Make no mistake about it, the rumpus around music format changes on radio stations within the RJRGLEANER Communications Group not only reaffirms that radio is important in Jamaica, but also points to a matter of control. The shouts from the makers...
There are some standard images which make for that comfort zone of familiarity which can criss-cross with similarity and cliche when used on album covers. One is the spliff and puff of smoke (yawn, y'all can't get anywhere near as revolutionary as...
The picture Joy Fairclough painted of music writing competence in Jamaica, was overwhelmingly bleak as she pointed out the deficiencies of skilled persons to the audience at the JAMPRO building, Trafalgar Road, New Kingston, on Monday morning....
What a difference a week makes, when music which originates in Jamaica is being put out fast, furiously and spiritually. The last is because the new number one is Original Love by Christafari the US group which announces its blend of faiths in its...
With humour, audience member engagement, audiovisuals and his obvious passion, Pierre Lemaire, dean of the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, engaged participants yesterday morning, as he explained three...
While matters of intellectual property are relevant year-round, to a country with Jamaica's prodigious creative output, this week there will be an especially strong focus as the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO) marks Intellectual Property...
The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's (JCDC) Drum Festival made its Emancipation Park debut last year, and as music development specialist Avory Crooks-Campbell puts it, "we had such a good time we are back this year". And today's event will...
The name of the album in its entirety - I Am Integrity - and the beat to which a number of vocalists mate their voices - the Integrity Riddim - make the intention of the recently released project clear. Along with the Big Woman Tingz album, I Am...
As the organisers of Carnival in Jamaica 2018 revel in the record number of visitors it attracted (over 50,000 arrivals have been connected to the season by Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett), I am looking at the calendar of large-scale entertainment...
As far as the annual round of celebrations for dead Jamaican singers goes, Hugh Mundell does not even get off to a start. And, apart from a line from Junior Reid ("Hugh Mundell, he was shot by the gun") does not get the repeated mention in songs...
With the first quarter of 2018 over, and the business of making and presenting music cranking up for the summer season, the new releases are flying thick and fast. With that flurry of discs and digital formats comes, of course, fits and starts on...
There is drama in the everyday Jamaican phenomenon of interpersonal conflict that escalates unnecessarily and publicly. Then, there is the drama of theatrical arts in general, and the very serious, thought-provoking kind in particular. While he has...
In their 10-minute set at tomorrow's final of the 2018 Jamaica's Best School Band Competition, each of the six sets of high school musicians will be required to do a remix. Putting the songs they choose to another beat of the same type is not enough...
On the face of it - literally - singer Bushman's early 2018 album on his Burning Bushes imprint is as straightforward as a roots reggae album can get.It is called Conquering Lion, Bushman is Rastafari, the cover art is a lion's face fused with a man...
Sherie-Ann Anderson is unequivocal about the visitor accommodation service's role in facilitating the bumper crowd of visitors to Jamaica for last weekend's Road March climax to 2018 Carnival in Jamaica. "If it were not for Airbnb, they could not...
Sultan Ali traces his life in music back to bottles. Red Stripe bottles, to be precise. And empty ones, too, as the child named Donald Campbell and his brother picked them up off the floor of Forrester's Hall on North Street, Kingston, and put them...
Glen Campbell is able to give audiences at the Centrestage Theatre, New Kingston, Jambiz base - and further afield - a laugh a minute (or at even shorter intervals).But although he was smiling when accepting the award for Best Actor in a Supporting...
There is a music producer who has said to me more then once that nobody can make a hit song. All the people involved in creating a song - composer, lyricist, vocalists, engineers, producer, graphic artist, video director, manager, and more, can do...
Michael Barnett pin-points three reasons why the 31-year-old Startime concert series is coming to a close in Jamaica on Saturday, May 5, with one last blast at the Mas Camp.Two of the issues - drying up of cash sponsorship and a dwindling pool of...
At 11 years old and "90-something" pounds, Marcia Griffiths was nicknamed 'Toothpick'. The dress she had made for her Easter Monday performance at the Carib Cinema, Cross Roads, 54 years ago emphasised that slenderness. She liked close-fitting...
Carlene Davis was enjoying a laid-back Easter Monday morning when she learnt that Winnie Mandela had died, and her day changed. "I did not know that she was ailing. It came as a shock," Davis told The Gleaner. "The news sank in, and I was travelling...
"There is a lady we paid to get sponsors and nothing happened. The agent just said she can't get any sponsors and gave us back our money," Dunkley said.Having staged the event from 2016 out of personal funds, without corporate backing, Dunkley said...
As important as they are for income generation, attracting visitors and selling products from liquor to shirts, events are such fleeting. As hard as it may be to grasp for those of us who went to Sting year after year for an extended period, unless...
One of the unfortunate things about being connected to a seminal moment in popular culture is that while a place in history is assured, there is a distinct tendency to restrict the person or entity's creative output to that one moment and, rightly...
Even as the final tally is being settled, Alex Morrissey is confident that Saturday's Earth Hour Concert at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Old Hope Road, St Andrew, enjoyed the largest turnout the Jamaican leg of the global environmental...
