An historical overview of Jamaican Sound System culture in Coventry, UK, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Includes interviews with local sound system pioneers and celebrities such as Count Spinner, El Paso, Principal, King Baggy HI FI, Jah Baddis, Mackabee Studio, and more, and the voice-over of Pauline Black from the Selectors. LINK TO THE […]
Originally shown in 1984 as a six-part series on Channel 4, Deep Roots Music is an extraordinary documentary on Jamaican music in what many refer to as “the golden era” of reggae. Beautifully filmed and including countless interviews and vintage footages of some of Jamaica’s most iconic musicians, producers and cultural icons, as well as […]
A documentary produced by VP records celebrating the life and career of Jamaican reggae and dancehall producer Bobby Digital (1961-2020) whose Digital B record label, established in 1987, has been at the forefront of Jamaican music transformation from organic rhythms to digitally-composed beats, and responsible for some of reggae’s biggest international hits throughout the late […]
Originally aired in 1981 and later virtually lost for decades, Sound Business is a UK-produced documentary about two British sound systems, the legendary (and at the time already 18 years-established) Sir Coxsone Outernational and the (then) up-and-coming Lion Charge, both based in SW London. Besides in-depth interviews and session footage, some of the highlights include […]
An historical overview of Jamaican Sound System culture in Coventry, UK, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Includes interviews with local sound system pioneers and celebrities such as Count Spinner, El Paso, Principal, King Baggy HI FI, Jah Baddis, Mackabee Studio, and more, and the voice-over of Pauline Black from the Selectors. LINK TO THE […]
British drama film written by Franco Rosso and Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia). Filmed in SE London, it follows the young reggae MC Blue (interpreted by Brinsley Forde of British reggae act Aswad) of the fictional sound system Ital Lion facing personal and family issues as well as systemic racism and police violence, during the days ahead […]
Lending an ear to reggae music, ouis Chude-Sokei engages critically with the sonic and the technological as the pivotal dimensions through which rethink and remap contemporary black diasporic formations. Initially presented as the inaugural “Bob Marley Lecture” for the opening of the Institute of Caribbean Studies’ Reggae Studies Unit at the University of the West […]
These plenary lectures from the “Global Reggae” conference convened at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica in 2008 eloquently exemplify the breadth and depth of current scholarship on Jamaican popular music. Radiating from the Jamaican centre, these illuminating essays highlight the “glocalization” of reggae – its global dispersal and adaptation in diverse local […]
Music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes reggae’s origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it […]
This book explores the history of reggae in modern Britain from the time it emerged as a cultural force in the 1970s. As basslines from Jamaica reverberated across the Atlantic, so they were received and transmitted by the UK’s Afro-Caribbean community. From roots to lovers’ rock, from deejays harnessing the dancehall crowd to dub poets […]
This book provides a snapshot of UK reggae sound system culture during its 1980s heyday. Scientists of Sound is a documentary portrait of one particular sound system from Birmingham. It features a unique collection of photographs and scanned artefacts from the time, including flyers, magazine covers, speaker box designs, circuit diagrams and handwritten lyrics. It […]
For Solid Foundation David Katz has interviewed over 100 reggae artists, from Jamaica, the UK and the US, going back to the earliest pioneers of reggae in the mid-1950s. He has taken over ten years to collect the interviews and it is an extraordinary feat. This is an exhaustive history charting the progression and development […]
Vibe Merchants offers an insider’s perspective on the development of Jamaican Popular Music, researched and analysed by a thirty-year veteran with a wide range of experience in performance, production and academic study. By focusing on the work of audio engineers and musicians, recording studios and recording models, Ray Hitchins highlights a music creation methodology that […]
The market town of Huddersfield, nestled within the Pennine Hills of West Yorkshire, has made a remarkable contribution to UK sound system culture. From Armagideon to Zion InnaVision, the Arawak club to Venn Street, Matamp to Valv-a-tron, this unlikely location has been a stronghold of the British scene, yet has remained largely overlooked. For the […]
Just as hip-hop turned phonograph turntables into musical instruments, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s Jamaican dub turned the mixing and sound processing technologies of the recording studio into instruments of composition and real-time improvisation. In addition to chronicling dub’s development and offering a thorough analysis of the music itself, Michael Veal examines […]