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NEWSLETTER  Volume 10 ~ Feel Reggae Edition ~November 2018

10/31/2018

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​Feel Reggae

This path is a true blessing

We sit around and talk about the history of Jamaican music, leading into reggae music and the truth is in the music

Nuh guy can come tell wi what reggae is... unless you feel it

And we can tell if you do or you don’t.  We can see and smell the culture vulture a mile off and there are many of those

They use the music in commercials to make their products more pleasing and acceptable.  Actually, they are seeking the “cool”

Popular artists on major record labels throw in a reggae track or get a reggae toaster on their tunes so that they can gain their street cred

Put Jamaica, reggae or the word “jerk” into something white and suddenly it is cool

CBC, The CRTC, Billboard Magazine, Rolling Stone or any other colonizer organizations can’t tell me shit about reggae.  Combined they have less information about the music and the culture than aliens from outer space

“You can’t fake the funk”

Reggae is a truth serum

Don’t put it in your mouth and don’t expect repercussions...positive or negative

Reggae’s path is a truth saying, along with world class beats and riddims, creating a spiritual frequency that can only be felt.  It isn’t always an intellectual ideology that solves the deeply spiritual genre of music.  The intelligence of the spirit is far beyond intellectual.  There are no language words for reggae

You feel it or you don’t

It is inclusive to all sentient beings and a detriment to the vampire in all of its forms

So I mostly focus on the positive

Reggae Music

So very grateful for this reggae path and the ability to speak about it and encourage performances as well dialogue on all aspects to continue my own learning of this genre
 
 
 
Feel Reggae

A program where we take the musical history of Jamaican music from mento, ska, rocksteady to reggae and have discussions around the music and its creation / creativity

Dr. John Jason Wilson is a professor at Guelph University and also a protege of the late, great, Jackie Mittoo, sitting at Jackie's knee since he was about 15 - 16 years old


Jackie taught him well

Jason combines his Celtic background of folk tunes to jazz, to rock, R&B, to ska, rocksteady and reggae all within the same song at times

In this blog, I invite you to a performance on your time, at your convenience.  The goal is always to build an energy, where events of this caliber are well attended enough to pay the artists for their talent and work

All over Europe this commerce ensues daily yet here in colonizer Canada we seem to have an issue paying artists of any genre except for what “they” deem important

~
$7.5 MILLION dollars for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for ONE celebration, Canada 150 yet $0.00 for reggae music EVER!

​Zero!

~

It is appropriate that I rant at the end of this performance, Warrior, a tune Jason co-wrote with the late Jackie Mitto and also fused with another reggae gorgon, Willi Williams, Armageddon Time, speaking of the dread times in which we reside, a Jamaican cultural icon Willi still is today
Authentic reggae history, present and future continues in Canada


Bless Jason Wilson for being one of the flag bearers and soldiers
​As the convo and performances continued, Jason played us “Matty Groves”.  When he sent me the album “Perennials “a decade ago and he asked me what I favorite track was, Matty Groves was it.  A Celtic folk story of pomp and pageantry, adultery and murder with jazz riffs, reggae bubbling and bass-line and a cool story
​This was the encore at the Feel Reggae Seminar ~ Confucius by The Skatalites

It is an old-time reggae / ska standard that many have played yet Jason plays it well.  Sunray’s drum solo was tight and on point
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I was blessed to be there
​Feel Reggae is a path of reggae edutainment that I feel compelled to do based on the negative stigma the colonizer Canada seems to portray as it pertains to the negativity of some of the music, attitudes, psyche, defiance, knowledge that is a truth to the people who play it, dance to it, listen to it... feel it

I am compelled to tell a story that the colonizer can’t tell

Because they can’t feel it

Grateful for the reggae heads globally who feel what I feel
​
Another awesome session was with poet, song writer, Michael St. George, featured here with Peter Holung, founder of IBADAN, who have worked together many times in the past and this is the flavor of what the creativity brings, which is more along the lines of R&B yet still based in dub
​An artist that tackles many emotions within his poetry and finds the vibe to bring an uplifting energy to the masses, Michael is another of these gems.  He has many like that and this one, Fight your Fears is one of his latest
Another boss moment at the Fell Reggae genre was the first week when Belinda Brady came to perform.  Belinda a veteran performer in Canada, Jamaica as well as globally for over 30 years is the daughter of Carl Brady, a cofounder and member of Byron Lee and the Dragonnaires, this apple did not fall far from the tree

At the first Feel Reggae Session she joined up with Peter Holung to do an improve of “Wishing You were Here” with the ‘waiting in vain’ bass-line
This is a live performance from 2010 at a benefit for “Reggae For Life ~ Haiti” with a cameo from the very amazing Errol Blackwood
​
​I could not do this without introducing some of you to Mojah

Mojah is one of the founding members of Truths & Rights, a reggae band in the 1970s which included the late Garry Lowe on bass

A RasTafari band, globally respected

Many apologies for the film quality but our camera broke and we had to use cell phone technology and grateful that we got the performance
Thank you Fergus Hambleton for saying yes and performing at Feel Reggae

Fergus, another pioneer of the Canadian reggae scene, a cofounder of the Sattalites along with Jojo Bennett is one of my friends, mentors and a true lover of music

This one isn’t a reggae track yet so worth the listening time and effort

"Fade to Black" featured with Peter Holung on that trusty bass
Peter Tosh ~ Feel Reggae

Spirituality is the basis of reggae music

That spiritual frequency of the truth
​
“If reggae is not accepted universally, around the world, what is the use of the music” ~ Peter Tosh
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