#InTheBrightestRed

#InTheBrightestRed (For Pompasette Magazine) Monday November 24^th, 2014, a grand jury does not indict police officer, Darren Wilson, in the shooting death of 18 year old Michael Brown in August 2014. The decision, unsurprising to many, stirred the emotions of people across the US, and the international community, sparking protests and even riots. Barbadians took to social media, as did the world, to follow the situation and voice opinion on it. #JusticeforMikeBrown and #Ferguson were popular hashtags on my timeline and newsfeed that night. Last year, Skittles, iced tea, hoodies and blacked out profile photos signified solidarity with Trayvon Martin. Sadly though, I cannot recall this level of solidarity with, or outcry for, I’Akobi Maloney, or indeed anyone that may have suffered similar injustices in Barbados.
Why is there this disparity in responses? Why are we so vocal and active, online at least, about the tragedies and injustices in America, but so muted – indifferent even – to local injustices that are similar?

To begin, it is always easier to judge the faults of others and avoid your own. The bigger the fault, the more we judge. The more we expect from the party at fault, the more intensely we react. The USA has painted itself as the defender of freedom and democracy in the world. The President of the United States is often referred to as “The Leader of the Free World”, so terrible events like Mike Brown occurring on their soil create an opening for foreign critics, giving license to cast a self-righteous side-eye in their direction. However, to turn that critical eye inward is not an easy nor desirable task. The required introspection makes us uncomfortable and admitting that we too can be host to great injustices is a confession that we may not be quite ready to make. #sipstea

I’Akobi’s case did not experience the same level of media attention as the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases did. This is not to say that it was not covered by the local media, it was, but we live in a time when the lion’s share of media consumption by Barbadians, especially by the social media generation, is American. Trayvon and Michael received coverage on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, Comedy Central, in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and a host of other television, radio, print and online media outlets, all of which have huge social media presences and followings. How does this affect Barbadian sentiment and response? The listed media outlets are constant and consistent with their output. They take, or create, trending topics and have hours of time dedicated to them specifically. Interviews with experts and officials, family members and friends, animated charts and graphs; these things and more come with this “American media package.” The result of this bombardment is that issues are always in your face, you become increasingly engaged, meaning, more tweets, more statuses, ie. a greater response. I’Akobi did not have the benefit of this. By contrast, I’Akobi was covered by the two local print newspapers, the one television station’s news hour, and a few popular local blogs.
They went beyond viral, I’Akobi did not.

Spoken word artist, Adrian Green, in a piece titled “Too Small” notes that the size of Barbados, and the intimate nature of Bajan life is a factor in the differences in reactions to the Trayvon and I’Akobi incidents. It is a valid observation. I did not know I’Akobi personally, but I know his brother, and many people that were close to him. I was awoken by a phone call from a friend, on the night he died, who was so distraught that she could not speak clearly. On the flip, I know police officers, and I know people that know officers involved in the incident. The intimacy and connectedness of small societies can be very intimidating for people, and this can inhibit even the most passive forms of protest against perceived injustices. We feel less afraid of personal repercussions when engaging international topics, but are much more self-aware and self-censoring when approaching local topics. Within the confines of 166 square miles there is the very real chance of actually coming face to face with the person(s) that you are protesting against, and that is an uneasy thought for most of us.

Finally, being a population of mostly black people, able to identify with the racial history and dynamic of the US, it is easy to identify with Mike and Trayvon because #itcouldhavebeenme. For this same reason it is a bit harder for most to identify with I’Akobi. There is no clear racial element to make I’Akobi’s cause “trendy.” Consider this though, just as most white Americans will be unable to understand what it is like to be #livingwhileblack in America, most Barbadians will not understand what it is like to be a Rasta living in Barbados; draw your parallels.

*As written for, and submitted to Pompasette Magazine.


Click here for the trailer to the documentary,  "The I'Akobi Conspiracy: From a Mother's Perspective"

Free-Dumb

Slaves no more!
we are free!
Free!
Free?
Are we? - Carson Howard

Is there any justification for believing that human beings are free? Will sweet freedom come my way?

Donkey before the cart, first things first, before attempting to find justification for human beings being free, if there is any justification to be found, we are going to have to sort out what we mean by ‘free human being.’ We will define such a human being as one who possesses free will, and, just to cover all bases, free will will be defined as the ability to consciously and independently make choices, decisions and commit actions without prior cause, coercion and/or divine intervention, in other words do as you please without being told, otherwise prompted, the divine intervention of God/god(s) or without some thing in late or recent, social or personal, history influencing the action/deed.

 T_*

Free will is a topic which has plagued the minds of man from time immemorial across many disciplines: philosophy, theology, physics (theoretical) and more. What is it about freedom and by extension the free will of human beings that has caused such constant rumination and discussion?

The essence of human freedom is the fundamental problem of philosophy and therefore the question about human beings being free is the fundamental question of philosophy.¹ - Martin Heidegger

Being an amateur philosophe I will (try to) get all philosophical and shit. When speaking about free will one will inevitably hear about Determinism and determinist, if not by that fancy academic term, by the points of their arguments and the tenets beliefs which are, the actions and thoughts of a person are not freely created or committed but are predetermined by various factors ranging from that persons socialisation, their genetic inheritance or socio-biological makeup and environment and education, and politics, etc. There are two types of these determinist people; hard determinist, who believe completely in predestination and that no person can therefore be held morally accountable for any deeds he or she commits, good or bad. The second type are the soft determinist who believe that there is some compatibility with determinism and free will, manifested in acts of compulsion, consent and intent < which I think is like those choose-your-ending type books that were popular sometime ago, the story is written your choices are limited to a set of predetermined outcomes ( I could be wrong; never read one of those books).

There is no doubt that the average human being believes in free will, our belief in our own free will is necessary to our very (structured and defined social paradigm of an) existence; this is what we have been led to believe, here in the “civilised west”. From the liberal, anti-establishment, rebels (Occupy this and that) to the most traditional and conservative of persons are firmly rooted in the free-will paradigm. Capitalism, and democracy are based on human beings having free will; they need it to function really. The ‘American Dream’, one of the most powerful driving forces of the American way of life, is based on the concept of human free will. Democracy, the socio-political system wherein each individual is allowed to offer themselves to lead their country, the system wherein each individual has the choice to choose whom among those, who, by choice, offered themselves, should be allowed to govern over them and their country. Democratic countries are the ones where there is freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the list of “freedoms” goes on. Freedom and choice are the core components of democracy, therefore the free will of its citizens is not just accepted as existent but a right inherently granted (btw if something is granted to you, it can be taken from you - just saying).

Even cultures/religions with predestination as a main philosophical tenet free will still manages to somehow creep in. Indian culture and the philosophy karma is an example of this. Karma is the idea that actions or deeds committed and their effects create the experiences of the future, present and the past, basically it is a cause and effect situation. The concept of karma found in Indian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, makes room for the modifying of one’s karma by deeds one commits and therefore one can freely will to change one’s karma and change one’s destiny. So free will is all over the place, but is it a justifiable belief?

As we said earlier, determinist arguments for predestination include a person’s upbringing and socialisation and genetic inheritance as a type of mold or foundation for the type of person that that person will eventually develop into.

“At the point where you can predict my acts directly from my state of health or my social conditioning or what I have just eaten, you can stop treating me as a free being. And if you choose to predict them in this way, rather than trying to make sense of my point of view, then you are choosing to not treat me as free. You are merely regarding me as a thing, that is, as part of the surrounding process.”² -Mary Midgley

Predictions are made all of the time about human behaviour. Poor and underprivileged people will usually be the ones most likely to turn to a life of crime. The probability of an African American male from a poor, urban background ending up, undereducated and incarcerated in the American penal system is higher than that of an African American from a middle class, suburban background and is definitely higher than those for white Americans from any social bracket. You always hear about the child who accidentally killed or seriously injured his/her, usually his, friend after trying out some wrestling technique that they would have witnessed on television. It would seem then that certain factors, once in place would lead to a predictable outcome. From this angle life seems like a mango seed; plant the mango seed and you will get a mango tree, no matter how much you wish for mahogany, mango will bear.

So what about those folks who appear to react differently to those in similar environs or develop differently to those with a similar socialisation like the person who gets out of the ghetto and gets some money and moves into the suburbs, or the person raised among thieves but develops into a pious person, is this where free will comes into play? Soft determinist would claim yes and that this exemplifies the free will of human beings. Where one makes the conscious choice to do something one is not expected to do is the execution of free will. The hard determinist however will continue to say no and to argue that there was something in this person’s life, other than the visibly obvious, that would have determined their change. They would claim that while yes the person was raised by thieves that their social interaction outside of the thieves that raised them would have lead to their religious development or that maybe by seeing the negative effects of thieving on the people who raised them constantly hiding from authorities or constantly being arrested would have lead them to act differently. This argument by the hard determinist does however present room for a choice to be made by that person; whether to grow into a thief or to move away from it because of what they would have seen or experienced elsewhere. Even within Capitalism, where competition and freedom of choice for the consumer is needed, there is an element of predictability. The way products are marketed, the location of product sources like stores, are all dependent on the predictability of human behaviour.


In religion [read Christianity], the concept of seeking God and the kingdom of God is one which requires human freedom. According to Heidegger, freedom is independence from nature, meaning that human action is not caused primarily by the natural process. Heidegger also goes on to say that since freedom is independence from nature then it must also be independence from God and autonomy in relation to God. In this autonomy one can then develop a relationship with God, wherein one seeks God and acknowledges God.³


Is there any justification for human beings being free? Yes. On an average day, for the average person what determines what we eat? What makes us change our minds in the canteen line to have rice as opposed to the pie we were craving, there are no health issues for this person, no dietary problems, no bio-physical problems like stomach gas or anything to initiate that change from pie to rice, nothing except our own free will to choose, our compulsion. “I do not feel like going to the gym today.” Why not? There is no fatigue, no work to be done, no reason for not wanting to go to the gym other than because I do not feel the need to go. Modern human civilizations are based on the concept of free will and its existence, especially western, "developed" (that is another story) countries like the USA. The American dream was mentioned earlier and the American dream is the belief in a freedom that allows a person to achieve what they want to by hard work, by luck, by ‘being all that they can be”, regardless of one’s disposition at birth. The American dream is the idea that one can better one’s self and those around you if you try hard enough to; simply put the American dream is Hope. Hope is the belief in a positive outcome to the unlikeliest of circumstances moderated by the realization that nothing is certain.⁴ The democratic nations and institutions across the world offer hope, hope that one can be part of something bigger, hope that one can participate in the governance of one’s country, i.e. one can make the rules for him or herself. The poor, underprivileged, the oppressed, the minorities of a country are all promised hope and this hope is manifested in their choices, in their will to want better and to live above the expectations/predictions their society prescribes for them. Free will is justified because it is the core of civilisation as we currently know it, even the Buddhist can change their karma by good deeds.


So yeh free will justifiably exists, but it sure is not independent to predestination. Most human actions are the reactions to actions previously committed or events gone before, free will manifests itself when the course of action is not clearly defined or more than one course of action presents itself like the person raised by thieves but experienced a way of life outside of their upbringing. While free will exists and is justifiable, the question as to human freedom remains. For example, while people are “free” to choose a leader for their country, the felon has no such freedom, and while democracy promises a plethora of freedoms, like the freedom of speech, one is not free to slander a person. Any time you compromise these freedoms in the manners stated you are liable to be giving up your freedom within society to be punished ranging from fines and services, to incarceration and execution. So, yes it is justifiable to believe in human freedom, but as for it actually existing I beg to differ. As I commented to a friend sometime back, a dog on a plantation is no freer than a dog restricted to an apartment, it is just less restricted. Freedom within a parameter is not freedom. I would be so bold to even question if freedom exists at all? From a Kantian perspective even God, whom or whatever it may be, is duty bound to maintain this world and the natural order of things; what ever that is and if you believe in that sort of thing.





1. Martin Heidegger, The essence of human freedom: an introduction to philosophy (London. New York: Continuum, 2002)203.

2. Mary Midgley, The Ethical Primate; Humans, Freedom and Morality (London. New York: Routledge, 1994)164.

3. Martin Heidegger (2002) 4-5

4. David Straker, http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/hope.htm (Syque, 2002-2008).

StrangeRasta is now on twitter so look up there above the toolbar ^ and follow me on twitter. New blogs will now be posted via Twitter along with Facebook and Blogger. More ways to connect with the strange one. A Facebook page soon to come so look out. The Facebook page is here! http://www.facebook.com/StrangeRasta

Help Temple Yard and the Rastafari Community

 

SPECIAL POST. TEMPLE YARD FIRE RELIEF FUND.

Next regular post coming this weekend. Look out for it.

Almost a month ago, on Saturday 9th of April 2011, the Rastafari business community known as Temple Yard was affected by a fire. This fire destroyed 10 shops, but had and continues to have an effect on the entire community, both from a business point of view and also from a personal/emotional level. 

Some of the nation's treasures, in the forms of sculptures and other art works, have been damaged and lost in this blaze. There will be donation boxes and sponsor sheets in the public circle from next week so keep an eye out for them. I ask that we try to make donations to this community which is not just a part of Rastafari life, but Barbadian life as well.

Temple Yard has had a trying past, from the days at Rockers Alley through all the re-locations to its current location at the edge of Bridgetown. This fire is just another chapter in this history, with help from the general public Temple Yard can overcome this latest setback and get back on track.

I give thanks in the early for any help given to Temple Yard in this time.

For more information keep checking Our Afrikan Heritage Magazine on their Facebook page, or on their website.
Ras ILive can be contacted at 232-1222

Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?

"Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" -Adrian Green*

Honestly, at first I could not fathom the potential energy that is stored in words. The poet, in whatever incarnation, is a wealth of potential and their words are like fully charged batteries.

I always had a leaning towards English and the subjects generally referred to as the arts in school, so History caught my attention more so than Geography, and I preferred English to Mathematics. I was writing poetry from the age of 6/7 and talking foolishness, a skill in its own right, for as long as I can remember. Still this did not leave me immune to the trappings of adolescence and the tricky teenage years, so a lot of the things I did or liked were directly and indirectly influenced by peer pressure and the expectations of my peers and the general teenage consensus. In simpler terms, consciously and subconsciously my movements were dictated by one simple thing, coolness. I wrote poetry, lots of it actually, but never really did much with it, and I sure as hell was not going to listen to poetry albums, much less buy them, and especially not the rootsy, culture filled ones like AJA's, "Doing it Saf" - jokes!
However, as I said I did like History, and I was writing and reading poetry, though not as often as I wish I did now, so when I got to around 5th form and I began to mature(even if my actions did not reflect the intellectual growth) my perceptions started to change, my attention to "cool" started to change. This was as I was preparing my History SBA (School Based  Assessment) which was based on the work of Dr. Ivan van Sertima, and more specifically, his book, "They Came Before Columbus". The work of van Sertima opened my mind's eye and shifted my existing historical paradigm and set me on a course to find out about Africa, in a pre-European era. As I began to connect with this history and this culture of "enlightenment" I began to lose some of the romantic notions I had early on when I first read van Sertima, and I began to see that everything in this subculture was not pristine and perfect. There were lazy people in "the struggle", there were out and out frauds, looking to capitalise on the hopefulness of others, but those eye openers aside, there was work to be done and not much people knew exactly how to set about this work.  This annoyed me a bit, probably because I was, as are most teens, anxious and a bit impatient and expected that the elders would at least know what they were doing. This led to me writing a poem called "Rant" and it was, as the title suggests, me ranting about some of the inadequacies in the "Black Power/Pan African" movement.
All of this was not said to initiate any talk about the movement and its glories or its short comings and misgivings, but was a convoluted way of getting you to understand the mindset I was in when I wrote the poem linked above.

"Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" I did not. My mother had AJA's album and I listened to it, under the rule of coolness, with the intention of getting some laughs at the "funny talking dashiki wearing rastaman", and I did get some laughs. The last laugh, however, was to be AJA's, because even though I was mocking the works at first, the words from some of the pieces became imprinted in my mind and remained there. Fast forward a few years and my mother, knowing I write poetry and do the NIFCA thing from time to time, brought home this book by a young Bajan poet who worked as the tech guy in her office, a little known guy with a sweet Riddim and Flo' going by the name DJ Simmons. I read the book, and at first the poems did not move me much, because at the time my poetry was in standard English with traditional structure and arrangement, so this dialect work was not so much my thing, it was nice, but just not my thing. Fast forward a little bit in time and I found myself at a show put on by "two roaring lions" and for the first time the question is posed to me, " Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?", and it was as if the poet had known that I was unsure, and he would have had to have been pretty damn intuitive because at the time I myself was not aware that I was unsure. He then told me what would happen if I understood the power of the words, he said," If you understood the power of the word you would understand and that you have the power to bring down the house..with a word", " because the power of life and death is on the tongue, but you know this, you feel it when certain songs are sung..when certain passages are read." In this moment I began to truly understand the power of the words and could answer the question that I had not known I was even to be asking with a quiet but certain; Yes!

As with my discovery of African greatness through the work of Dr. van Sertima, my fascination with the power of words was initially deeply romantic and a bit one sided. I had been fascinated with the potentially positive, almost magical, power of words and wordsmiths, but soon I would sober up from the romantic hangover and realise that with with all this potential that words had, there was no guarantee that once released their power would be used for good. Some of the most powerful words that can be uttered are "In the name of the Lord", and the evils committed under these words were/are unpleasant at best. Hitler and his Nazi regime were propelled largely by word power; manifested by means of his propaganda machinery, and his speeches.

"Djs and artists must know what their part is..."*, because "far too many of us are speaking poison."* Maybe the question that was posed to me should now be posed to them, or should be one of the questions posed during the interview when they apply to work at radio stations, "Do you understand the power of the words that are coming out of my mouth?" They might be just like me and not aware that they are unsure, or that there is even something to be unsure about.

The poet is right, far too many of us are speaking poison, and it is time for the positive potential in the words to be released. Released in the form of Positive Energy...RAH!*

Sample DJ Simmons' album or Buy it here.
Sample Adrian Green's album or Buy it here.
Buy AJA's album here.

*Blog title from Adrian Green's poem "Word Power". track 14 on his "Random Acts of Consciousness" album.
*quotes come from Adrian Green's poem  "Djs and Artists", track 6 on his "Random Acts of Conscience" album.
*DJ Simmons' track "Energy", track 6 on his "Riddim & Flo" album. Check out track 18 for the remix with Adrian Green, its wickedly nice.

You waan soun like me...

Can you hear me now? Good!

Once more we are back on music, and this time exploring non-indigenous genres in the local music industry. Local here of course refers to Barbados, but can easily apply to any music industry anywhere.

By now it should be no secret to anyone,living in Barbados, that Barbados has musical acts practising and representing a plethora of musical genres. From the internationally known soca acts like Krosfyah, Allison Hinds and Lil Rick to the amazing rock alternative stylings of Kite, Barbados goes hard. Standing Penance, Psilos, Threads of Scarlet, The Highgrade Band, The Fully Loaded Band, Nexcyx, Teff, Cover Drive, Daveny Ellis, Sunrok, Rhy Minister, Dundeal, Billy Kincaid(where you at son?) Red Star Lion, LRG, Ayana John, Betty Rose, and this list could and would go on. This list represents rock, reggae, r&b, pop, hip hop, indie and more, and is 100% Bajan. Anyone remember DJ Carlos and his Friday night techno-dance-trance sessions on Mix 96.9FM?

Click on any of the selected artists below to check out their websites, facebook pages or myspace pages:
Standing Penance        Psilos             Cover Drive       
Buggy - Just a Man      Ayana John     Kite
Teff                            Nexcyx           Red Star Lion
AzMan ( I suggest taking a listen to Dreams)

I claim this list as 100% Bajan and I stand by it, but they are some who would beg to differ, and for valid reasons, very valid reasons in fact. The arguments cited, in opposition of the 100% Bajan tag vary. There is the argument that Barbadians should stick to Bajan music and not get caught up in trying to do other peoples things, amd by other peoples things they usually mean pop, rap and hip hop, rock/alternative and reggae. The persons presenting this argument would prefer for Bajans to stick to soca and revitalise spouge, and stop all the banja. There is of course the slight issue in that soca is no more bajan than hip hop is, and a lot of people either do not know this, forgot this, or would love to pretend that it is. "Yuh hear lie, dat is lie." This argument is perpetuated by some narrow minded, but not ill-intentioned, people, who are gladly starting to fade from existance thanks mainly to the signing of a few young Bajans (Livvi Franc, Vita Chambers, Hal Linton, Shontelle and of course RiRi) to international labels, none practising any "indigenous" genres.
This next argument holds ground on this, its supporters and agitators have nothing against a diverse musical industry and in fact welcome the diversity, their peeve is that the artists are imitating the international and regional artists from which ever country their selected genre is from. Simplified, the rappers are rapping and phrasing like Americans, and rockers are singing like Americans, the reggae artists are chanting and singing and phrasing and speaking like Jamaicans, the Calypsonians and Soca artists are "phrasing like Trini".
This argument claims that the Barbadian self image, or perception of self, is in crisis since its artist are choosing to imitate, not emulate, the image and voices of others and not highlight their own, or create one that is uniquely and distinctly Bajan.  It is a fairly valid point, and no doubt a serious one, no nation should let its national self image be weak enough to be erased by external influences, but is it really that bad, is the Barbadian self image so malleable? I'm not convinced, at least not from a musical stand point, that it is. If as a musician I lean towards rock, and choose that rock is the genre I wish to perform, then I would naturally seek to emulate other rock artist, especially the ones that I like and that influence me. It should come as no surprise to anyone that listens to me perform that I would have a similar sound to my influences, even in my original pieces. So when I go and listen to Adrian Green perform, I do not say, this is 75% Bajan, because I can hear the influence of Heru in him, neither do I ask whether Billy Kincaid has dual American/Bajan citizenship because he uses Bajan metaphors and analogies with some traces of an American accent and phrasing when rapping. Sunrok is hot in either dialect or the American flow, and 100% Bajan in both.

"Because when man luv ah ooman and ah ooman luv ah man ah jah jah bless eet" said the white Italian Rasta, and no one cares. Who remembers Snow from the 90's, the skinny white Canadian reggae artist, who on the radio sounded just like the skinny black boys from Kingston.

The genres these artists love and perform are not Bajan in origin, and while I can agree that some Barbadian influences coming through in the music would be nice (and it does happen, hell of a lot too) we really should not be disappointed when they sound like people from the respective lands of origin of whatever genre they perform, it is only natural. Listen to the junglist selections coming out of England, ever heard Mighty Crown or Black Chiney in a clash? Simon Pipe sounds like a Bay Area kid? So what? If these walls could talk they would tell you hush and just listen to the music.

These Bajan artist are some of the proudest Bajans we have, and they rep the country to the fullest when the chance arises. One of the guys from Kite had a customised guitar painted like the Barbados flag, unfortunately it was stolen. RiRi always has a trident somewhere in her videos. Buggy and the Fully Loaded Band always remixing songs and incorporating Barbadian things in their covers, "take a look down Baxters Road, do you see anything to smile bout?", "I got a hundred weight of collie weed coming from St. John..", and they had this crazy crazy spouge rendition of Culture's "A Song to Make the Whole World Sing" ..the engineer would tell you I love that version bad bad bad. The Highgrade Band started to incorporate some Bajan familiarities into their cover sets too. Do you know what I do when I hear Nexcyx perform? The same thing I do when Taio Cruz comes on, I get On The Floor and throw my hands in the air sometimes, it just feels a lot better when its to Nexcyx.

We have spouge(dead as it is) and Fling, and I hope that if fling ever gets regional and international followers that when I am overseas I can hear some Americans phrasing in Bajan and flinging it down like Azman. They will be no less American, just like The Bajan musicians are no less Bajan; Real Ting!

one love, one heart lets get together and play tune

There exists this magical place in cyberspace where music lovers come together and post 'tune' and vibe in the cyber company of one another. The cyber city wherein this little enclave is found is Facebook, but before you go "oh dear, a facebook thing/app, it has to be folly" hear me out. This little cyber hole might be a Facebook group, but it lives up, for the most part, to its name, "I dedicate this group to real tune..." For those outside of, or unfamiliar with Caribbean musical jargon, when a song/piece of music is titled as 'tune' it means its either very popular or it merits distinction from other songs. This merit could be based on things like the musical concept of the piece, to the arrangement, to the lyrical content, instrumentals, etc. but it has to be distinct and distinctly good. This group is dedicated to real tune..and by real tune I mean the songs merited above others, not for popularity, but for being distinctly good in some aspects, if not all.

Look at these offerings from last nights crazy, crazy reggae session:

           Dennis Brown - Money in my Pocket

Beres Hammond - Warriors Don't Cry 

Matisyahu - Jerusalem

Bushman - Call the Hearse

It is a group formed by Caribbean nationals, but its focus is not solely on Caribbean music like reggae and dancehall. Dubstep, rock, trance, hip hop and rap,  r and b, have strong representation in this group too. This group is a private group, kinda like a members only club, but is has members from across the Caribbean and even as far as away as Sweden, so we are actually global in scope and representation and musical preference.

For this blog post I dedicate it to real tune... from which ever genre.