“Romping Thief”

In this day and age when information about the music business is so accessible. It is no secret if there ever was how certain things operate and what procedures are to be followed. My cousin made me aware of a story in the Jamaican Star about the song “Romping Shop” by Vbyz Kartel and Spice “  infringing on copyright license of  Miss Independent by Neyo. See the story for more details http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20090129/ent/ent1.html.

When I saw the story i was like, this is ridiculos absolutely unbelievable!!! I hear the song has been getting tremendous airplay in Jamaica and is very popular. Now you tell me? How in this day and age could these two artists take some one elses riddim and just sing over it just like that. Are these people professionals or what?

As i said to my sister do they understand the implications of this? It might seem like a simple case of withdrawing the song and doing a remix as Vbyz Kartel indicated he would do. But i think it is bigger than that who is to really take these artist seriously?

Now i don’t know who else doing it or if it is some marketing tactic but it just seem ridiculous to run this risk and the biggest thing about it is he has no need to do it….he is not try to “buss” he already has an established name here so why. I mean how hard could it be for him to make a rythm with sounding like Miss Independent or something close so that he seems like someone of intergrtity.

It is almost like Dancehall really has a certain character decadence and no principles. I am not even trying to say that all dancehall artist do this but then again i think this reflect a slackness of the highest order….simply because it so commonsense to do the right thing…USE YOUR OWN MUSIC OR ASK PERMISSION TO BORROW SOMEONE ELSES.

WHO IS THE DJ?

Who is a D?  In the era when everybody can beatmix and play on virtual dj how do you stay ahead of the game? what makes the “difference” what value do you add? simple.

You got to do more. You have to write about music, you have to know about music….things like having a blog where you are reviewing records for example…contributing to a magazine….and the ultimate making your own music….those are the Djs who stand out and become recoginsed as important to the indutsry not just people who spin some music and make you dance that idea of the Dj is out dated and useless for  people who really want to push ahead.

So that is the plan. Off course you need a radio programme so you can reach the people, you need outlets, you need events, you need to build a movement, whereever you are so like Jamaica is perfect because it has people who can build a culture with for the music but it is not built yet it is alot of work  but it is worth it……I just did a comparison between Djs on Kissfm and Djs on BBC1extra in England and I found that the Djs who were getting alot of work outside of  spining music are following this pattern.

Where would I go “diggin”

Contemplating the switch between mp3s and vinyl or using cds to play…it dawned on me where would i get records?  where can u find a record shop in Jamaica or even a music store with records and cds that go beyond the category R+B, Reggae and Hip HOp and for those of us who like the “electic” sounds a category other than “Worldbeat with Putamayo Cds. You see this is the challenge people often ask me where i get my music…well i can’t disclose all my sources but ican say where I can’t get them.  There is the record shop near me which sells old music and stuff records and just some old good stuff u could spend days in there searching for stuff or “diggin” and it felt good. I guess you could always dig on Emusic or UBIQUITY or some record label like that but as we know it isn’t the same. if there are records store in JA where i can go let me know please i am excited about finding some old good stuff, spending hours looking for music. If not I guess online will just have to.

Daggering anyone?

Daggering? I think we should take a look at the conversational movement in Jamaica culture my sister and others  call it a reflection of the decay in our moral fabric “moral fabric gone”. I tend to agree with her but I want to investigate this from a somewhat “academic” musical point. Maybe this has been done already by Jamaican scholars such as Dr. Sonia Stanley Niaah, Dr.Donna Hope  and Professor Carolyn Cooper.

It always comes back to culture doesn’t; is there something which is the nature of our culture that make overtly sexual expressions of this nature common in the dancehall? We don’t have a problem with sex, but we have a problem with daggering. I guess one could argue that daggering represents a lot of negative ideas about women and the treatmment of women in the dancehall; men and their attitudes towards sex.

Where it is connected offcourse is to the music in songs it spreads to a younger audience which sees even kids doing it. Now when we look at other music forms the usual categories Hip Hop, R+B etc do we find a similar pattern of overly sexual corresponding dance expressions? I am not going to continue to talk about it from a moral perspective but we need to seriousl  start to invetsigate where our music and musical forms go.  When we consider especially the potential of the cultural industries ( a fact made known to me by my friend Kamau who was saying it all the time but I didn’t understand then) the cause of daggering is not isoloated from the Jamaican musical product or Jamaican cultural content.

I guess the Japanese like it and some of us Jamaicas home and abroad as well. However how far can we seriously go with the Daggering. Let us start to gather some empirical data about this daggering.

History….Music…Power to do

Every so often we are inspired by the actions of an indiviudal or groups of indiviudal this year is the year of Obama when no one can deny how much they have been moved into action by his example. Music is always closely connected to history in this way it marks the occassion it connects with the time.  On the day of the inaguration how did you feel as he spoke? What did you feel inspired to do as his words seeped into your consciousness? This is my playlist for Obama. I am posting then mix soon so stay tuned.

Play list 1

Rumble Fest    Africa Chill           2005
Mystic Desire    Angel Tears     Buddha Bar, Vol. 8 Disc 2    2006
Ai Plecat    3 Sud Est
24 Hour    Ruia    2008
Enya – Kenya – Swahili Nation feat. Dr
Pim-Pam-Pum    Ghorwane      The Greatest Songs Ever: Africa    2006

Ataq Ku-Mirage__Deep Space Mi       Global Chillout Lounge