Kingston, Jamaica will celebrate the 1st Annual One World Ska & Rocksteady Music Festival on Saturday and Sunday, November 26 and 27, 2016 at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, in Kingston (Jamaica). The Jamaican capital is the birthplace of Ska and Rocksteady music, two of the most popular musical genres played around the world today and predecessors of reggae.
Some of the leading performers of these two genres will appear from 3:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. on the first day. A symposium on the originators of Jamaican music and two documentaries on the genres are scheduled for day 2.
Ska music was first played in 1963 by the Skatalites in the Kingston recording studios and night clubs. The genre is today played by thousands of bands in the U.S.A., Europe, Japan, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. It will be the first time a music festival of this kind will be held in the birthplace of this genre.
Artists scheduled to perform include The Skatalites (USA); Soweto Ska Band (Spain); Marcia Griffiths (Jamaica); B.B. Seaton and the Gaylads (UK); Sparrow Martin and Skasonic (Jamaica); Brooklyn Attractors (USA); Leroy Sibbles, former lead singer of the Heptones (Jamaica); Hugh Roy, the King of the Jamaican toasters; Derrick Morgan, the King of Ska music (Jamaica); and Stranjah Cole (Jamaica).
The festival will also feature some emerging ska and rocksteady bands: Yard Beat, Earth Cry, and the Alpha School Band, made up of students of the school that produced many of Jamaica’s great musicians, such as Dizzy Reece, Harold “Little G” McNair, Joe Harriot, Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, and Rico Rodriguez.
Sound system selectors are Dexter Campbell “the Ska Professor”, and Roy Black of KLAS the Saturday Night Alternative, two leading musicologists. Other acts are expected to perform.
“The 1st Annual One World Ska & Rocksteady Music Festival is a tactical move of Sounds & Pressure Foundation to position Kingston as a cultural tourism destination, and we have been working on it now going three years,” said festival director Julian “Jingles” Reynolds. “Jamaica is the only country apart from the United States that has given the world multiple musical genres, in Jamaica’s case, four popular genres, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, and Dancehall, and we believe this is of great cultural value as they all have impacted world culture. We therefore, want to bring world attention to Kingston, where Jamaica’s popular music was born, and Ska, in particular has evolved into becoming far bigger and more accepted in several other countries, away from Jamaica.”
This year’s festival will be dedicated to Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Arthur “Duke” Reid, Cecil “Prince Buster” Campbell, Chris Blackwell, Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez, Marcia Griffiths, and the Alpha Boys School, who have all made major contributions to the development of Jamaican music.
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.
