Jamaica Celebrates Reggae Month 2013

Ever since February 2007 the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association (JaRIA) has celebrated reggae month in Jamaica with a month filled with activities throughout the island of Jamaica. This year’s reggae month celebration should have begun with the Dennis Brown Symposium and concert, which never got on the way due to last minute sponsorship cancelation. Week one started with a tribute concert to mento, ska and classical jazz (Maybe the organizers of this event can show the Grammy producers how to do a tribute, reggae style) while week two saw features from reggae bands. While week three featured Sly and Ronnie, famously called the rhythm twins and week four will see deejays and singers highlight their talents.

The month-long event will see several seminars and symposiums. There will be an award ceremony in recognition of several industry players. This year’s reggae month celebration is of particular significance as its Jamaica’s 50^th year of independence from Great Britain. Jamaican has a rich heritage of reggae and it great that there can be a month long of celebration, education and networking. Artist to participate in this year’s reggae month celebrations includes Ken Boothe, Romain Virgo and Chris Martin, just to name a few.

As I have always said, reggae is a vibrant brand and should be exploited as such to be benefit of the reggae industry and the people of Jamaica. As industry players we have to do more to expose this unique brand to the world at large. Artists like Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, and Lee Perry have done a great job thus far; it now left up to the current artists, emerging artists and music business professional to continue that trend. Reggae is not confined to the shore of Jamaica anymore as there are many reggae acts emerging all over the world. I look forward to attend next year’s reggae month activities in Jamaica, and hope to participate at some point.

Has Reggae Found Its Place At The Grammy Awards Show?

The Recording Academy is notable the premier organization for music, worldwide and the Grammy Awards is no different. The Best Reggae Album category started back in 1985 and since then many reggae artists have been nominated in this category. To date there has been twenty-eight awards won in this category. This year’s winner is legendary reggae artist Jimmy Cliff who is winning for the second time.

Some of us were pleasantly surprised to learn that at the 55^th Grammy Awards show there would be a tribute to reggae legend the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley, OM. I think the question on many minds is, did they deliver? Now I have mixed emotions about what was supposed to be a tribute to Bob Marley. For one I thought it was poorly planned and two, how can you have a tribute to an artist and only one song from their catalog was performed? On the other had I thought even though it was poorly planned, has reggae found a place at the Grammy Award show? Who benefited the most from this, was it Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Sting, Ziggy and Damien Marley, The Academy, or did reggae just get an adrenaline boost?

Now many of my fellow Jamaican and reggae lovers all over the world are disgruntled. Matt Wilstein of Mediaite sums it up quite nicely in his article, “Bob Marley Tribute At Grammy Awards Failed to Pay Tribute To Bob Marley” and I must say I agree with the points Wilstein makes. However, there are other folks as myself who believe that this was a great entry point for reggae. I am certainly one of those persons who would love to see reggae take a permanent place at the Grammy Awards, could this be the beginning of what is to come? Your guess is as good as mine.

We also learned that this tribute came about as a result to lure Bruno Mars back to performing at the Grammys this year. Was Bob Marley not deserving od a decent tribute, after all he has paved the way for many hip-hop and rap artists and not to mention the influence he has had on so many more including Sting who was part of the tribute line up. As you can see there are many unanswered question, one will never know or we will just have to wait and see what the Grammy Awards producers have in store of this genre in the future.