seen.´s non-hippie reggae and dancehall blog

With trade shows like B&B and Bright happening in Europe, of course, some reggae related tees pop up on the scene, too. The ones above are three I recently stumbled upon and like quite a bit. From left to right (ignore the super-ugly sneakers): one of the “Bad Brains collection” shirts from Vans (via Artschoolvets),  PAM´s “Riddims” tee (via Haven) and Gabrielle Smith´s nice and simple “R is for Rice and Peas” piece.

In addition, I came across a Hobnox feature on Jaybo a.k.a. Monk, the art director of Irie Daily (a heavily punk and reggae-inspired, established German streetwear brand which is really cool despite its name) and the man behind Style & The Family Tunes magazine. Watch it. This guy´s a genius.

Even though I´m kind of surprised about the frequency in which Rodney 2.0 (he even has a Twitter account and on his website pics are automatically pulled from Flickr) is dropping videos for his upcoming LP, I like how his Jamaican roots shine through in “Again & Again”. (However, I don´t know anything about cricket besides that the game even makes white British people go to Kingston, Jamaica, sometimes.)

via Nialler9

I´m on the jump to Melt! festival. That´s why I only copy Tim Turbo´s post about the new single and video to what could be the best German album released at least this year:

Two drummer in a three weeks lasting mega-session in a studio in France, because no drum sounds should be sampled, but a unique sound should arise.

Also syntheziser were a no-go. Orchestra was the word. They created new string melodies and riffs, but DJ Illvibe also digged deep in the crates for some hidden samples, strings and woodwind or brass groups, which a arranger used as template to write a score for the Babelsberg Film Orchestra.

That´s how Seeed mastermind Peter Fox made his upcoming solo debut. The single above will be released at 15.08.2008 and is called “Alles Neu” (meaning “All New”). Orchestral German Dancehall. Imagine they would use synthies.

Even though - having gone to UWI myself - I definitely think that the sticky streets of downtown Kingston are a better place to understand the dynamics of Jamaican reggae and dancehall culture than some air-conditioned classrooms up at Mona, there´s no doubt a good reason to deal with the matter on an academic level.

On the first weekend of July, the Global Reggae Conference - number seven in a series of conferences on Caribbean cultural studies - took place on Mona campus. UWI TV has the videos of all keynotes.

I haven´t had the time to check them all myself, but from the titles, these are the ones most likely to be interesting:

- Reggae Music as Social Catalyst

- Serious Ting - The Structure of Jamaican Popular Music

- Plenary - Reggae in Japan and Australia

- Imag(in)ing Reggae

via DHM/Jojo B.

… a.k.a. “The most effective anti-drugs advert ever made ” via Prancehall