The New York launch party for Reggae Sumfest, the DownSound Entertainment Ltd-owned and -produced annual summer festival, has been shifted, owing to the outbreak of the coronavirus, COVID-19, now shaking up the globe and some parts of America on...
With thousands of revellers locally and overseas eagerly anticipating the 2020 staging of carnival in Jamaica, the advent of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the island has seen a huge question sign now hanging over the event. The Government on...
The entire theatre, cinema, studio, and live-music ecosystem is under threat on a global scale from the feared coronavirus. As a result, postponements, cancellations, and other modifications have now become the norm. Here in Jamaica, the organisers...
In Myrna’s inimitable style, the fabulous ‘Simply Myrna’ cabaret series had its “goodbye” curtain call last Saturday inside a packed Courtleigh Auditorium, with the doyenne of jazz pouring her all into the final song, the Rita Coolidge classic, I’d...
Donovan Germain’s bio lists him as owner and producer of Penthouse records and passionate Kingston College (KC) old boy. Hailed as one of Jamaica’s leading music producers in the digital age, Germain, who has established himself as a force to be...
When the curtains are pulled back this Saturday for the milestone 10th staging of the Simply Myrna cabaret showcase at the Courtleigh Auditorium in New Kingston, among the special guest performers will be the internationally acclaimed Cari-Folk...
Organiser of Jamaica’s Best School Band (JBSB), Rayven Amani, is enthusiastic about the upcoming season of the inter-high school stage band competition. Now in its seventh year, the JBSB will run from March 12-April 19; however, the actual work...
Towering, wall-to-wall sound boxes; zinc fences scrawled with graffiti and more foundation sound man, selectors, box man and dubplates ever present in the same space at the same time, were the ingredients which transformed the National Indoor...
The Israel Vibration journey is storied and full of drama, much like the journey of the biblical Children of Israel during their trek from bondage into the Promised Land. Formed in 1975, the reggae harmony group, which had its genesis in Kingston,...
Adding its spice to an already flavourful Reggae Month 2020 was Sunday’s Dennis Brown tribute concert on the waterfront, downtown Kingston. The legacy of Jamaica’s Boy Wonder who grew to become the acclaimed Crown Prince of Reggae was celebrated by...
There is soul music, and then there is music with soul. Reggae falls in the latter category, and this was exposed, expressed and enjoyed at this week’s staging of Reggae Wednesdays, the weekly Reggae Month concert at Emancipation Park in New...
The colossal dance, music and social legacy of three extraordinarily great Jamaicans was celebrated with much fanfare inside the Little Theatre on Tuesday evening. Lusty shouts of ‘bravo’ filtered through the air as patrons showered appreciation on...
The thought of singing and dancing to a song about the coronavirus may not be particularly alluring, and would probably be seen as drastically downplaying the seriousness of the dreaded virus, which has already killed 2,000 persons. However, half a...
CVM Television Limited is currently before the court, in an action brought against them by the Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers (JACAP), a performance rights licensing body. The case got under way in the Supreme Court on...
It was in 2014 that producer, Dr Brian Heap, staged a three-day production called the 8x10 Festival, which he says is a concept that worked well then, and would still be practical today. An enthusiastic Heap told The Gleaner that it involved the...
Deneice Williams came, saw and conquered, prime time emcee Richie B stated confidently as he took to the stage right after the Grammy award winning vocalist’s outstanding performance at Red Rose for Gregory, on Saturday night at the Liguanea Golf...
Reggae icon Freddie McGregor is still basking in the honour of being the very first recipient of the ‘Black History Month meets Reggae Icon Award,’ which was presented to him recently at a glitzy, red-carpet event in the city of Miramar in Florida...
From the infectious sounds of Big Youth's cool and confident crooning, as he eschewed new-age political correctness which dictates ‘the ‘N’ word’ for nigger’, and instead melodiously toasted, “every Nigger is a star”, to Munga Honorable’s brash and...
Rastafarian reggae artiste Capleton is one of the headline acts for the concerts which are part of the package at this year’s Jamaica Rum Festival, and he is only too aware that some persons are questioning his presence on the show. Emphasising...
It was real ‘big people ting’ inside the Stella Maris auditorium on Shortwood Road, on Sunday evening, when some of the island’s finest singers and musicians, along with an emcee/comedian, displayed their absolute mastery in their chosen field, in...
The ‘Founding Father of Hip Hop’ is a title that the Jamaican creator of the genre wears very well, and he laughs when asked how it feels to be so acknowledged. “Despite everything, I have never forgotten my roots,” DJ Kool Herc told The Gleaner...
Papa Michigan’s One Love Jamdown, with its strident dismissal of segregation at every level, powered by the lusty Rope In ‘riddim’, certainly embodied the theme for the kickoff staging of Reggae Wednesdays, 'One Big Family'. The old-school deejay...
Rastafarian elder and reggae singer, Denroy Morgan, is releasing a new single today. However, that is a small part of a much more serious mission on which he has militantly embarked. He is making a case for the United Nations (UN) to declare...
Most persons with a February 6 birthday are said to be born on the ‘earthstrong’ of reggae legend, Robert Nesta Marley. Derrick Harriott, however, has a slightly different take. “Bob Marley was born on my birthday,” he states very matter-of-factly...
Attorney-at-law and reggae music connoisseur Bert Samuels has a deep respect for the music and the message of iconic reggae singer Robert Nesta ‘Bob’ Marley, who would have celebrated his 75th birthday today. But he also has a case against the “...
