Bunny Lee Interview

Just found this exclusive Interview with the legendary Bunny Lee, done by The Large, one half of the DJ Duo Jim Bones & The Large and editor of the incredible Shimmy Shimmy Blog.

Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee is one of the most influential and pivotal producers in the history of Jamaica, and the history of popular music. With a career spanning over 40 years, his contribution is undeniable: breaking some of reggae’s biggest names, having a literal and metaphorical hand in the creation of dub, and pioneering the deejay sound that would later form the backbone of rap music. I was asked to interview Striker a while back now by Westbury, his publisher, and after about 3 days of waiting round and re-arranging times due to Bunny’s hospital visits, we finally met up in a bar in Brixton. It turned out to be a pretty unbelievable afternoon – we were interrupted by Niney the Observer, only then to be gatecrashed by Tappa Zukie, and it all ended up with me singing ‘Natty Dread A Weh She Went’ in his face (he asked for it, literally). Dressed in a full red suit and his signature fisherman’s hat, the 70-year-old producer has some serious stories to tell. I have tried to touch the tip of the reggae iceberg…

Read the Interview over at Shimmy Shimmy.

Interview with Walshy Killa

One of our favorite Blogs, LargeUp, did an nice interview with Walshy Killa. Wicked read!

LargeUp: How did you get started as a DJ?
Walshy Fire: I went to Clark Atlanta University and met with a sound called Changes, which was originally from Nannyville, Jamaica. To give you the real history of it, I used to sell dancehall tapes at events here in Miami. During the summer in high school and college, I would go to Jamaica, rack up on the latest cassettes—because I’m from Halfway Tree, all the cassette places were right there— and come back and duplicate and sell tapes. At night I was always standing outside the party with a radio and tapes. I made nice money off of that too because at that time there was no other way to hear your favorite sound. You’re gonna listen to Kilimanjaro or Stone Love, there’s not many people bringing tapes to you. I would post up where there was a lot of traffic, put the radio on the floor and have a box of cassettes in my hand and yell stuff like “Sound dead!” to grab peoples attention

Read the whole Interview over at LargeUp.

Peter Hunnigale Interview

Check Zigedub’s Innerview with Peter Hunnigale, who has been nominated “Best British Male Vocalist” at the British Reggae Industry Awards www.britreggae.com/vote.php (Voting is still open until August 2012). This show was broadcast on www.reggae4us.com on March 20, 2012.

2012.03.20 Zigedub Back2Basics with Peter Hunnigale by Germaicanlady on Mixcloud

via Germaican Gleaner.

Interview with Sly Dunbar at Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin (German Only)

Johannes Waechter interviewed Sly Dunbar, one half of the legendary Sly & Robbie, for the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin. Sorry, German Only.

Erzählen Sie ein bisschen von den legendären Sessions mit Serge Gainsbourg, bei denen sein Album Aux Armes Et Caetera entstand.

Jemand von Island Records hat uns angerufen und gesagt, dass Serge Gainsbourg gerne ein Album in Jamaika aufnehmen würde. Ich kannte den Namen von dem Song „Je T’Aime“, aber ich habe mich trotzdem gefragt, ob es derselbe Künstler ist, da „Je T’Aime“ ja kein Reggae-Song ist und ich einen Reggae-Sänger erwartete. Als wir im Studio ankamen, hat er gesagt, er würde gerne ein Reggae-Album mit französischem Gesang machen. Ich habe kein Wort von dem verstanden, was er gesungen hat, aber wir haben einfach angefangen zu spielen und es hat so gut funktioniert, dass wir das ganze Album in einer Woche aufgenommen haben. Zum Schluss haben wir noch die I-Threes geholt für die Backing Vocals – fertig. Das war eine erstaunliche Session.

Read all via Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin.

[Interview] Spider // Supersonic Sound

The excellent german blog “so gesehen” talked to Supersonics Spider for their second installment of their A Real Soundman interview series. Sorry, german only.

[so gesehen] Nach so langer Zeit im Business wäre sinkende Motivation eine logische Schlussfolgerung. Woher ziehst du persönlich deine Motivation Woche für Woche Reggae und Dancehallmusik, insbesondere auch aktuelle Produktionen, unters Volk zu bringen?

[spider] Es gibt halt vieles an der neuen Musik was mich immer noch catched und mich die Musik feiern lässt. Natürlich kann ich mich mehr dafür begeistern New Tunes auf nem Dance zu spielen als zum zigsten Mal den Wipe Out. Gerade wenn man jede Woche auflegt, ist es immer schwierig ständig Tunes aufzulegen die man nicht mehr hören kann aber für den Großteil der Massive, der einmal im Monat auf nen Dance geht was ganz besonderes ist. Klar ist es für einen selber wesentlich motivierender Musik zu spielen auf die man selber bock hat und die man auch authentisch feiern kann und das macht denke ich auch ein Stück unserer Art zu spielen aus, dass wir uns daran orientieren was wir wirklich persönlich gerne hören, selbst wenn andere Tunes den kompletten Laden zum ausrasten bringen würden.
Grundsätzlich kann man sagen, dass sich Musik immer verändert und, gerade aktuell, auch viel Mist dabei ist und jede Menge Hype. Ich denke aber, dass man da irgendwie mit der Zeit gehen muss und sich den aktuellen Gegebenheiten anpassen sollte.

Read the whole Interview via so gesehen.

[Audio] Tenor Saw Interview

Old Audio Interview with Tenor Saw, bout the story behind Ring The Alarm, found on Youtube.

Interview with Adde Instrumentals

Everyones favorite Radio-Voice, Journalist, Dubplate-Engineer and Dancehallqueen Ursula “Munchy Münch did an Interview with Adde Instrumentals from Sweden, the man behind such big Kartel tunes like Summer Time, Bike Back and Open Up, for reggaeville.com.

He’s also known from the group Stockholm Highgrades.

How did you get to work with Vybz Kartel?
I sent two beats to different e-mail adresses I thought could be Vybz Kartel. I got a reply from one of them basically saying: “I want the beats, are you selling them? Please send me all the files”. I replied that if he was the real Vybz Kartel, then I wanted him to follow me on twitter. He asked me what I´ve been smoking and so on. Got a new mail a week after that was a demo of “Bike Back” recorded straight to the mic in his macbook. Sounded so distorted I couldn´t even tell it was him. I thought it was a just an impersonator. A couple of minutes later I received a video of Kartel saying “stop acting like a child and send me the files”. And so I did. A few hours later, “Bike back” recorded, mixed, and out on Youtube.

Read all via reggaeville.com

MTV Iggy interviews Dre Skull

Dre Skull, Mastermind behind my favorite Dancehall-Album since, uhmm, forever, gets interviewed by MTV Iggy’s Jesse Serwer.

Kartel being such a master of self-promotion, what did you learn from him making this album?

Just watching him as a songwriter was pretty interesting. I don’t know that it’s a type of learning that I can apply to other things because I can’t make someone else be a songwriter like Vybz Kartel. I think he really approaches his career and his press in a very holistic way. It’s not like he does four to six songs and he goes home for the day. He’s a performance artist and his songwriting is part of his artistry. His interviews, his Twitter account, his YouTube postings are part of his artistry. To watch someone working in that way from up close is pretty interesting—watching someone who’s a total artist and intentional in what he does.

Read the whole Interview over at MTV Iggy.

Interview with Pekka Vuorinen

A while ago I’ve posted about the book “Volcano Revisited” from finish reggae enthusiats Tero Kaski & Pekka Vuorinen.

Now Roger Reggae from the berlin-based Reggae-Blog “House of Reggae” did an interview with Pekka.

How did you get into reggae and dancehall in a country that must be the complete opposite of Jamaica?

Cool runnings! We were at Cröna Lund in Stockholm when Bob Marley and the Wailers had their concert there. Capacity of the place is about 20.000 and there was over 40.000 enthusiastic Bob Marley fans! Tero had already one of the best reggae record shops in the World – but the business was slow. Coming back home from the concert we decided to educate the Finnish massive and to start a magazine.

We were cool guys from the North, so „Cool Runnings“ was the best choice for a name. Tero was a copy machine expert and knew the best ways to print a good quality fanzine. We had all Finnish reggae lovers writing to the magazine. They – Juha Vaahtera and Tapsa Piirainen for instance – were soon the best Studio One experts of the time. We had around 300 subcribers. Don’t know if they got any wiser but at least we did, the editors and the contributors.

Enjoy the whole interview via House of Reggae.

[Interview] Fader interviews Shaggy

Your new album is called Summer in Kingston. Do you live in Jamaica full-time?

I live in Kingston. When I tell people I live in Kingston, they start fearing for my life. People ask me if I have internet in Jamaica. Like, seriously? So my thing was just to make a really feel-good record with feel-good videos and show the Jamaica that I live in. My favorite time in Kingston is actually Christmas, but summer is great. I like being on Maiden Cay and Lime Cay. Hellshire has a fishing festival. But I’m not a fan of the countryside. I’ll go for three days, then I get bored and that’s it. There’s only so much beaches, sun and laying out I can do. I want to be in the midst of the madness that’s going on. Kingston is pretty small. It’s a ten minute drive to everywhere and everything. In New York, anything you want, you can get it. Jamaica’s kind of the same way—I’m going to go by the bar, then get some tracks and records, some food, watch a game. There’s something happening every night. Jamaica’s a very rich country, as far as music and street dances are concerned.

Read the whole Interview via Fader.