While a mass of humanity took in Fergie’s (disappointing? gasp!) set across Town Lake at the Tempe Music Festival, we smart ones were filing into the Marquee Theater to take in D.C. / Brooklyn artist Citizen Cope. It was billed on the venue’s web site as “an evening with no support”. But I was [...]

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This tour guide at Bob Marley’s estate will brighten your day. Trust me…

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It’s news stories like this that jump out at me and remind me about the power of music. Tiken Jah Fakoly is a very popular reggae artist in Africa. He’s also very outspoken and apt to speak his mind - qualities that those in power aren’t too fond of in western Africa (and the rest [...]

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The world loses another great musician. In a senseless & random act of violence, South African reggae star Lucky Dube was shot and killed outside of Johannesburg yesterday in an attempted carjacking - in front of his children, mind you. What a wonderful world we live in…
Lucky isn’t too well known here in the U.S. [...]

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Joseph Hill, January 22, 1949 - August 19, 2006
I have to thank my wife for the infusion of more reggae into my life. She’s an island girl (Seychelles), and has grown up loving reggae. One of the great groups she has introduced me to is Culture. They are reggae legends, but I never was too [...]

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Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in the Brixton section of London.
Johnson invented dub poetry, a type of toasting descended from the DJ stylings of U-Roy and I-Roy. But whereas toasting tended to be hyperkinetic and given to fits of braggadocio, Johnson’s poetry (which is what it was — he [...]

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Here’s another artist I discovered courtesy of my wife, who lived in Seychelles all of her life until that fateful day we met while she was visiting Arizona. So she introduced me to Lucky Dube. I said “Lucky Doo-Who?” Well, Lucky is a very popular South African Reggae singer, popular all across the African continent. [...]

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