Saturday, 24 March 2012

Bands are Alive & Well!!!!


Jamaica…, that little sweet spot on the globe nestled tightly in the Caribbean Sea between Cuba to the north, Cayman Islands to the west and Haiti to the east, is known for many things around the world, of which music stands tall on the legacy started by Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers and the Skatalites way back in the 1960’s. 
Since then the name Jamaica is synonymous with the pulsating reggae rhythms that has spread like a malignant cancer throughout the world.  
Lost in the art form for years have been the role and importance of the live band, this was due in large part to the birth of the digital age during the late 70’s early 80’s when the live sound was replaced with studio engineered beats that facilitated multiple performers live and in studios. Fast forward to today and what we are experiencing in the continuous evolution of Jamaican music, is dancehall disappearing slowly with the majority of its big names finding themselves on the wrong side of the law and a return of bands/groups with some really well produced sounds and vocals. 
With the extended success of dancehall through the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s; it may surprise many that a significant section of Jamaica’s musical genius still remains untapped. Through the many twists and turns of our music that emerged from this tiny music-loving island, are some very talented people you formed themselves into groups also known as the bands.
Today little is known about five of the top bands making waves in the business and who for the most part have remained faceless in a dog-eat-dog industry where little or no appreciation is shown for their music.
NO-MADDZ BAND                     
Bio: http://www.reverbnation.com/nomaddz
The members, who are all recipients of the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Culture and Entertainment (Everaldo in 2005, Sheldon, 2006; O’Neil, 2007 and Christopher, 2009) seem to be on a mission which started back at KC as a performing arts quartet, with the guidance of drama teacher Peter Heslop, through whom they got their first real taste of the stage at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) performing arts competition.
RAGING FYAH BAND       
Bio: http://www.reverbnation.com/ragingfyah
Raging Fyah is one of the most talented and dynamic groups ever to hit the Jamaican music scene. The band originally started in 2006 as a trio with, Anthony Watson (Drummer), Demar Gayle (Keyboardist), Delroy Hamilton (Bassist), they were later divinely united with Courtland White (Guitarist) Kumar Bent (lead singer) and Mahlon Moving (Engineer)–as they set out to rekindle a flame of positivity in the music industry.
Though their versatility enables them to play all genres of music, most of their songs - influenced by passion, purpose and life experiences- assume a roots rock reggae flavor. They write their own songs and ensure that every word touches the soul of the listener, uplifting and motivating people from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. 
C-SHARP BAND              
Bio: http://www.reverbnation.com/csharpband
This coming together of musical talents has touched many lives. For those who have had a personal experience with C-Sharp, you may have an idea as to what to expect. However for those who have never really met them, let us first start by welcoming you to CSharp's World. From this point on, we can guarantee that you will have an experience that you may not be able to comprehend let alone explain. Here now we give you an opportunity to build a relationship with the band and their music. So fasten your safety belts as we travel through the musical halls, giving you a taste of what is and a preview of what is to come. 
DI BLUEPRINT BAND      
Bio: http://www.reverbnation.com/DiBlueprint
Young, fresh, and dynamic are just some of the terms that readily come to mind when one thinks about Blueprint - the new age, urban contemporary reggae band that produces music reminiscent of the richness of the Jamaican culture and the limitless creativity. A blueprint is the guide for making a product and Di Blueprint band is a guide to the creation of an authentic product – solid enjoyable music. This group of blossoming musicians, at present, studies music at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica. The aim of its members is to inspire the hearts of all, especially this new generation, both locally and internationally. The band’s music does not only comprise of roots reggae but a fusion of other genres such as R&B and “Lovers’ Rock”. Songs and lyrics originally written by Blueprint appeal to the great majority, and beckon the listener to yield to their influence, strength and purity, thereby, accomplishing its goals to create positive music. The Band consists of keyboardist/vocalist Vern Hill and Rameish Folkes, Bassist/vocalist Alex Gallimore, Guitarists/vocalist Elton Brown, Drummer/vocalist Kedron Kennedy and lead vocalist Ron Ho-Choy.  
Rootz Underground BAND  
Bio: http://www.rootzunderground.com/bio
Rootz Underground represents Jamaica’s most recent contribution to the International Reggae & World Music scene. While undeniably rooted in reggae the six-member outfit uses their collective passion to create a sound that pushes boundaries and defies being boxed into a single genre. Electric yet organic, gritty and soulful; the band manages to harness the essence that the reggae aficionado was captivated by in the 1970’s while connecting the youth to the pure messages of Rastafari with explosive live performances that are a positive and emotional musical journey. With the continued rise of reggae music across the world being played and embraced by all cultures Rootz Underground ensures an undiluted dose of what is happening at the root, transporting audiences to Jamaica from a half-a-world away. They have toured heavily in both North America and Europe for many years gracing events such as Summerjam, Reggae Sunska, Roskilde, Garorock, Ostroda Reggae Festival, Reggae on The River, The Raggamuffins Festival, Earthdance, Harmony Festival, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival to name a few. Below is a sample of music by each of these bands.
NO-MADDZ - THE TROD 
RAGING FYAH - FAR AWAY 
C-SHARP - RENDEVOUS 
DI BLUEPRINT - ONE WAY TO YOUR HEART 
ROOTZ UNDERGROUND - VICTIMS OF THE SYSTEM 


Enjoy the beat... Irie!!!

Love & Respect
Follow me on twitter: @Maninja2
Find me on facebook: Donovan White

Friday, 23 March 2012

Good Stuff... West Indies!!!


Kieran Pollard
Having been extremely vocal in the past about the administration and technical direction of West Indies Cricket, I felt it is only fair that I tip my hat to the players when they perform well, while maintaining pressure on the administrators who continue to be defiant about wide scale changes in the face of loud cries from the regional public. 
Huge congratulations to Kieran Pollard for a well played 102 (including 7 huge sixes) that set up the game nicely. 
Adrian Barath
Technically, the team presently competing in the 2012 Digicel Home Series against Australia has shown improvements in the bowling and fielding departments of the game. Fast forward to today and the batting has come alive after looking below world class for eons. The 294 runs scored today off 50 overs looked good but I am not yet convinced this kind of performance is dependable with the top order excluding openers Charles and Barath failing to sparkle. 
To compete consistently with the likes of Australia, India, Sri Lanka and England we must become consistent at making scores of 294 and more consistently; in other words it must become second nature to get 300 runs in an ODI match on any given day.
Shane Watson
The other area of development that is critical and needs attention is winning when the games are close. We saw last Tuesday in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the Captain froze mid pitch when his last pair partner Roach called for the winning run. While some will argue the run was never there or at best risky, fact is, there was no one left to bat and this was the winning run, to stop mid pitch before the ball was even returned from the outfield, was just inexperience and lack of awareness of the skippa. 
Ernest Hilaire
Bear in mind that I am writing this while watching the 4th ODI in St. Lucia, I must lament again that this team looks much improved and hopefully (crossed fingers and toes) will go on to win this ODI series against the #1 team in the world Australia. 
If this were to come to past, it would be the first time West Indies would have won a series against Australia in many moons and a big boost to their confidence. Let’s hope that confidence doesn’t turn into big heads, especially in the board room where as far as I am concerned, Ernest Hilaire still ought to be fired as CEO for his handling of the Chris Gayle matter and his disrespectful utterances to the Prime Minister of Jamaica: Right Honorable Portia Simpson-Miller.

Love & Respect

Follow me on twitter: @maninja2
Find me on facebook: Donovan White

Friday, 16 March 2012

Knicks Win 2012 NBA Finals... I'm dreaming!

Time-Square, NY City
Another bad dream of a true Knicks Fan... Meet my brethren Curtis Whittle, a KC man who works in Manhattan & resides in Hamilton, NJ.
Any way, it goes like this... the drought is over!!! 40 years to the day, finally, at last... "Curtis, Wake up! Wake up! It's a'ready 6:30!!! Yuh gone late fa work!" ugh??? Seriously? Knicks never did win!?! Boxfoot!... Just another morning in the torturous life of a Knick fan, which I am proud to say I am. So, do excuse the Lin-sanity that follows. 28 games to go, Knicks ready to roll (ugh huh, again :/). No seriously, dis team deep; Knicks to go 23-5 in prep for the real mckoy! Yup, yah heard it here first!!! 
Carmelo & Amare - Knicks
Unbeaten post season, lol! No wait, mi not joking! Unnuh bring dem on! Line dem up! Come down Boston Celtics...Rajon Rondo & The Elder 'Trees nuh stand a chance; sweep revenge...tek dat! Next...Miami. Heat choke! LeChoke ca'an help Mr Clutch D-Wade! Straight up & down, Melo & Stat bringin' dah chill to South Beach. And my boy, D-Rose. What can I say? Got mad love for you, fa real! Kid, you dah man, league MVP and all (even if LeChoke got the MVP officially; a buy buy 'im buy it!)... My yute, killa' cross over like dope... but watcha nuh kid, Linsannity, BD & Novakaine, dem' like Destiny's Child; It's all about dah platinums & hardware. Easy nuh man!'... Like Martin Luthor King, Knicks goin' to the mountain top...indeed! Chicago Bulls, not this year, no bull. But wait. Sih it yah now! NBA finals...nuttin' sweet like whippin' dah defending champs Dallas Mavs... 
Lebron James - Heat
Look out, Mr Knick Tyson Chandler, the former Mavs, defending dem' Mavs yutes dem' to a frazzle, catching lobs for dunks like wow; razzle dazzle... Chandler, go ahead, say it out loud, "pay back is a ..." {I'm a Christian; unnuh behave :)}...Cause it's "ain't no stopping us now; we're on the move!" sing it with... Melo has the ball, 7, 6, Knicks down by 1, 7th game epic...Melo drives, he kicks, Stoudemire... he scores! 
The Knicks win! The Knicks win! TheeeeeEEEE KNICKS W...!!! "Curtis! Fa dah last time, wake up! Yuh gonna miss work!" huh? Not again! Crap... Just another morning in a Knick fan's life...!http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/blank.gif


Curtis Whittle: Sports fan, Fortisan, Christian family-loving dad of three, Entrepreneur & easy going. Bless 

Find him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pkwhittle







Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Bob Marley Country... Sprinting Pedigree!

“Winning means you're willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.” 
Vince Lombardi
Guest Blog by Laurie Foster: 

Ever since their entry at the 1948 Olympics in London Jamaica has been heralded as a producer of the highest calibre of sprinting talent. Come Beijing and a year later, Berlin, this was taken to an unprecedented level when a phenomenon called Bolt took world short sprint records into an almost laughable dimension - 9.58 for 100m and 19.19 for the 200m sounded more fiction than fact. Matters were complicated, both-gender supremacy signaled by a 1-2-2 finish for the island ladies in the Beijing 100m and a history making second consecutive Olympic 200m gold for Veronica Campbell-Brown, only one East German, Barbel Eckert-Wockel, could test. (pun intended) 


Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
Where did this - it is called ‘’fast twitch’’ - all have its genesis – this juggernaut that had rolled over the mighty USA, and spiking (don’t know why I keep using these words) the inevitable question ‘’are they being tested down there?’’, that coming from the unlikeliest voice of one Carl Lewis, of whom so many tales are told. London, 2012 is just around the bend but it was the previous staging in the city where the institution of Buckingham Palace and the ‘’Changing of the Guards’’ is a prime tourist attraction. The legendary Herb McKenley and his Jamaican teammate, Cynthia (now, Dr.) Thompson made the finals of the 200m and 100m in their respective categories. Herb, a 400m specialist, came back to the party in Helsinki in 1952 and, as a warm up for his pet event, took a stunning 100m silver, nipped on the line by a hair’s breadth. 


Donald Quarrie
Juliet Cuthbert
Of 1952 to 1968 not much can be said as far as enhancement of the sprinting product was concerned. It was as though the lion had gone into slumber, resting for another attack. It came in the form of Lennox ‘’Billy’’ Miller at the Mexico City Olympics, silver medal at 100m behind the American speedster, Jim Hines, followed by bronze at the same distance in Munich, 1972. At the two above mentioned Games, the next to emerge speedster, Donald Quarrie, was present but hurt. Come Montreal in 1976, this soon-to-become sprinting great pounced. He doubled the same as the great Herb did twice (200/400 in 1948 and 100/400 in 1952) and scored silver at 100m and Jamaica’s first 200m gold. Another 200m medal, this time, bronze, followed in Moscow in 1980. Pick up from Moscow and it was the Grand Dame, Merlene Ottey embarking on a journey that saw many mishaps and many medals against opposition that included several East Germans of a self-confessed regime and the fashion statement, eye-turner, Florence ‘’Flo Jo’’ Griffiths Joyner. 

Queen Merlene Ottey
Who knows what these rivals to our eventual Sprint Queen had in common? Merlene struggled with close finishes that stressed the photo finish technology to the limit, none so challenging as at the 100m last dip in Stuttgart at the 1993 World Championships where Gail Devers got the nod. It was indeed fitting that the first sprint gold for the world’s favourite came a few days later in the 200m, that accomplishment to be repeated at the event’s next staging in Gothenburg over Gwen Torrence. Before all that though, in Seoul in 1988 and at the following Olympics in Barcelona, 1992, Grace Jackson took 200m silver trailing Flo Jo, almost said and company (Seoul) and Juliet Cuthbert in her best year in the sport claimed double silver (Gail Devers and Gwen Torrence taking the respective titles, that in Barcelona). During the period, Raymond Stewart, also out of the Camperdown High School, by then accorded Sprint Factory status, continued to make global sprint finals with amazing regularity, a 100m silver at the 1987 Rome WC his only taste of metal, although the following staging in Tokyo, 1991 he (confirming the Sprint Factory label) took the national 100m record to 9.96 in the first ever top six places under 10secs. race. 


Asafa Powell
Asafa Powell, as the pioneer that he unquestionably is, deserves a paragraph all to himself. He is non pareil in appearance and consistency, his over 70 sub 10 clockings speak eloquently to this. He created world records over 100m and equaled them in style and panache. Seemingly unbeatable on the circuit, in the mid part of the 2000’s decade, he laid the foundation, rolled out the carpet on which the phenomenon, Usain Bolt came out, as of 2008, and strutted his stuff. Powell’s inability to get that elusive world gold continues to cloud an outstanding career. 


Veronica 
Campbell-Brown
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Kerron Stewart and Sherone Simpson, the composite parts of that famous and unique 1-2-2 in Bejing have had their say, the first named coming back in Berlin to cop the 100m title. They told the Americans ‘’go chill and come back again, cause we rule now’’. Once again a paragraph must be devoted to one who by now must have crowned herself as one of the greatest of all time and if you bring in longevity as a determinant factor, only the tag ‘’the ultimate’’ would suffice. Veronica Campbell-Brown has won everything in sight, only Olympics 100m gold is missing. Starting to be the victor at age 17 at the inaugural World Youth Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 1999, on to the World Juniors, Santiago, Chile, 2000 and the 2007 WC, Osaka. This sprinting dynamo has won the 100m title at all age group levels the world offers. Annex that outstanding set of efforts to back to back 200m gold medals at the Olympics, 2004 and 2008, a historic one in the same event at the 2011 Daegu WC, after 3 previous attempts at that level, plus two other consecutive WIC titles over 60m and one need say nothing more than sheer, unadulterated class. Guess what she ain’t done yet as London, 2012 and the prospect of that missing gold looms. The tale of sprinting rushes into those waiting in the wings at the junior levels to make their own statement. Part 2 of this piece will look at Yohan Blake in detail and the next generation of Jamaican speedsters.

Laurie Foster is a track and field journalist who has covered a multitude of IAAF World Series events at Youth, Junior and Senior levels, starting from 1988, both for radio and the written press. Find him on Facebook: Laurie Foster




Love & Respect!
Follow me on twitter: @maninja2
Find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/white.donovan.16

Life…Friendship & Brotherhood


"We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood."
Lyndon B. Johnson
"A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity" Proverbs 17:17 
Guest Blog: Martin W. Dawes - Easy going scorpio living in Canada, credit analyst by profession & a faith can move mountains kind a guy. Martin and I are life long friends from our days of running track together at KC.

Being a child of post independence Jamaica, I always had problems comprehending pound and pence as opposed to dollars and cents. It didn't help that my brother, born before independence would always tease me about it. You see, I was fortunate to receive an high school education. My brother had to forego higher learning to assist mom and his kid brother during a very difficult time for our family.

To this day, to find out what’s really going on with my mom, he is the key, for as he puts it, they were in the struggle together from way back. We’ve had more of a father/son relationship, and the mutual respect and appreciation is a blessing to us.

Growing up, I often felt like an only child, attending a co-ed primary school helped, made some lasting friendships with folks for nearly 40 years. These friendships have shaped and molded my character all these years later. 

Entered that venerable institution of learning and achievement, Kingston College, much to the delight of my parents, and big brother, learnt a lot of life lessons and would go on to establish wonderful lifelong friendships.

Unfortunately, attending college didn’t yield as many meaningful friendships. This guest post on Don’s blog, at his urging, and him convincing me despite my protestations “a nuh nutten, we a family”, and that we are, a family, we celebrate triumphs; share in the pain of disappointment and loss, both personal and professional.

As a band of brothers, we argue, cuss and “gwaan” bad when we link-up, then everybody would ask,” when are we going to do this again”. 

You see, most of us are miles apart, literally, spread around the world, every country you can think of, or so it seems sometimes. What would we do without social media: Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, BBM’s and all the rest of it?

Recently, one of our friends’ son celebrated his 12th birthday, when his dad remarked to him that we‘ve been friends since we were his age, the expression on his face was priceless. Back to dollars and cents, the old cliché about good friends being better than pocket money is true, at least, in most cases.

You can follow Martin on twitter: @melbourne2north or look him up on facebook: Martin Curling.

Monday, 12 March 2012

Boldface Bacchanal


Tis di time of year when Jamaican’s love of music switches decisively from reggae/dancehall to Soca/Bacchanal. With Trinidad carnival now out the way, the southern Caribbean beat now descends on Jamaica in all shapes & sizes (pun intended), with fire in dem wire causing dem to whine and get on bad.

Peeps, tweeps, bookers... I have been listening to some of the new releases for 2012 courtesy of www.youtube.com and I could not help but to pick a few I figure you may have some fun with. Arranged in no particular order but make sure you give BOLDFACE by Denise Belfon a good listen – I haven’t stopped laughing yet LOL!
           Bottle of Rum – Machel
                                                     
                                                  Slow Wine – Patrice Roberts









      
        Miss Behave – Faye-Ann
                                                      
                                                       Worker – Daddy Chinee
       








           
            Mr. Fete – Machel
                                                  
                                            Precision Wine – KES
            








         
          Go Dung – Lil Rick
                                                  
                                               Irregular – Bunji
       








           
             Reveling – Machel
                                                 
                                                
                                              Tagging – KES
               
   







         
          Gimme Wuk – Buffy
                                                                              
                                                    Wine it Gyal – Denise Belfon
                      








           
         Attitude – Destra
                                                                
                                               Boldface – Denise Belfon

Plug in your speakers or headsets and as my padna Chris from St, Kitts would say, "start di wuk up..." If you not so sure what that means, just whine your waistline to the beat of the rhythm and get on real bad.

Enjoy & feel free to share your comments below!





@maninja




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