Jamaica has finally distinguished itself a bit in the global animation community. It’s easy to see why JA animators Allison and Anieph Latchman’s five-minute Cabbie Chronicles: Drive Thru Drama short won the Best Caribbean Animation Award at this year’s Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival. It’s some straight-up homegrown Kingston street satire.

Don’t get it twisted—Jamaicans have been doing animation for a minute now—for example, Coretta Singer’s fantastical 3-D work has been shown out in the global animation circuit for a couple of years now. And folks can point to the cutting-edge Ninjamaica, but that was a Canadian production. Cabbie Chronicles is straight from yard, and hopefully one of a long-running series that sets the tone for an era of great ‘toons from the island.
 

 
After the jump: check an interview with the screwfaced Cabbie himself…

 
It was all over for British pre-teen David Rodigan in 1962 when he saw ska crooner Millie Smalls sing the Cadillacs’ classic “My Boy Lollipop” on Ready, Steady, Go! He was in complete and utter love with Jamaican music and would collect and spin as many great reggae records as he could in a lifetime.

Over the next 48 years, Rodigan went from DJing school dances to legendary show slots on Radio London, Capital Radio, and Kiss FM, humbly championing reggae throughout the UK and getting royal respect with every visit to Jamaica. Most famously, he’s made his name as a champion in reggae sound clashes. His dapper fashion sense, professional demeanor, and historian’s aura at clashes* worldwide have made him known variously to reggae fans as “the rude gentlemen,” “the James Bond of sound,” or simply “Fadda” (father).

Below you’ll find Rodi in action at the UK Cup sound clash a couple of years ago, playing the role of selector as his assistant operators play the actual dubplates. His mastery at hyping tunes is evident…but first, for the uninitiated…

In the reggae world, sound clashes are events in which two to five “sound systems” or “sounds” (DJ teams) battle each other by playing tunes that garner the most audience approval.
Audiences respond best to dubplate specials—popular tunes commissioned by a sound and custom re-recorded by the original singer so that he or she can name and praise that sound. These one-of-a-kind tunes can be expensive, so the more dubplates that any sound can play at a clash, the more dedicated they’re perceived to be, and the more crowd response they get.
In regular reggae dances, when a regular record gets enough crowd roar, the DJ stops and rewinds the record, lifts the needle, and plays it again. In a clash, a dubplate gets a rewind and then usually it’s on to the next tune at a frenzied pace.
 

 
After the jump: unearthed new footage of Rodigan spinning a hectic dance in 1985 at legendary producer/sound man King Jammy’s yard on St. Lucia Road in the Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica…

 
The fact that Jamaicans are posting up hilarious little tributes to kung fu film online should come as no surprise. As in most countries, Jamaica always had its share of young men enthralled by martial arts cinema, which crested in terms of both prolificacy and popularity during the mid-’60s, soon after the rugged island nation became independent. Reggae producers like Lee Perry, Keith Hudson, Augustus Pablo, and Prince Jammy folded martial arts influence into their music, sometimes in the lyrics, and in other instances by simply titling their dubs “Exit The Dragon” or “Shaolin Temple.”

The global digi-video age now opens up possibilities for Jamaica to explode the kung-fu spoof genre. Below you’ll find the possible first bamboo shoots, starting with Prezzi909’s footage from November of some brilliantly awkward kung-fu kombat street theatre, replete with the sound of cackling and screaming onlookers. But wait til a pro gets a hold of the concept…
 

 
After the jump: watch the kung-fu kraze refined with actual scripting and wicked effects!

 
More sad news in the music world: the great roots reggae crooner, Gregory Issacs has died. Issacs was well-known for his soulful vocalizing and “lover’s rock” sound. He was also known for being the reggae world’s answer to Keith Richards. Issacs died in his London home after traveling around Jamaica for a while following a lung cancer diagnosis last year. He was 59-years-old.

Below, “the cool ruler” in a memorable performance from the movie Rockers:
 

 
Fresh out of his tenure with new wave stars Squeeze, 25-year-old musician Jools Holland had launched his career as a TV presenter on the BBC channel 4 show The Tube. Assigned to cover Jamaica’s music scene circa 1984, the confident Holland strode right in to Kingston and made it happen.

Expertly directed by Geoff Wonfor, Jools’s special features footage of rising stars Mutabaruka, Dennis Brown, Black Uhuru and the Wailing Souls, along with spotlights on legendary riddim section Sly & Robbie and maniac producer Lee “Scratch” Perry (who claims he “comes from the trees”).

Not satisfied with the established stars, Wonfor and Holland prove their cred by including a gritty dancehall sequence with star microphone men Yellowman, Billy Boyo, Massive Dread and Lee van Cleef. They all do well until the on-fire Eek a Mouse suddenly hits the stage in pancho and sombrero and turns the place out.

Bookended by his intro while swimming fully dressed through a hotel pool and a beautiful finale shoot in heaviest Trenchtown for his big-band/ska tune “Black Beauty,” Jools in Jamaica is a remarkably bright document of an island in its deepest post-independence economic and political depths.
 

 
After the jump, catch the rest of the doc…
 

 
The crew that hooked up the Bay Area premiere of the fantastic blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite returns to put on another wildly diverse Oakland Underground Film Festival for 2010. Screenings run from Sept. 23 through Sept. 26 at the Grand Lake Theater on 3200 Grand Ave. and the Linden Street Brewery on 95 Linden St. Check the Oakland UFF site for details.

The Fest features indie and DIY film, video, and projection-art based in the O, with special emphasis on local filmmakers, social justice, urban life, the environment and non-traditional filmmaking. Films on tap in the 2010 fest include Elijah Drenner’s survey of exploitation film American Grindhouse and Stascha Bader’s Jamaican music doc Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae.

One of the intriguing docs in this year’s lineup is Betty M. Park’s Mamachas Del Ring. It depicts the pressures of hustling in Bolivia’s lucha libre circuit on indigenous champion female wrestler Carmen Rosa and her crew of petticoat-and-bowler-hat-bedecked maulers.
 

 
After the jump: trailers for Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae and American Grindhouse…
 

The original DJ Derek, a badman
 
Thanks to the great Mixmaster Morris for the heads up on this. For many years, white DJs have played a key role in popularizing black music in the US and Britain. In the British reggae scene, alongside pioneers in the sound system game like Jah Shaka, Jah Observer, Channel One, and others, paler-skinned music fanatics like the legendary David Rodigan have been working respectfully to promote the music became a worldwide phenomenon.

Just before Rodigan, however, a guy called Derek Morris from out of Bristol started his 50-year love affair with American R&B and Jamaican music, becoming an obsessed record collector. Here’s video director Jamie Foord’s excellent short vid documentary of the extremely charming and gruff-voiced DJ Derek—still spinning reggae, chatting patois on the mic, and rolling around England on the bus.
 

DJ Derek pt. 1 from Grand Finale on Vimeo.

 
After the jump: part 2 of the DJ Derek story…
 

 
Heartbreaking news has come out of the death at 54 yesterday of the well-loved reggae singer, songwriter, producer and promoter Lincoln Barrington “Sugar” Minott. Born and raised in the ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica, Minott spent his teen years in the city’s sound system scene and recording for Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s legendary Studio One label. The albums he released at this time, like Live Loving, Ghetto-ology and Roots Lovers—along with singles like “Herbman Hustling” and “Rub a Dub Sound Style”—laid the groundwork for the gritty, soulful dancehall sound that reggae would work into for the next 20 years.

Minott was best known for breaking with Jamaica’s soul-singer tradition, which saw many crooners brandishing a refined style that aped American artists. Sugar was sweet, but not slick. Minott would eventually leave Studio One to start his Black Roots label and Youthman Promotion sound system in order to help out young singers also coming out in Kingston’s ghettos. He’s responsible for early recording or performances of legends like Ranking Joe, Barry Brown, Tenor Saw, Little John, Tony Tuff, Barrington Levy, Horace Andy, Nitty Gritty, Junior Reid, Yami Bolo, Daddy Freddy and Garnett Silk.

You’ll see evidence of his popularity below, as Minott can’t get through his first tune at his first Reggae Sunsplash in 1983 without the crowd demanding he pull up and bring it again.
 

 
But you got the best of Sugar in his element, singing with the youths in the dancehall—or in this case, Maxfield Park in Kingston, where his Youthman Promotions sound regularly performed:
 

 
It’s always heartening to see electronic music veterans ably take on new genres and make them sing. One case in point is the UK duo Africa Hitech comprises producer Mark Pritchard and producer/vocalist Steve White (a.k.a. Steve Spacek). Pritchard helped shape the sound of British techno in the early ‘90s in his groups Global Communications and Jedi Knights, while White made waves in the early ‘00s with his avant-soulful warbling and knob-twiddling for the glitchy trio Spacek.

Both have been busy with lots of projects, but Africa Hitech bears special attention. The pair’s just-released debut EP Hitecherous weaves between lurching lovers dub, whomping dubstep, whizzing dancehall, and neurotic garage—all stripped down to their powerful rhythmic essences. Recommended new sounds.
 

 
Get: Africa Hitech - Hitecherous [CD-EP]

 
When Bob Marley’s family called on the legendary singer’s childhood friend Alan Greenberg to film his funeral in 1982, it’s worth wondering whether Greenberg knew that he’d end up widening the scope to make one of the iconic films about Jamaica.

Shot by Werner Herzog associate Joerg Schmidt-Reitwein, Land of Look Behind seems to almost float across the island, touching down in both impoverished rural badland areas and the crowded setting of Kingston for the superstar’s stately final rites. Backed by the Kerry Leimer’s unlikely ambient score and featuring performers like Gregory Isaacs and Mutabaruka, Land… is a rich document of the places, faces, and voices of a Jamaica coming to terms with its lagging economy and post-colonial future.

Former Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk sampled many bits of the film’s various monologues to populate In Dub: Chant to Jah and Live in the Earth, the electro-dub albums he made in his Sandoz guise.
 

 
Get: Land of Look Behind [DVD]
 
Download: K. Leimer’s score for Land of Look Behind [MP3]
 
Get: Sandoz in Dub - Chant to Jah [CD]

 
As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am a serious reggae buff. Here are some of my favorite “Roots” era clips on You Tube. First up, a look at a reggae sound system in England in 1978. Note how few women are in this club.

 
The Gladiators recording session session captured in the clip above (taken from Roots Rock Reggae, one of the best, if not the best, reggae documentary) really starts to cook when they perform Hearsay. When someone says they don’t “get” reggae, play them this clip!

 
Reggae great Johnny Clarke sings a mellow version of None Shall Escape the Justice in Bunny Lee’s studio (I prefer the faster version of this song, but it’s still ace to see a vintage performance like this, an extended version of the bit seen in Roots Rock Reggae)

 
And finally the Jah Shaka Soundsystem from the 1981 UK film Babylon. The sound is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

 
Vivian Jackson, AKA “Yabby You,” one of the most fascinating artists of the “roots reggae” period of the 1970s, passed away in Jamaica on January 12, 2010. Jackson was 63

Poverty stricken his entire life, Jackson was in ill-health as a result of living at and working in a garbage incinerator in Waterhouse, Jamaica since he was a young child. After a spell in the hospital, his legs by then crippled with arthritis, 17-year old Jackson was told that he could no longer return to his former job and moved to Kingston where he eked by precariously. Although a Rastafarian, Jackson did not believe in the divinity of Emperor Haile Selassie and his Christian beliefs were at odds with other Rastas he knew. He was given the nickname “Jesus Dread” as a result of his argumentative nature.

One night an ethereal song came to Jackson as he BS’d about religion with friends: “Like a strange ting, inside a-my thoughts—like an angel a-sing.” Although his poverty slowed the recording process down, many top musicians* (and master producer, King Tubby) were impressed with Jackson’s unwavering passion that this song must be brought into the world, and volunteered their services. The results, Conquering Lion is a dark, brooding masterpiece of true religious fervor and a seminal reggae classic. In many ways, I see this song as a reggae equivalent to Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. Listen to the way the voices are layered. No other Jamaican artist was doing anything even remotely similar at the time. Nor have any since.

Yabby You performed standing with the help of crutches. The Conquering Lion album was pressed in a run as small as 500 copies when it was first released in 1975. It took another 22 years before the LP was widely heard outside of Jamaica, with the deluxe 2 CD edition of Jesus Dread (1972-1977) featuring various “versions” of the song released by top UK reggae label, Blood and Fire. Now it’s considered a classic.

*Including Rockers star ?