stretch of absence is due to end later this month when she attends and does her...
If Saturday night's Final Chapter of Startime was a burial for the 31-year-old concert series, nobody remembered to tell the zinc fence-to-zinc fence, stage front-to-skybox audience at Mas Camp it should mourn. Instead, the approximately six-hour...
