It goes down in Brooklyn today with our peoples from F.O.K.U.S. and a whole lot of their friends as they celebrate the 3rd annual ‘The Stoop’ event. Check out the details below…

The Stoop 2010
Hosted by Circa ‘95 | Music by DJ Synapse
August 14, 2010
1:00pm
Performances starting at 1:20pm
Fort Greene Park (Myrtle Ave and N. Portland)
Brooklyn, NY

Sponsored by:
Fusicology; Fresh Industries; Brooklyn Arts Council; New York State Council on the Arts; Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; NY Kings; riceworks and Ogo Sport

FREE Arts Celebration with
-performances by: Si*Se, Pattern Is Movement, Kagero, XV, Ayodele Alli, and Ishmael Islam
-live art by Convoluted Construct, Alice Mizrachi and Free5.
-games, face painting and much more!

Presented by F.O.K.U.S.

For more info, click here: Fusicology Events - F.O.K.U.S. presents The Stoop.

Interesting article on the upcoming Haitian presidential election and the pair of superstar musicians, Michel Martelly, a.k.a. “Sweet Micky,” and Wyclef Jean, set to be pitted against each other. Check out an excerpt below…

Better known for the eyebrow-raising lyrics (and swearing) and his ability to rouse even the most conservative of Haitian elites to dance on top of tables, Martelly, 49, dressed in a suit on Thursday to submit his paperwork to run for President on the ticket of his party Repons Peyizan, or Countrymen’s Response. He acknowledges that comparisons will be made between himself and Jean (who according to the candidacy papers he filed this week is 40 years old, not 37 as his bios previously said). But Martelly says despite being opponents for the presidency, he and Jean are friends. Martelly appeared on Jean’s first solo album The Carnival in 1997. But Martelly jokes, “He’s global and I’m local.” And he says what sets him apart from the rest of the presidential field — his friend included — is the Haitian people’s true affinity for him.

Read the full article here: Haiti: Wyclef Jean to Face Michel Martelly in Election - TIME.

London-based Photographer Leah Gordon comes through with come amazing black and white imagery. If you’re in London be sure to check out the exhibit, which run through next month. Check out the details below…

Since the earthquake in January 2010, a proliferation of horrific media images have reinforced an ongoing narrative of Haitians as victims – of disaster, of poverty, of corruption. Rarely is Haiti’s incredibly potent colonial history mentioned. Between 1791 and 1804 Haitians led the only successful slave revolt in history which resulted in the abolition of French colonial rule, and in Haiti becoming the first black-led republic. Photographer Leah Gordon’s stunning images of Haiti tell the story of a country intimately in tune with its past. We caught up with her at Riflemaker Gallery where her current exhibition, The Invisibles, is showing until September 10, to find out more.

Check out her interview with Don’t Panic here: LEAH GORDON | Photographer’s Kanaval of Haiti hits Riflemaker.

Fader TV recently sat down with Gyptian and got the low down on his new album and thoughts on his sex symbol title.

Fader’s Ghetto Palms normally features Dancehall but in the latest installment this mix is all about kreyol. It mainly features a Haitian-born Montreal rapper Mr. OK. Props to the Fader for always mixing it up.

Download Here

Following up on my post a couple of weeks back, check out The FADER’s Shabba-themed podcast, that accompanies their recent Shabba cover, below…

Yes, that Shabba; the ranking one. I am gonna have to keep this column dumb-short just to make room for the dumb-long tracklisting, still only a narrow core-sample of Shabba’s deep and broad 45-ography. I tried to drill through a good cross-section of his work with different producers from different eras, mostly avoiding the video joints and trying to include a few later/leftfield gems that are not necessarily part of the dancehall canon, either. And then I added a few associated jams and tributary Panamanian and Punjabi riddims to provide some context, give an idea of dude’s impact globally (you can even find samples of Shabba’s trademark ugh! On Egyptian pop records from the early ’90s) and make it a proper Ghetto Palms mix.

Download it here: Ghetto Palms 99: Shabba!.

Also, check out the full feature here.

Tracklisting is after the jump….

(more…)

A while back, we highlighted The NY Times piece on Reggae standby label Wackie’s. Turns out though, that they weren’t the first. Check out an excerpt from 2003 XLR8R’s story below….

In 1986, hardly anyone noticed the release of Bullwackie, a documentary about a soft-spoken Jamaican producer named Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes and his reggae label, Wackies. The film depicted Barnes at the center of a small but lively roots music scene, based around his recording studio at 241st Street and Whiteplains Road in the north Bronx. At the time, the world’s attention was focused on the Bronx’s other musical product, hip-hop, while far away in reggae’s traditional power centers of Jamaica and England, the more processed throb of dancehall was taking over. Dub and roots were yesterday’s news, and it’s hard not to see Bullwackie as a film about the last holdout of a fading era. In the years immediately following the film’s release, Barnes shut down his studio and Wackies releases gradually trickled down to nothing.

Seventeen years later, Jamaican music is the focus of a reissue frenzy spearheaded by labels like Blood & Fire and Pressure Sounds. Recordings that were originally pressed in amounts numbering in the hundreds are now finding an enormous global audience. But when the mysterious German techno label Basic Channel announced plans to reissue through EFA Distribution the Wackies back catalogue earlier this year, it did more than reopen a forgotten chapter of Jamaican music. The selection of mostly unknown releases revealed an extraordinary production talent on par with the likes of King Tubby, Joe Gibbs and Lee Perry….

Check out the full article here: XLR8R Magazine on Wackie’s in 2003.

…. via HigherLevelSound & Seen.

The FADER trips back to a time when Shabba ruled the tube and radio with their latest issue. Check out the details on their Icon Issue, which it also features rocker Siouxsie Sioux, below…

Around the same time in the early ’90s, MTV’s 120 Minutes replayed the macabre clip for Siouxsie & the Banshees’ “Cities in Dust” while Shabba Ranks’ “Mr. Loverman” entered heavy rotation. The latter featured Ranks riding king-like on a raft across a Jamaican waterway among a gaggle of girls. In an era when MTV had musical impact, these two ruled the airwaves as unlikely royalty: Siouxsie Sioux the smoldering goddess of the underworld, Shabba cutting a stoic figure across maniacal crossover dancehall. Each brought their own explosive styles to a culture that had never seen anything quite like them—the dark dynamics of stately post-punk and a groundbreaking entry to global airwaves by Jamaica’s newest sound.

Siouxsie Sioux and Shabba Ranks, besides individually upheaving the musical landscapes of their time, can both be heard in copious new music we love right now. So, rather than pretending we weren’t equally passionate for both, for the first time ever, we chose two cover icons. To properly honor each of them, we printed four covers and split them fifty-fifty. And while the duo might initially seem like opposing forces, you just have to look at the artists featured throughout this issue to see how perfectly they intersect: from Santigold to Ikonika, RZA to Dave Sitek, Dum Dum Girls to Cassette Playa, Vybz Kartel to Tego Calderon, while tracing their legacies we found exactly how fiercely today’s musical and cultural climate reflects the dovetailing forces of the king of dancehall and the queen post-punk.

Read more on the new issue here.

Download the full issue in PDF format here, or snag it on iTunes by clicking here.

First Mag took a trip to Haiti last week and documented some of the vivid scenery in Port-au-Prince that exist amongst and around the rubble. Most of the shots are of Haitian art but also the lively colors that exist around most parts of the city.

Tags: Arts, First Magazine, Haiti, Haitian Art, Jamaica, Magazines, Peter Dean Rickards, Photography, Photos, Port-au-Prince, The Rickards Brothers
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FADER TV Interviews Jimmy Cliff.

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

I mentioned late last year that Jimmy Cliff had earned a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

The nomination matured to an induction earlier this year, and the folks at FADER TV took the time to discuss the distinction and his career on the whole.

Check out the video below…

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In Living Color’s “Hey Mon” parody of the stereotype that all Jamaicans have more than one job takes on a whole new meaning when you look at Jimmy Cliff’s résumé: He’s a roots reggae icon, actor in the Jamaican epic The Harder They Come, a doctorate recipient by the University of the West Indies and a newly inducted member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He rolled through the FADER offices to discuss his monumental career. Get schooled on the rude boy Rihanna overlooked.

…via FADER TV & SEEN.

Tags: Cornerstone Promotion, Fader TV, Interviews, Jamaica, Jimmy Cliff, Magazines, Music, Reggae, Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, The FADER, The Harder They Come, Videos
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