Category: Caribbean Music

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Legendary Calypso Rose Teams up with Carlos Santana and The Garifuna Collective on “Watina”

Born Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis in Bethel Village, Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to a religious, fisherman father and a stay-at-home mother, the legendary Calypso Rose first started writing her own songs when she was 13. In the 1960s, the Mother of Calypso emerged as the epitome of Caribbean music: Her first commercial successes included 1966’s “Fire In Me Wire,” which she performed with Bob Marley & The Wailers in New York the following year.

Throughout her lengthy almost 60-year music career, the Mother of Calypso has written more than 1,000 songs and recorded over the 20 songs — all while being the first major female calypso star. Her lyrics frequently tackle issues like racism and sexism: in fact, her towering influence on calypso forced the renaming of the Calypso King competition to the Calypso Monarch, which she won in 1978.

Since 2015’s Far From Home, which featured multiple collaborations with Manu Chao, Calypso Rose’s career has seen a resurgence — with booming attention internationally. She has been busy spreading calypso around the world, playing around 200 shows in a four year span including sets at Les Vielles Charrues, We Love Green, and WOMAD festivals, as well as Paris‘ Olympia Hall. In 2019, the calypso legend played at Coachella, becoming the oldest artist to ever play the festival.

Throughout her career, the calypso legend’s work is rooted in a remarkable and infectious optimism: While she continues to tackle issues like feminism, sexism, racism and the fight for a better, fairer world for individuals and for everyone, her work has always seen her bring up hedonistic subjects like partying, sex, the energy of youth and the like with a playful, knowing sense of wisdom and humor, which continues on her forthcoming album Forever, which is slated for a an August 26, 2022 release through Because Music.

Forever‘s material in particular conveys strong messages about the status of women in the various neighborhoods across the world she’s come to know well and love: Jamaica, Queens, NYC; her homeland of Trinidad and Tobago; Paris; and Belize. Each of these places have influenced and nourished her work — and in each, was where portions of the album were recorded. Unsurprisingly, the global spanning nature of its recording, allowed for so many difference influences on its overall sound: The material draws from across the Caribbean Diaspora, including rocksteady, soca, ska, mento — and of course, calypso.

The album sees the calypso legend presenting original material with a distinctly modern approach and revisiting some of her greatest classics. The end result is an album that attempts to speak to everyone — and to transcend all ages. Forever sees the Mother of Calypso collaborating with a diverse and eclectic cast of artists new and old throughout it’s 14 tracks, including Manu Chao, soca king Machel Montano, Jamaican dancehall icon Mr. Vegas, Toulouse, France-based emcee Oli, electronic duo Synapson and a lengthy list of others.

Forever‘s first single, the shuffling, genre-defying “Watina” which sees the Queen of Calypso collaborating with Belize’s The Garifuna Collective and the legendary Carlos Santana, who contributes some fiery and lysergic guitar licks effortlessly meshes dancehall, ska, soca and calypso in a crowd-pleasing, accessible and celebratory fashion — while telling a larger story of the ills of colonialism and slavery that’s familiar throughout the region.

With “Watina” in particular, Calypso Rose and company pay homage to the Garifuna, a Caribbean people scarred by slavery, excluded from history and memory but whose population is spread across the US, as well as the coasts of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Calypso Rose’s beloved Belize, which has been a part of her life in some fashion for over 40 years. “Watina” was originally a local hit for The Garifuna Collective, founded and led by Andy Palacio until his death in 2008.

Interestingly, “Watina” was produced by Calypso Rose’s longtime, Belizean-born producer Ivan Duran. Duran worked with Palacio and The Garifuna Collective and according to Duran, the legend was the only person, who could recapture the frenzy and impact of the song while respecting Palacio’s legacy.

By recording and re-imagining the song with many of the same casts of musicians sees the Trinidadian legend reaffirming her ties to Belize while continuing to exploit the dichotomy between the song’s upbeat, festive spirit and its social — and historical — message.

Directed by Andrés Arochi Tinajero, the gorgeously cinematic, accompanying video was shot in Hopkins Village, Belize. The video lovingly captures Black and Afro-Latino joy, dedication and love in a way that makes my heart sing — and is infectious.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Emerging Artist Mighty Koba Releases a Summery Club Banger

Mighty Koba is an emerging and somewhat mysterious Cameroonian-American singer/songwriter. His latest single “Whine Poko” sees the emerging artist seamlessly bridging multiple cultures and styles with a slick and breezy dance floor friendly production featuring elements of Afrobeat, Afropop, reggae, dancehall and soca paired with an infectious, razor sharp hook.

With the temperatures dropping a bit here in the Northeast as we push further into Fall, “Whine Poko” at the moment is simultaneously, a nostalgic blast of summer and the sort of song you want to wine down with that pretty young thing at the club.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born Damone Gervais Walker in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica,the up-and-coming emcee, songwriter and dancehall artist, best known as DeeWunn can trace the origins of his music career to roughly 2006 when he had his first child while working as Medical Records Clerk at Kingston Public Hospital.  Never one to be satisfied with the mundanity of the 9-5 life, he found himself creatively bursting at the seams. Feeling as though he lacked the freedom he needed to truly required to attain his dreams, the up-and-coming Jamaican dance hall artist made a leap of faith by quitting his day job to start a music career. At one point, he was an in-house writer for GeeJam Studios, writing songs for Mystic Davis, Charly B., A-Game, Nailah Blackman, Nordia Baker, Lily Allen and others.

Dancehall act Ward 21 scooped up Walker as a songwriter and vocalist in 2010 — and while as a member of Ward 21, he spent time penning songs for labelmates like Timberlee, Natalie Storm and others. In 2013, Walker’s Kunley McCarthy-produced  “Mek It Bunx Up” featuring Marcy Chin became an unexpected smash-hit that received attention internationally from the likes of Diplo, BBC 1Xtra’s Seani B, ZJ Johnny Kool, Hot 97′s Massive B and others. Adding to a growing profile, “Mek It Bunx Up” received spins in some of the world’s hottest nightclubs.

Interestingly, in 2015 “Mek It Bunx Up” sparked a viral dance craze after Parris Goebel recorded an impromptu performance to the single alongside students from her Urban Dance Camp class, which she later uploaded to YouTube. Since Goebel’s upload, there have been a countless numbers of independently made videos from dancers all over the world — all of those videos have amassed several million views. Additionally, the track landed at #30 on the Bulgarian Top 40 Radio Charts and reached #95 on Shazam’s World Charts.

Since then, DeeWunn has released his full-length debut debut Bunx Up — The Official Street LP, toured across Europe twice and collaborated with Parris Goebel on “Dynamite,” which appeared on her full-length debut Vicious. He’s also collaborated with renowned producer TJ Records for “Tun Suh.” And earlier this year, his single Back It Up, Drop It” was featured in an ad campaign for the Samsung S10.

Building upon the momentum of “Back It Up, Drop It,” DeeWunn’s latest single is the dance floor bop “Jaw Jump,” a track centered around Walker’s rapid-fire hip-hop influenced flow, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, wobbling synths and an infectious hook. Simply put, it’s an irresistible track that will set dance floors around the world on fire.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thievery Corporation Teams Up with Notch on a Soulful, Old School-Inspired Reggae Track

Comprised of DJ and production team Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, the internationally renowned Washington, DC-based act Thievery Corporation have developed a reputation for a globe spanning, genre-defying sound that features elements of electronica, dub, bossa nova, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical music, hip-hop, Middle Eastern music and others, and for collaborating with a diverse array of artists across a variety of genres and styles, including Rob Myers, Loulou Ghelichkhani, Natalia Clavier, Frank ‘Booty Lock’ Mitchell, Mr. Lif, Jeff Franca, Ashish Vyas and a lengthy list of others, who have contributed lyrics in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian and Hindi.

Now, as you may recall, the duo’s chart topping 2017 effort, The Temple of I & I was deeply influenced by Jamaica’s sounds and rhythms, and as a result the album may have arguably been their most reggae and dub-influenced album to date — and perhaps, their most straightforward as well. Interestingly, the duo’s latest album, Treasures from the Temple is a companion album to their 2017 album, and it features both original material and remixes from the Temple of I & I recording sessions at Geejam Studios in Port Antonio, Jamaica — with guest spots from LouLou Ghelichkhani, Mr. Lif, Sitali, Racquel Jones, Natalia Clavier and Notch.
Treasures from the Temple’s latest single “Waiting Too Long” features their long-time collaborator and American dancehall pioneer Notch, and the track is a soulful, two-step dub riddim, complete with a strutting horn arrangement, and while it sounds and feels warm and familiar, it’s a sweet love song about lovers, who have been through quite a bit, going to the club to dance, to enjoy themselves and forget about the world for a few hours — and how they’re specifically waiting for the DJ to play their song. 

The recently released video for “Waiting Too Long” consists of rare footage shot in Jamaica in the late 70s and early 80s, and it captures a night out in a Jamaican club — singles and couples swaying and dancing, some with beer bottles in hand; a DJ making adjustments on his mixer as a vocalist passionately sings; in another room, men gamble and bullshit. It’s a Friday or Saturday night with people being — well, people. All seeking a small measure of joy, a connection with someone else, an escape from the drudgery of every day life. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Swedish-born Multi-Instrumentalist and Electronic Music Artist Thornato Connects New York and Ghana In Visuals for Club-Banging New Single “Back It Up”

Thor Partridge is a Swedish-born Cypriot, whose mother encouraged his interest in music at a very young age; in fact, it was common to hear traditional Greek, African and Caribbean music in his home. As the story goes, Partridge’s family relocated to New York when he was a child, and he eventually studied classical piano, jazz guitar and bluegrass banjo. Partridge quickly showed a penchant and interest in production and remixing, when he found that he couldn’t help tinkering with classical piano arrangements. 

As an electronic music artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who writes, records and performs as Thornato, Partridge quickly received international attention with the release of 2016’s groundbreaking, electronic music/drum ‘n’ bass EP Things Will Change. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Partidge’s full-length album Bennu found the up-and-coming multi-instrumentalist becoming a go-to collaborator and producer, contributing to Bollywood scores, as well as playing clubs across the globe. 

Friday will mark the release of the Swedish Cypriot’s latest EP Back It Up and the EP’s latest single, title track “Back It Up,” finds the up-and-coming producer, collaborating with Ghanian vocalist  Zongo Abongo in a song that lovingly draws from the sounds of the African Diaspora as the song draws from several distinct genres and styles, including 90s Jamaican dancehall, Afro-pop, Champeta, and Dembow in a way that’s simultaneously seamless yet nostalgic, anachronistic yet incredibly post-modern — and perhaps most important of all, the song manages to be a breezy and infectious club banger with quite a bit of thump. 

Directed by Justin Conte, the video features Ghanian vocalist Zongo Abongo and dancer Soraya Lundy connecting across the Atlantic Ocean with a bright orange landline phone, essentially sharing a sensual dance between New York and Accra.