Friday, May 20, 2005

 

Interesting reggae community of ours!  Many great works are being done by a great many within its fraternity.  Young, old, short and tall, male and female, believer and leech, many works, positive works are surfacing and the industry is bubblin’.  I am excited to see the works that are reaching from so many different sources letting me know that I am not the only one who understands and sees the great opportunities available in this Canadian Reggae industry.

 

The unfortunate thing is our inability to selflessly aid in each other’s growth and glorify the works of others within Canadian Reggae.  For instance, CIUT, CKLN and CHRY are ONE entity.  Radio!  Yet some of the personalities within the stations work only on ‘their things’ as opposed to pooling resources and bring the power that they truly possess.  Each DJ services anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 listeners per show!  WOW! Interesting if they actually communicated and created a greater vibe.  There are some liaisons among the crews going on right now.  I’m just saying more can and needs to be done.  We are the ones with the power allowing a ‘Babylon’ system strongly in place locking us out and not stepping up and walking past, stepping around or bucking down this ‘door’ they have set up to block our place.

 

Many within our community speak of Toronto / Canada as the ‘dark hole’ of reggae.  Many believe that nothing local or Canadian has a chance at any level of success here.  Artists large in Europe walk the streets unknown within our city walls.  Artists like Willie Williams, Donna Makeda, Jah Beng, Steele, Blessed, Leroy Brown, Leroy Sibbles, Sonia Collymore, Chester Miller presently and in the past, are among some of the more respected locally and internationally for instance.  These folks struggle to get airplay from some community radio DJs and ZERO from mainstream radio.  Some seek to blame the ‘system’, some blame the DJs, some blame the artists themselves for not taking the time to get their music to these DJs, some even blame the fans and as usual I blame me!  I have not done enough to break down the door.  I’m working on it.

 

The Toronto International Reggae Music Awards (TIRMA) on Sunday, June 19^th is a victim of this unfortunate situation.  When Winston Hewitt, after 20 very respectable years decided to take a rest from the Canadian Reggae Music Awards, Shine-Roc an artist, stepped up to the plate and brought TIRMA to the forefront.  In conversation with him I asked him why he chose to do this right now.  His answer was that he believed too many great Canadian works were on the table from the previous year and “the Canadian Reggae artist should not go unrewarded after such an important year, so I had to pick up the ball and carry on this very daunting task.  Many people had nuff to say about Winston Hewitt, now I have nothing but respect for the work and consistent contribution he brought to the industry.”

 

My elders always mentioned, “Walk in a next man shoes and find out how he lives prior to passing judgment.”  Shine-Roc has just slipped on these very large shoes and what is disappointing so far is the lack of support he is receiving from some within the industry or more the negatives that are being slung his way.  I call on the community to rally around him and this vision.  It is a necessary function that TIRMA serves.  It is not about him, me or you.  It is about all of us!  Canadian Reggae needs this union of resources, talent and power.  Canadian Reggae World dot Com pledges its support to TIRMA.  I hope to entice more within the genre to step up.

 

 

Bless

 

 

 

JuLion

julion@canadianreggaeworld.com

 

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