The London-based MC Brother Culture is one of the most active MCs on the reggae circuit. Regularly travelling to work with new and established sound crews, he has watched the styles and fashions of reggae change over the years, from his early days with the Twelve Tribes organisation to the fusion styles now popular in reggae. While he is best known as an MC rooted in the UK steppers style, he’s also recorded with grime, hip-hop, jungle, drum and bass and dubstep producers. Recently, he sat down with IRIE UP magazine to set the record straight.
Brother Culture: Setting the record straight
Sugar Minott – Father of Dancehall
Sugar Minott is one of the foundation artists and producers of reggae music from roots to dancehall and raggamuffin, with a string of famous hits from ‘Vanity’ to ‘Herbsman Hustling’. He’s also been one of the most active independent promoters of young singers through his own record labels and soundsystems. He’s one of the artists who stayed a yard, and today he still lives in the Maxfield Park area in Kingston, Jamaica, close to his beloved Studio One.
Profile: David Madden, The reggae river flows on…
If you’re a music fan, you will know the work of David Madden, even if you don’t know the name. He is the trumpeter who played on many of the great reggae hits of Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Beres Hammond, Dennis Brown, The Heptones, Culture and Gregory Isaacs. The list goes on and on. He was one of the founder members of the Revolutionary Zap Pow, the mighty Jamaican backing band that produced some of the funkiest, most groove-charged reggae music of the 1970s.
Zion Train: Setting the record straight
It’s the coldest winter in years, and snow is falling thickly as the Zion Train rolls into the yard at Yaam in Berlin. They are more than halfway through a fifty-date tour across Europe, and there’s no time to hang about. We’re all quickly inside, drinking tea to warm up, as the crew pace about, stretching their legs.
The original Rockers: Calman Scott
Kingston, 1976. Jamaica is caught in an international power struggle. Michael Manley’s socialist government, in power since 1972, has made enemies in the USA by nationalised the bauxite industry, and by supporting the Cuban government. It is an election year, and the Americans are supporting the opposition leader, Edward Seaga. Jobs are hard to find, and prices are high. But mysterious shipments of guns pour into the Kingston ghettos that summer, and the election escalates into political warfare. Gunmen kill more than 500 people. The songs tell the stories. War inna Babylon. Police and thieves. One evening, singer Calman Scott made his way across town through the gunfire to record a session that changed reggae music forever. This is the story of the original rockers.