Have your attention don't?Reigning Queen Clown of Soca (the reigning King, of course, is John Mahameed), the inimitable Jalena, from out of the BVI (biggup my Aunt Lalay) (and biggup Sistah Joyce) is giving away free stuff on her myspace blog. If you don't know Jalena, she's a seemingly delightful and oft-hilarious Soca/Poppish singer from out of Tortola who just kind of started popping up one day on Slaughter Arts riddims and since then has done quite well for herself with a steady stream of nice tunes. Tunes like 'In My System', 'Roll', 'Rusty Waist' and my own personal favourite the ridiculous 'Bumpa'. And she's a clown also (and I mean that in the nicest way possible), while on her myspace looking for free music, be sure to check out her pictures which include, amongst other things, Jalena whining on a woman about 3 times her size.
Anyway, apparently she was going to release an album and it's taking too damn long, so she's decided to just randomly give away most of her big tunes, including the solo version of the aforementioned 'Roll', which I didn't have before. And within the last year or so, I think she's REALLY developed, she had, in 'In My System', which was probably one of the best Groovy kind of Soca tunes I've heard this year (she had the remix version of the tune last year and just this year ran the solo version which is much better) (the remix wasn't bad either). So head over and introduce yourself to TRULY one of the most delightful (and a little strange) and hidden talents of Caribbean Music.
Since your on Soca kick...I picked up (but have not peeled back the plastic yet) Edwin Yearwood's "Next To You." I mean both my Lady Saw and CeCile guest! Should I just tear sucker open? One never knows these things..
ReplyDeleteHalf of that album is very good, the other half is very not good (AT ALL). And besides Saw and the wonderfulness that is Ce'Cile, it also features a tune with Lexxus (which is actually good!) and Bunji and Weekend is on there too, very good.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe tear it half open.