Yow!That was it. 2010, is long gone, long live 2011 for about 12 more months. Happy New Year to everyone who reads this and Happy New Year to you, even if you don’t, although I don’t know how you’re going to see this.
Anyway.
Last year when we did this I ran through this big giant list of all of the albums I’d reviewed, there were 172 of them and it was ridiculous. I was tempted to do that again this year . . . But I didn’t feel like it, so instead - Check the number, I wrote 103 reviews this year - 69 less than last year, but probably at least a few more than any other one person. I didn’t make anything in terms of money and even if someone offered money (and two or three people did) I wouldn’t even have taken it. I had an excellent time and I look forward to continuing for however long.
BUT! 2011 will MOST LIKELY be my last year writing like this. I’ve accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish and then some and we met some really nice people through this, but I think I’ve found another way that I can be very effective and in the coming weeks and months I hope I can pinpoint that and tell you more about it (I’m going to be writing a book AND a movie!!!). But, when and if I do stop is still a ways off and until then, I’m changing the vibes up as you can see (HOPEFULLY I remembered to change this up a little). We’re doing bigger and bigger things, I’m having more fun and pretty much any idea that I come up with, I’m writing about it this year (more on that in a second). But some things will remain the same.
Besides Bredz, I want to really thank the wonderful and magical people at Zojak Worldwide. I’m going to tell you how to find their contributions - Here’s what to do: Either Google search “Emusic Zojak Worldwide”, or if you have an account, go on the site and search for them. What you’ll find is an almost never ending string of releases and if you actually make digital purchases, you probably already have some of their work (probably a lot of it too). They help us out by giving us so much nice stuff (you can even do a search on this page to see how much I’ve talked about their work), so biggup Zoe (Hey Zoe!), Aaron and everyone else there and biggup Susan same way (she's not with them anymore, but definitely she's one of the nicest people we've met through this). And they’re all really nice people and I’ve indirectly come into contact with a lot of nice others through them such as Computer Paul and Dean Pond and even Ras Wally and co. at Vizion Sounds fairly recently yeah.
I’m going to thank Camille from United Reggae even though the man works me to a ridiculous degree. I have had a lot of people link me and say things like ‘I saw you on United Reggae‘. And, also to that end, biggup people link Kimberly from True Sounds, Julian from Reggae Ville, the guy from the Israeli site and whoever else is running my stuff like whoever runs Reggae Press Room, Joshua from Soul of the Lion (and 45 Shootout too I believe) and everyone else from the blogs and Myspace who link us up constantly for the work.
Biggup my online people and writers like Dale Cooper (does Dale Cooper still write???), big respect DC helped a lot in 2010, Jahsh Concurz the maddest poet in the world, Nico the mighty, taking no talk in 2011. Biggup Angus from United Reggae and BBC and Reggae Ville and everywhere else. Zalemmmmmmmmmm from Bass Culture. The guy whose name I don’t know from Reggae Unite Blog. Everyone else who writes for UR and RV and even that guy who disappeared a year and a half ago at Reggae Reviews. Biggup Jessica also, at Bay Area Reggae Project. And also biggup Heather from Truckback and of course Denise from Lloyd Brown's camp also.
Biggup all of the new people we heard from in 2010. Biggup CE’CILE! Biggup Kemar McGregor, biggup Don Corleon who tweeted about us (!), biggup Toussaint, biggup all the people from the labels, biggup Akyinde, biggup Akeunde from Jah Light, biggup Pashon Minott for doing the wicked interview, biggup JALENA! Biggup Goldee who Face booked (yes, a verb) (WHAT!). Biggup all the people from Oneness and their selective email answering practices. BIGGUP Rastasnob MAGAZINE who gave me my Italian debut. Biggup Lion D and everybody at Bizzarri still. Biggup NATE formerly of VP Records who made sure we got everything and gave us a feature on VP’s website. Biggup Romain Virgo. Biggup everybody at Jahsolidrock and Not Easy At All Productions! Biggup Lustre Kings, finally got their attention in 2010. Biggup Blaak Lung. And EVERYBODY else who I don’t feel like typing about and let me pre-welcome everybody who’s going to jump on board in 2011 (like Don’s Music, hopefully). And biggup Kenyama Sounds also. And Faya Wurks . . . And that Danish label who . . . Burton (I remembered!).
And to everybody else, Remmy, Linya, all the girls and boys at Lion Zeal. All of my Beautiful Tunes people, Callax and Deborah, JP, Allan, Ben, Gustaf whose name I didn’t even have to look up . . . Okay yes I did. Asher who vanished. Jonathan, everybody. John B of course. Steven. Demario.
EVERYBODY! (I’m tired).
Much appreciation for everything you do, much honour and hope that you continue. All praises be unto His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I.
Anyway.
Last year when we did this I ran through this big giant list of all of the albums I’d reviewed, there were 172 of them and it was ridiculous. I was tempted to do that again this year . . . But I didn’t feel like it, so instead - Check the number, I wrote 103 reviews this year - 69 less than last year, but probably at least a few more than any other one person. I didn’t make anything in terms of money and even if someone offered money (and two or three people did) I wouldn’t even have taken it. I had an excellent time and I look forward to continuing for however long.
BUT! 2011 will MOST LIKELY be my last year writing like this. I’ve accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish and then some and we met some really nice people through this, but I think I’ve found another way that I can be very effective and in the coming weeks and months I hope I can pinpoint that and tell you more about it (I’m going to be writing a book AND a movie!!!). But, when and if I do stop is still a ways off and until then, I’m changing the vibes up as you can see (HOPEFULLY I remembered to change this up a little). We’re doing bigger and bigger things, I’m having more fun and pretty much any idea that I come up with, I’m writing about it this year (more on that in a second). But some things will remain the same.
- After this coming week, we will continue to give you reviews on Tuesdays and Fridays and what we have coming up are reviews of both Fanney J’s new album (which they SNUCK in at the end of 2010) as well as the forthcoming piece from Bushman (and I don’t really like it that much).
- After 2-3 more weeks, Sunday will still be BEAUTIFUL TUNES and I’m not changing the format at all, so keep sending things in (although not now, because I will SURELY forget your tune/s.
- And we’ll keep doing little features such as ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘Check It’ and you can still catch me on United Reggae and I kind of agreed to lend content to an Israeli site also and if they ever actually start posting my stuff, I’ll link you to them (and I guess it’s going to be in Israeli because everything else on that site is). You can also catch me on Truesounds.com (if they ever update it, here would be a nice spot Kimberly) and I guess I don’t actually write for Reggae Ville anymore, but since I have a profile over there, It won’t (AT ALL) get me to stop saying that I do when trying to obtain free stuff from labels.
- All of the big albums from 2009 are now fair game as ‘Modern Classics’ (I’m already thinking about starting ”Montego Bay” by Queen Ifrica, I cannot wait!) so you can expect a stead stream of those because that is and has always been one of my own favourite features and my readers enjoy it as well (thankfully because they take forever to write).
So that’s what you can expect new in 2011?
Give Thanks
This thing has gone so much further than I ever thought that it would. I have people quoting me on shit about albums (Like I actually know what I’m talking about) and people talking about me on message boards (some ‘guy’ called me schizophrenic) (manic-depressive not schizophrenic!) (oops, did I say that out loud???) (Nevermind), so we definitely have so many people to thank for an outstanding year around here. Definitely first and foremost is one of ‘us’. I couldn’t do this without Bredz, my Wife’s Brother, so far away, but so much on top of everything. I get emails from people telling me they can’t believe how much I write and that they wish that they could and I never tell them but the ‘secret weapon’ is definitely Bredz. The man does almost everything digitally for me and he even does some of my research these days yeah, so big him up from head to toe and as long as we’re going he’ll be in it too, even though he’s in school, the man is an absolute internet monster of the highest caliber. And biggup his Sister too, even though she does nothing. She’s amazing at it.- Ridiculousness. I have a really bad idea for a new series which makes very little sense, but I’m going to give you a taste of it on tomorrow, so stay tuned.
- To wrap up what was 2010, in the immediate future - Next week I’m going to give you my favourite songs of the year on Monday. Tuesday there’ll be a random post of my favourite stuff of the year, Wednesday there’ll be the first part of Album of The Year, Thursday will be the second part and Friday THE Album of The Year will receive Modern Classic like treatment (as of this writing, I still haven’t figure out if I’m doing top 20 or top 15, although I’m leaning towards 20, of course).
- I am hopefully going to be doing more actual articles, I have so many strong ideas that I think are interesting and while previously I shied away from too much controversy, I’m not doing that anymore and the first piece in the new year will be my long overdue take on Homophobia in Reggae Music.
- If you haven’t noticed, I’ve changed up my reviews slightly in terms of the look - the videos now go inside the body of the review and I absolutely love that. Also, as I said a few weeks back, I believe, I’ve been far too nice and I’m going to be tougher and tougher on things (which will probably be evident in my review of Bushman’s album).
- And I’m thinking about a few other things like a guest writer or two, so definitely link me if you have skills, an interesting opinion on something or preferably both (someone find that guy Rooted In Reggae please). So definitely stay tuned for all of my new . . . Shit.
Give ThanksBesides Bredz, I want to really thank the wonderful and magical people at Zojak Worldwide. I’m going to tell you how to find their contributions - Here’s what to do: Either Google search “Emusic Zojak Worldwide”, or if you have an account, go on the site and search for them. What you’ll find is an almost never ending string of releases and if you actually make digital purchases, you probably already have some of their work (probably a lot of it too). They help us out by giving us so much nice stuff (you can even do a search on this page to see how much I’ve talked about their work), so biggup Zoe (Hey Zoe!), Aaron and everyone else there and biggup Susan same way (she's not with them anymore, but definitely she's one of the nicest people we've met through this). And they’re all really nice people and I’ve indirectly come into contact with a lot of nice others through them such as Computer Paul and Dean Pond and even Ras Wally and co. at Vizion Sounds fairly recently yeah.
I’m going to thank Camille from United Reggae even though the man works me to a ridiculous degree. I have had a lot of people link me and say things like ‘I saw you on United Reggae‘. And, also to that end, biggup people link Kimberly from True Sounds, Julian from Reggae Ville, the guy from the Israeli site and whoever else is running my stuff like whoever runs Reggae Press Room, Joshua from Soul of the Lion (and 45 Shootout too I believe) and everyone else from the blogs and Myspace who link us up constantly for the work.
Biggup my online people and writers like Dale Cooper (does Dale Cooper still write???), big respect DC helped a lot in 2010, Jahsh Concurz the maddest poet in the world, Nico the mighty, taking no talk in 2011. Biggup Angus from United Reggae and BBC and Reggae Ville and everywhere else. Zalemmmmmmmmmm from Bass Culture. The guy whose name I don’t know from Reggae Unite Blog. Everyone else who writes for UR and RV and even that guy who disappeared a year and a half ago at Reggae Reviews. Biggup Jessica also, at Bay Area Reggae Project. And also biggup Heather from Truckback and of course Denise from Lloyd Brown's camp also.
Biggup all of the new people we heard from in 2010. Biggup CE’CILE! Biggup Kemar McGregor, biggup Don Corleon who tweeted about us (!), biggup Toussaint, biggup all the people from the labels, biggup Akyinde, biggup Akeunde from Jah Light, biggup Pashon Minott for doing the wicked interview, biggup JALENA! Biggup Goldee who Face booked (yes, a verb) (WHAT!). Biggup all the people from Oneness and their selective email answering practices. BIGGUP Rastasnob MAGAZINE who gave me my Italian debut. Biggup Lion D and everybody at Bizzarri still. Biggup NATE formerly of VP Records who made sure we got everything and gave us a feature on VP’s website. Biggup Romain Virgo. Biggup everybody at Jahsolidrock and Not Easy At All Productions! Biggup Lustre Kings, finally got their attention in 2010. Biggup Blaak Lung. And EVERYBODY else who I don’t feel like typing about and let me pre-welcome everybody who’s going to jump on board in 2011 (like Don’s Music, hopefully). And biggup Kenyama Sounds also. And Faya Wurks . . . And that Danish label who . . . Burton (I remembered!).
And to everybody else, Remmy, Linya, all the girls and boys at Lion Zeal. All of my Beautiful Tunes people, Callax and Deborah, JP, Allan, Ben, Gustaf whose name I didn’t even have to look up . . . Okay yes I did. Asher who vanished. Jonathan, everybody. John B of course. Steven. Demario.
EVERYBODY! (I’m tired).
Much appreciation for everything you do, much honour and hope that you continue. All praises be unto His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I.
Happy New Year My Friends
SONG??? Nothing timely I'll confess. But I love this song and so do you.
Interesting article.. Interesting people..
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