With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
VICE Defends Reggae To White People Who Don’t Like Reggae So you’ve decided you don’t like reggae. I can respect this decision. There’s some good thinking involved in this decision. Whenever I talk to a fellow white person who has decided they don’t like reggae, they usually make the following points: 1. I don’t really […]
Buju Banton Jurors Would Say “Not Guilty” On Gun Charge
The Banton Faces Resentencing Later This Month—But Will Justice Be Served? The Broward/Palm Beach New Times is reporting that at least four of the jurors who served on Buju Banton’s drug case would have found him not guilty of gun charges. Chris Sweeney’s latest blog post is a must-read: “Terri Wright has been called to serve […]
Jury Finds The Banton Guilty
Buju Banton Thanks Tearful Fans As His Attorneys Plan Appeal Just a week after celebrating his Grammy win for Best Reggae Album, Buju Banton was convicted today by a 12-person jury in a Federal Court in Tampa, Florida. After deliberating last Friday and again today for a total of eleven hours, the jurors found Buju—born […]
Lil Wayne Walks; Buju Still In Bondage
Weezy Freed After Eight Months; Banton Weighing Bail Options After serving eight months of a one-year gun charge, Lil Wayne was released from Rikers Island this morning, and will soon be on his way to Miami for a massive welcome home party. “FREE AT LAST!!!” tweeted his manager Cortez Bryant at roughly 10am as fans […]
WATCH THIS: Buju B “Sensimilla Persecution”
“Why They Fighting Sensimilla Making Way For Coke To Come?” While Buju’s legions of detractors celebrate his arrest this weekend on cocaine trafficking charges, those of us who actually listen to his music—all of his music—have been left in a state of shock, grappling with the possibility that his booming voice may be silenced. Who’s […]
HEAR THIS: Early B “DJ Origination”
Special Request To The Original Doctor, Going Down In Dancehall History One more reason to remember September 11: Seven years after Peter Tosh’s 1987 murder in Kingston, the foundation dancehall artist Early B The Doc was killed by a stray shot in a Boston dancehall session 15 years ago today. To call Early B a […]
WATCH THIS: Major Lazer “Pon De Floor”
Skerrit Bwoy Stars In a Dazzling Digital Daggering Dramarama. First time we heard it on the Major Lazer album, we thought it was a Kartel tune called “Bestest Wine,” but looks like Di Teacha nah represent for da one yah. So them send for the one Skerrit Bwoy. Him well fit and flexible, but mad, […]
Mr. Cee Says Squash The Beef
A Hip Hop Legend says “Caribbean Music Can Be A Monster,” However… I got a chance to reason with a Hip Hop Legend last Friday, the one and only Mr. Cee. Depending on the depth of your knowledge of hip hop culture, you may know Cee as Big Daddy Kane’s DJ, or as the man […]
HEAR THIS: Baby Wayne & Leroy Smart ‘Money Friend’
Special request to all hypocrite and parasite. Sometimes the trials and tribulations of life are really blessings in disguise. For one thing they let you know the real people around you, and help you weed out the hypocrites and parasites. Case in point: I was a founding editor of a little magazine called VIBE. Maybe […]
Mutabaruka Distressed Over Daggerin’
Dub poet sez: “Some wild beast animal ting ah gwan inna Jamaica.” “This no civilized Rasta,” says the bare-footed dub poet famous for classics like Outcry and Dis Poem.
My God! Twin of Twins Locked Up
Dancehall provocateurs now being held in Half Way Tree jail cell. Twin of Twins live at Reggae Sumfest. Photograph by Stella Magloire. At 2pm this past Tuesday afternoon, the mercilessly hilarious, always controversial dancehall artist/satirist/ghettologist duo known as Twin of Twins were arrested on Half Way Tree Road in Kingston JA.
Assassin Responds to Red Stripe Fiasco
During this past Saturday’s Red Stripe Live concert in Kingston Jamaica, Assassin was pulled offstage in midsong for what the show’s organizers termed “questionable lyrics.” His use of the word “fish”—the latest dancehall euphemism for homosexuals—was widely speculated as the cause of the conflict. But the artist’s side of the story has not been heard […]