NEWS & EVENTS

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Two-time GRAMMY award-winning group and reggae royalty Morgan Heritage released three songs as NFTs, in partnership with Bondly Finance. The sale started on April 17, and in a matter of hours, the first track, Light It Up, featuring renowned Norwegian singer PelleK, sold out.

 Listen back to my chat last year with one of the UK’s top reggae and jazz guitarists, Alan Weekes. Alan has worked with some serious legends including Jackie Mittoo, Ernest Ranglin, Art Blakey and Pee Wee Ellis to name a few and has penned some classic reggae tunes. 

Rap music had its most successful year ever in the UK in 2020, according to new figures. Data from the BPI - the UK's trade association representing record labels - shows over a fifth of songs streamed were rap and hip hop.

Moving the Needle is an initiative to support women in the music industry run by educators, communicators and mentors. They have valuable life and industry experience which they offer to students and young professional women as part of an educational support network. 

Check out this very interesting list of the 50 most popular riddims in reggae. These are different riddims or backing tracks to be specific with some alterations sometimes that have been used over and over again. 

SSO #7 is a collaboration between Sound System Outernational and Sonic Street Technologies and they are seeking proposals for their next symposium. For more information or to submit proposals of not more than 300 words by to soundsystemouternational@gmail.com accompanied by a short bio (100 words) 3 May.

Respected and neglected in equal measure, I catch up with Charlie in the latest edition of Drop Da Biscuit. For more info about Charlie’s work see https://charliephillipsarchive.com 

From Ghana to Mali to the Ivory Coast to Kenya through Morocco, PAM offers a selection of ten tracks that shook the African rap planet during the first quarter of 2021.

Titled ‘Give The Drummer Some’, the documentary will not only explore who Clyde Stubblefield was as a person, but also highlight his impact on hip-hop culture and music.

In this dip into the Drop Da Biscuit archive we catch up with the master sculptor George “Fowokan” Kelly, a true ‘Elder’ of the UK black art scene. In addition to the many works of his held by private collectors, Fowokan’s sculptures can also be found in many community collections including the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Marcus Garvey Park and Harvard University among others. 

Grammy.com has published a very interesting article highlighting the work of some of the foundational women who have shaped the sounds of reggae and dancehall in honor of Women’s History Month.

Drop Da Biscuit is in session with the Musical Prophet, Ras Midas, one of Jamaica’s great foundation roots reggae artists. Midas has released 11 studio albums, has a cult following in the Caribbean, Europe, West Africa and South America, worked alongside numerous legends and has also recorded and released songs in Swahili and French for good measure.