Completely Random Thoughts XX: . . . And Tell The People

"Without Promotion something terrible happens.
Nothing"

I’ve been getting so much nice feedback recently and not only from this page, but also from the various (and even more various) channels on which I write - Yes I do entirely too much but - Yes, I do love it. And I do truly enjoy feedback. These things do not write themselves (at least not usually), so when I notice how certain people, especially artists, labels or managers themselves, react to my work, it simply makes me feel good and in the world of ME that is very very cool. Recently, I’ve gotten such a nice mention from Jalena on my review for her new and outstanding album, ”The Jam Sessions”. She painted the walls of her Facebook page with links to it and when I linked her she was very appreciative and a very nice person as well.

On top of that, another recent review that we did, for the Ifficial Riddim, has also generated a nice bit of response. I’ve, directly or indirectly been in contact with two of the artists on the riddim, Monsoon (through his manager), who is going to send us more music and Fiyah Binghi, who already did send us music and a lot of it, which I have to go and listen to . . . Actually I’m going to do that now and I’ll be right back shortly. Nice. And, not too long ago there was also the ”Black Gold” album (‘Achis, which one?’) from Toussaint, which just may be my most well responded to review ever.

So and I’m not trying to pat myself on the back (if you feel like it, however, please go right ahead), but I acknowledge that what I do, in the way of reviews is pretty unusual and pretty ridiculous, but I think that the almost overwhelming reaction that I’ve gotten, especially recently, is kind of sad in some ways. I don’t know for sure, but even if someone wrote a big positive review for a Beyoncé album and even in a worldwide popular and respected magazine/television program/website - A really big forum - No one, not the artist herself, nor anyone from her management team would contact them to say thank you. Providing them with promos - Sure, but not to the flattering degree that the Reggae/Soca/Zouk community has responded to this ridiculous little page here.

To me, it signals one of the reasons why I started to this in the first place and one which keeps me feeding this thing to levels of morbid obesity: There simply is a critical LACK in the media of Reggae and Caribbean music in general. I always go back to an artist who I won’t name, but I wrote a review for his older album maybe in 2008 and I saw it maybe a week or two later on his Myspace page (which was one of the very first times that such a thing happened and I was SO happy), but most unexpectedly I heard from someone who was representing him and that person would ultimately offer me the opportunity to MANAGE this artist and it was something which began because someone wrote a nice review on Amazon . . . WOW! You can break that down to seeing that this gentleman was so happy that someone had taken their time to WRITE something about his music and his career, at the time, wasn’t in the greatest of shape (and to my knowledge it still isn’t) so he thought that he’d make the attempt. I’d so much like to get to the point where what I do is a standout because it’s DIFFERENT from what others do, but now that I think about it - What I do isn’t very different at all, because in order to be different, you have to be different from something and there are so few writers, so I am different from almost nothing.

I think this is because, just like the music itself, the media coverage of the music is a business in many respects. The magazine business, as far as I comprehend it, is not only ever dying in the printed sense, but it is also growing in the digital sense. So, just in the past year or so, we’ve seen two respected (one VERY respected) Reggae music magazines, “Beat” and “Natty Dread”, both folding, which is very unfortunate (from a selfish reason because I REALLY wanted to see my name in both of them one day) and while others do remain, such as “Rasta Snob” from out Italy (which I have been in) and "Riddim Magazine" who’s to say how long they’re going to be sticking around?

Online, things are 'different' - New websites pop up every so often and they do so with various degrees of successes, of course, but they do so with a pretty similar and prevailing passion. Two of the most reputable are UnitedReggae.com and ReggaeVille.com (coincidentally I just happen to write for them both although the guy at the Ville has obviously forgotten) and they are, essentially, functioning magazines with rotating stories and personalities and authors. And into the blogs and different sites, you have people like myself, Reggae Unite, Bassculture, The Bay Area Reggae Project and we all do different things. Nothing, typically such as a magazine, but if you put them all together, notice how wonderful this work - Achis writes reviews and articles. Reggae Unite writes news stories (constantly). Zalemmm from Bassculture makes mixes and writes articles. Jessica Dore from TBARP does interviews, takes photographs and writes articles. That is essentially a magazine and a GREAT one! And there are others, such as the guy who (apparently it’s in the past tense now) used to write Reggae-Reviews.com, which is still an amazing source, it’s essentially an archives now, Nico who (just emailed me about Spice and Tad‘s), True Sounds (write for them too!) and all of the big sites such as Outa Road, Dancehall Mobi (my personal favourite) and who knows who else. And also there’re people like Soul of The Lion, who seemingly exist only to flood my inbox with NICENESS. So while it still isn’t as big as it should be, BIGGUP EVERYONE who is at least trying to promote this wonderful wonderful music and hopefully someday we can get to the point where a BOMB of a 2600 word review isn’t such a huge deal, but again, the fact that we haven’t reached there yet definitely is making me smile with the feedback, so do keep them coming my friends!