Jack it up selector! The Heatwave cram the biggest UK hits to come out of Jamaica into one crazy mix: 50 years + 83 tunes x 73 minutes = approximately five million rewinds. These songs have been pulled up, wheeled, rewound and replayed literally MILLIONS of times – in bedrooms, house parties, blues dances, nightclubs and raves throughout the UK.
To celebrate 50 years of Jamaican independence, The Heatwave’s quickfire insanity-inducing DJ style is applied to half a century’s worth of classic tracks. 50 years of Jamaican sounds hyping UK ravers. How many times will you rewind this mix?
Not to be outdone, Mr. Vegas has assembled an all-star group of djs for a remix of his hit “Sweet Jamaica.” Check out the video below….
Happy 50th Birthday Jamaica! Sweet Jamaica” just got alot more flavor. “Sweet Jamaica”, has a whole new set of names attached to it and an all star video to prove it.
Joining Mr Vegas, Shaggy and Josey Wales on “The Voices of Sweet Jamaica” is Shaggy’s fellow Grammy winner, Beenie Man, rising star Christopher Martin, foundation deejay U-Roy and dancehall super group T.O.K. , as well as the ‘good’ gyal Ce’Cile and international performer Barrington Levy. When you add in Tony Curtis and Singing Melody (one half of Jamaica’s favorite harmony group, LUST) as well as Marcia Griffiths, Cocoa Tea, Freddie McGregor and Leroy ‘Heptones’ Sibbles the “The Voices of Sweet Jamaica” are a virtual who’s who of the nation’s musical legacy.
Tonight at 10/9c HBO airs a documentary on actor, singer, and political activist Harry Belafonte to coincide with his new autobiography, My Song: A Memoir, which was released last week.
Sing Your Song documents Mr. Belafonte’s life as a social activist and entertainer. Check out the trailer for the film below….
Most people know the lasting legacy of Harry Belafonte, the entertainer. This film unearths his significant contribution to and his leadership in the civil rights movement in America and to social justice globally.
Opening with a call from the Maroon “Abeng” horn, this contemporary version of the Jamaican National Anthem showcases the beauty, people, art, athletics and cultural diversity of our island home, Jamaica.
Eligio Sardiñas Montalvo, a boxer better known as “Kid Chocolate” (1910-1988), photographed by the Von Romerheim Studio, ca. 1930. Also called “the Cuban Bon Bon,” he was the first Cuban to win a world championship title, in 1931.
The Kid was one of the first boxers who seriously studied films of other famous fighters and integrated the moves he saw into his own repertoire. [Kid] Chocolate studied films of Joe Gans-Battling Nelson, Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries and the Benny Leonard-Lew Tendler fights over and over.
His classic upright stance, his boxing skill, his defensive agility, and his all-around boxing ability, combined with his windmill style of boxing — his hands ablur as he threw a baker’s-dozen punches in the time it took to say [his given name] “Eligio Sardinias” [sic] — and his little touches, like tying his laces behind his shoes, made the tall, graceful Cuban one of the most exciting fighters of his day
Bet you never knew famed poet Langston Hughes wrote a book on the Caribbean, did you? Check it out, in full, in the photo gallery below, featuring illustrations by Robert Bruce…
With few exceptions… most of the major slavery novels have been about American slavery… West Indian slavery was so different in a lot of ways. One example: in the American South, even in a state like Louisiana, slaves were up to around, say, 10% of the general population… In an economy like Jamaica, slaves were around 92 to 98 percent, so it was always volatile, it was always violent, every year there was a plot.
Ivan Van Sertima, is a scholar of African Studies at Rutgers University. He maintains that Africans were responsible for advances in metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, medicine and other fields. He also believes that black Africans came to North America before Christopher Columbus. (Original broadcast 1997)
Interesting radio program on Marcus Garvey on BBC Radio 4. Check out the broadcast below…
Playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah chooses Marcus Garvey, the inspirational black leader of the early 20th century. With biographer Colin Grant and presenter Matthew Parris.
