Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The invitation to Thursday evening's event at Silver Star Motors on South Camp Road, Kingston, offered those who received them the opportunity to "sip and savour an assortment of fine wines, while exploring a range of 2017 models from Mercedes-Benz...
Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Evon Vassell of Diplomat Tracking Solutions Ltd has little comfort for motorists using one – or both – of the most popular methods of thwarting motor vehicle thieves. He dismisses car alarms and kill switches (which cut the supply of...
Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
On Tuesday, July 26, it will be a decade since the passing of Louise Bennett-Coverley, 'Miss Lou, in Toronto, Canada. Her writing is part of an extensive engagement with the comings and goings of Jamaicans and the Story of the Song retraces one of...
Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Invariably, I get rather maudlin and morose at the end of my final full day in a country I had not been to before. I get the feeling that I am saying goodbye to a place I will not see again or, if I do, not in the same way as the first experience.To...
Published:Wednesday | July 20, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
I went to Fun in the Son 2016 on Saturday, not because I am a Christian (far from it) or for work. My sole purpose was to see Papa San, a deejay whose live performances I listened to a lot in the late 1980s on a sound system Creation.Of course, his...
Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
I recently visited Venezuela to participate in the 13th World Festival of Poetry and formed a first-hand impression of a country about which there is intense political speculation.In the parts of Caracas I saw three weeks ago, there were no roving...
Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
In May this year the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) outlined its concerns over erosion of the Jamaican currency’s value, noting that “at January 1, 2016, the average rate was US$1 to J$120.24. At May 19, 2016, this had declined to US...
Published:Tuesday | July 12, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
A couple of days in a country does not make you even knowledgeable about it, so forget about being an expert. However, there are bound to be observations which remain with you and form the basis of a comparison with...
Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
This year marks a half century of the Festival Song contest and it is remarkable that a central member of the first winners, The Maytals, continues to be a prominent, active and loved performer.Frederick ?Toots? Hibbert, of Toots and the Maytals,...
Published:Wednesday | July 13, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
As Tribute to the Greats is an awards show honouring Jamaica's often-unheralded music pioneers, it is expected that there will be a summary of their achievements leading up to the event and an in-depth...
Published:Sunday | July 10, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The Jamaica Music Museum's growing collection of instruments expanded further on Friday with the donation of a Yamaha upright piano by the Coore family. Stephen 'Cat' Coore of Third World band and his son, Shiah, who plays bass guitar in Damian 'Jr...
Published:Friday | July 8, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
It is normal - and even expected - for singers, deejays and poets to include their places of origin in their lyrics, as those early and enduring memories are part and parcel of their artistic development. There are those Jamaican performers who go a...
Published:Friday | July 1, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Before the general public got a look at the vehicles on display inside the Montego Bay Convention Centre, St James, yesterday, a high-powered walk-through of the 2016 Wealth Auto Show was scheduled for Friday evening.Among those slated to see the...
Published:Wednesday | June 29, 2016 | 3:04 PMMel Cooke
It is now so commonplace that the twinning of image and song in the music video is not only unremarkable, but expected. In Way Back, Tanya Stephens reminds us of a time when music wasn't sold off the video alone, and whether or not the moving images...
Published:Tuesday | June 28, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The 13th World Poetry Festival opened on Sunday evening in Caracas, Venezuela, on the scale and with adiversity of verse justifying its name. A large, attentive and appreciative audience gathered in the expansive Sala Rios Reyna Teatro Teresa...
Published:Friday | June 24, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
In painting an engaging canvas of sound, anything that can be recorded is fair game. While dub music is renowned for the range of its sonic scope, there are Jamaican songs which emphasise the vocals as much as the music, which include sounds meant...
Published:Thursday | June 23, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Michael Barnett, who along with Charles Simms is organising the Saturday, July 2, staging of Startime at the Juici Patties Verandah, Clarendon, got an overwhelmingly positive response when he first posted the concert's line-up online.But it was the...
Published:Wednesday | June 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
It is with a sense of immense satisfaction that I have watched the spat over the rainbow flag being unfurled at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston unfold, without the accustomed anti-homosexual dancehall suspects being involved.As a recap, for those who...
Published:Friday | June 17, 2016 | 1:37 PMMel Cooke
Family trends in Jamaican popular music are not unusual, with the offspring of prominent - and not so prominent - practitioners growing up to engage in the same business as their parents.While much attention is naturally given to those who make...
Published:Friday | June 17, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
While the proposal for a new highway through St Thomas to Port Antonio, Portland, from the Jamaican capital have been shelved, the solution announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Thursday has still struck a positive note for someone heavily...
Published:Thursday | June 16, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The ninth Kingston on the Edge (KOTE) urban arts festival begins tonight at Redbones Blues Café, New Kingston, and there will be 26 events over the 10 days until Sunday, June 26, with over 200 artists (over 20 of them from outside Jamaica)...
Published:Wednesday | June 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The lady to whom I am married is heavily into track and field. I am heavily into the live performance of Jamaican popular music. However, she will go to Rebel Salute (2016) to see Beres Hammond, among other events, and I ended up at Saturday's...
Published:Sunday | June 12, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The connection between the title and consistent theme of Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s collection and the place where some of the poems were presented on Saturday morning was inescapable. Published by Bloodaxe Books, Breeze’s latest...
Published:Sunday | June 12, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Bob Marley's funeral on May 21, 1981, was a massive affair. On the 30th anniversary, Richard Williams, writing in The Guardian, said Rita Marley placed a stalk of marijuana in the Tuff Gong's casket at the end of the funeral. Marijuana was also on...
Published:Friday | June 10, 2016 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
On my first test drive of a big H model I got a hint of what I shall call the 'Honda Heffect' in Jamaica. I ended up in the parking lot of a bank in Portmore, St Catherine, sitting behind the steering wheel of a 2016 Accord, air conditioning running...
