Back 2 Da Future Music Representin': Reggae

Showing posts with label Reggae. Show all posts

28 July 2009

Back 2 Da Future – How Do you get Delroy Wilson to shelter under the same umbrella as Martin Lawrence?

There is a song that is in current rotation on some airwaves near you called ‘Rain From The

Skies’ by one Calton Coffie. It is one of those songs that has become a perennial Reggae standard that elicits gasps of surprise when the realisation dawns that it was actually a cover. Originally penned by famed pop composers, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it is known by many in Reggae circles from a version by the late Delroy Wilson. However it couldn’t be a standard with just one version as it was also covered by the likes of Slim Smith, Horace Andy, George Nooks, Barry Brown, Sanchez and it was also featured on UB40’s ‘Labour Of Love’ album. The current name added to the list of artists unsure of whether the water on their cheeks is from the heavens or from their own tear ducts, Calton Coffie, is not one that will roll off of the tongue of even the most ardent of Reggae fans. His voice however, is most definitely one that everyone will know.

After the premature passing of Jacob Miller in a 1980 car accident, Inner Circle disbanded only to reform again a couple of years later. By 1986 they’d found a vocalist strong enough to take on the mantle left by Miller in the form of Calton Coffie. Now embarking on a solo career, Coffie was the Grammy award-winning lead vocalist of the Band until 1995.
This was at the same time that they scored an international hit with the annoyingly catchy ‘Sweat (A La La La La Long)’. Taken from the album, ‘Bad To The Bone’, it also listed the single ‘Bad Boys’. ‘Bad Boys’ was in turn the signature tune for the TV series, COPS, as well as the Martin Lawrence/Will Smith Cop-Buddy

Movie of the same title (Bad Boys), in 1995. The movie was critically panned but it worked well enough in the Box Office for a sequel to be made in 2003!!!!!!

Anyway, that is how you get Delroy Wilson to shelter under the same umbrella as Martin Lawrence – via Calton Coffie and Inner Circle.

On This Day.......

1986 – Audrey Hall was enjoying a three week run at the top of the Reggae charts With ‘Smile’ the follow-up to ‘One Dance Won’t Do’. Amazingly, ‘Smile’ reached six places higher in the pop charts than the anthemic ‘One Dance’!

This week’s number one’s around the Reggae world.

‘Call On Me’ – Jah Cure & Phyllisya /Caribbean Hot 30
‘Chocolate Fudge’ – Conadoor – Germany

‘Far Away’ – Queen Ifrica – Hype TV, JA
‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ – Tarrus Riley & Konshens - Outaroad.com, JA
‘Hallelujah’ – Elephant Man – Jamaica Music Countdown (Dancehall)
‘Heaven In Her Eyes’ – Gappy Ranks - Choice FM, London/BBC 1xtra
‘Mind On My Mind’ – Vybz Kartel - New Style, Birmingham, UK
‘So In Love’ – Hezron – Jamaica Music Countdown (Reggae)/Virgin Islands (Pictured)
‘Still Waters Run Deep’ – Maxi Priest & Richie Stephens - South Florida, USA/New York

On Air:

Fridays – 10pm -12 Midnight – Aston FM 89.1/www.astonfm.com with Chicken George
Saturdays – The Back 2 Da Future Show 7pm – 9pm – www.playvybz.com
Sundays – 10pm -12 Midnight – The Archive Selection on Choice FM as part of Natty B’s Reggae Top 20 Countdown
Mondays – 7pm -9pm The Music Business Show with Elayne Smith on www.colourfulradio.com (Monthly)

Live:

Weekly:

Saturdays – Prezedent @ Moonlighting Nightclub, London, UK

July

30th – Self Taught Beats @ Yoyo, Notting Hill Arts Club, London, England
31st - Bongo Chilli @ The Trojan Rooms with Ital Guidance Sound System, Whitley Bay, Tyne And Wear, UK
- Mr Williamz in Ipswich, UK
- Rodney P @ Ocean Spirit Festival, Santa Cruz

August
1st – Bongo Chilli @ Unity Day, Hyde Park with The Root One Band, UK
- Captain Barkey @ Bushnell Park, Hartford, Connecticut, US
6th – Prezedent @ Lovers Rock Lounge with Carroll Thompson and Black Slate, London, England
7th – Dennis Bovell @ The Big Chill Festival, Brighton, UK
8th – Bongo Chilli @ Moorsfest with The Root One Band, Ilkley, UK
- Rodney P @ Ocean Spirit Festival, Conwy, North Wales
13th – Sexy Thursdays @ , Sky Club, The Prince Albert, Wolverhampton

14th – Winston Reedy with Dennis Alcapone @ The Chiemsee Festival, Germany
15th – Rodney P @ Sikula Reggae Festival, Sicily
17th - Payday Music with The Alliance in Tokyo, Osaka, Faukuoka, Japan
22nd - Payday Music with The Alliance @ Brixton 02 Academy, London, UK
- Rodney P @ Beautiful Days Festival, Escot Park, Devon
- 23rd - Payday Music with The Alliance @ Platinum & Gold, Coventry, UK
28th - Bongo Chilli @ Uprising Festival with Roots Survival, Bratislava, Slovakia
- Sept 20th Alan Weekes in The Harder They Come – The Musical tour in Miami and Toronto
29th – Rodney P @ Ride Again Festival, Bomasco, Italy
30th – Rodney P @ Vale Earth Fair, Guernsey

September
5th – Chevelle Franklyn @ House On The Rock, The Refuge’s 10th Year Anniversary Conference, Abuja, Nigeria
13th – Rodney P @ Bestival, Isle Of Wight
19th – Lloyd Brown, Dennis ‘Matumbi’ Bovell, Sylvia Tella, Winston Reedy & Prezedent @ The Giants Of Lovers Rock @ The O2 Indigo2, London, England
23rd – 30th – Anthony Brightly @ Dejam Festival, Antigua, WI
25th – Bongo Chilli @ Vibrations with The Root One Band

October
31st - Womens Conference – Step Out & Step in to your destiny, Johannesburg, South Africa

November
16th - Lloyd Brown ‘For Your Consideration’ Album Launch, London, England
23rd - Lloyd Brown ‘For Your Consideration’ Album Tour, San Francisco, California

December 31st – Lloyd Brown @ English Pound Radio’s New Years Eve Show & Dance, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

11 April 2009

How Does Janet Kay meet Fatboy Slim inna Canadian Dub Conference

Back 2 Da Future – How Does Janet Kay meet Fatboy Slim inna Canadian Dub Conference?

I’ll tell ya! As we speak, there is a young lady of Guyanese parentage in Toronto, Canada by the name of Melanie Fiona who is making some tsunami sized waves in her home town as well as in the States as she is signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation label. Formerly known as Syren Hall, she had an R’n’B/Lovers track called ‘Somebody Come Get Me’ that got a lot of love a couple summers back even finding itself on a VP compilation! What has got tongues wagging over this side of the pond is a track on her debut album, ‘The Bridge’, called ‘Sad Songs’. The cause of the wagging tongues is the choice of riddim. For just as Jasmine Sullivan recently had a massive hit with a Reggae backing track, or riddim as we know them, Melanie has done the same. But whilst Jasmine’s inspiration was discovered on a French released dub album, our Mel’s comes from West London in the shape of one queen of Lovers Rock otherwise known as Janet Kay.

Ms Kay who would later find veritable superstar status in Japan was bestowed her Lovers Rock crown by virtue of the fact that her 1979 hit, ‘Silly Games’, is the most successful bona fide pop hit of the Lovers Rock genre in its heyday. And it is this Dennis Bovell production that adorns Ms Fiona’s future hit. This however, is not the first time that ‘Silly Games’ has been revisited, just recently, there was much talk over a version of the track by blue-eyed Reggae hopeful, Bobby Kray, which also boasted Mr Bovell on production. But outside of the Janet Kay original, the most successful version came in the summer of 1990 with Lindy Layton who recorded her version in tandem with our highness. At that time Lindy was launching her solo career as she’d had a number 1 pop hit, ‘Dub Be Good To Me’ as the lead singer of a group called Beats International. Beats International was a loose collective of musicians created by one Norman Cook who had a habit of using different pseudonyms for different recordings as a superstar DJ. The one pseudonym that seems to have stuck over the years though is Fat Boy Slim.

And that is how Janet Kay meets Norman Cook Inna Canadian Dub Conference.

News

Men Who Killed Reggae Star Lucky Dube Receive Life In Prison
AHN - USA
Johannesburg, South Africa (CNS) - Lucky Dube was a successful reggae star who shared the stage with artists such as Sting, Peter Gabriel and Sinead ...
See all stories on this topic

Reggae great heads this way
Sowetan - Soweto,South Africa
International reggae icon Linton Kwesi Johnson is coming to South Africa for a series of shows later this month. Known as LKJ, the Jamaican reggae star and ...
See all stories on this topic

Dancehall Star Assassin responds to abrupt removal from stage ...
South Florida Caribbean News - Pembroke Pines,FL,USA
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Dancehall Star Assassin responds to abrupt removal from stage during Red Stripe Live Performance. On Saturday March 28, 2009, ...
See all stories on this topic

Beenie Man to Star in Reality TV Show

Dancehall King Beenie Man is to star in a reality TV show featuring 20 women competing to become his partner, according to reports.

05 January 2009

How To Get from Mavado to Chelsea’s Michael Essien in three moves!

1. Wish Stephen 'Digenius' Mcgregor a Happy Birthday. The award-winning producer turns 19 this week! Yup he who created world-beating riddims like the Power Cut, Red Bull & Guinness and most recently the Day Rave is only 19 years old! His co-production (with Delly Ranx) of Mavado’s break-through hit, ‘Weh Dem A Do’ went so far as to dent the Billboard Charts in 2006 and is still tearing up dances and parties to this day!

2. Music was always gonna be a part of Stephen’s life as his father is none other than Mr Freddie Mcgregor. His older siblings Yeshemabeth and Daniel ‘Chino’ Mcgregor both have solo careers in their own right as artists. Although Stephen can drop a rhyme if and when he feels like, his greater talents lie behind the mixing desk! So it’s no wonder that Stephen is now at the helm of his father’s Big Ship label, Studio and Record label.

3. The name of Mr Mcgregor’s company came from a 1982 hit that was his take on the fulfilment of the Marcus Garvey repatriation prophecy. That prophecy came to fruition – sort of in 1957 when the Garvey inspired Kwame Nkrumah named the newly independent Ghana’s shipping fleet the Black Star Line. That name was also given to Ghana’s national football team. The biggest star in that team is one Michael Essien.

And that’s how to get from Mavado to Chelsea’s Michael Essien in three moves!

Back 2 Da Future can be heard on Aston FM 89.1 (Birmingham) - Fridays -12-Midnight - 2am

www.playvybz.com on - Saturdays 7pm-9pm

Archive Selection on Natty B's Reggae Chart Show - Choice 96.9/107.1FM (London) - Sundays - 10-12 midnight

15 December 2008

Lloyd Brown – Life Is What you make it!

Lloyd Brown is celebrating the release of his 12th studio albu

m, ‘Brownie Points’. It’s his third release on the emergent Cousins Records label, the first being the highly acclaimed ‘Silver’. The track getting the most airplay on the album is an ode to his fans called ‘Full Appreciation’. But when you put on your Back 2 Da Future glasses and scan the tracklisting you can’t help but exclaim damn!!!!! when you see track number 5, for there lies the legend ‘It Takes Two’ Featuring Sylvia Tella and wait for it........ Colonel Mite!

Sylvia Tella needs no introduction to Lovers Rock fans as she was the same queen who gave us the classic ‘Spell’ and was touted as the female Garnett Silk when she hit the come-back trail with a string of hits including ‘Mother Nature’.

The Deejay addition to this three-the-hard-way, Colonel Mite, has been M.I.A. (Missing In Action) for nearly twenty years! Back in 1988/9 Col. Mite & the Dancehall singer, Frighty had THE biggest record around on their hands in ‘Life’. The track was soooooo large that it scraped the UK pop charts and was one of the tracks responsible for Dancehall becoming known as ‘Ragga’ as Mite’s Deejay chorus went “Raggamuffin Love, come gimme de Raggamuffin Love.....”. London filtered it through the cockney machine and wound up calling the whole genre “Ragga”.

Frighty released a few solo efforts afterwards that never really lit up the place and Col. Mite became a one-hit wonder for want of a better phrase, as we never heard from him again until he found himself with a mutual friend to Lloyd Brown. Mr Brown and brethren had a reasoning session with Mite as any self-respecting Rastaman often does and it all ended up with Mite’s voice being committed to tape (as far as we can tell) for the first time in almost 20 years!!!!!!

Figure 1: Col. Mite pictured Left

Like the old Bob Hoskins British Telecom advert strap line went - “It’s good to talk!”

(Back 2 Da Future is broadcast on www.playvybz.com on Saturdays 7pm-9pm and repeated throughout the week)

Archives

This week in 1984 Maxi ‘Chart Buster’ Priest was leading the pack on the Reggae charts with his Lovers Rock classic, ‘Should I’. His former Saxon sound stablemate, Smiley Culture was at number 2 with the ground-breaking ‘Police Officer’, and Barrington Levy’s much sampled ‘Here I Come’ was at number 3. (The Archive selection is broadcast on Choice 96.9/107.1FM as part of Natty B’s Reggae Chart Show Sundays 10pm-12am)

Reggae Number 1’s This week.....

D’Angel ‘Stronger’ - Jamaica Music Countdown (Reggae)
Har

ry Toddler ‘More Money’ – Jamaica Music Countdown (Dancehall)
Keith & Tex ft: Shabba Ranks ‘Duku Duku (remix)’ - Germany
Mavado ‘So Special’ – BBC 1xtra/France
Serani ‘No Games’ - US Virgin Islands
Sizzla ‘Crucial Time’– Choice FM, London
Stevie Face ‘Tell it Like it Is’ - New York/South Florida
Sugar Roy, Conrad Crystal & Gyptian ‘Jah Jah See Dem A Come’ – New Style (Birmingham)

Back 2 da Future Music Live

LIVE REGGAE / DANCEHALL RADIO with Mr. Prezedent's 'Back 2 Da Future''s Fan Box