Article Title: The Official Summerjam Calendar

Excerpt: featuring photos of Sizzla, Ziggy Marley, Gentleman, Perfect, Junior Kelly, Sebastian Sturm, Warrior King, Morgan Heritage, Seeed, Luciano, Turbulence, Mellow Mark & Capleton!

Excerpt: €1 OF EACH SALE WILL BE DONATED TO baobabfamily.org

Article Title: Reggae revolution

Excerpt: t was only when their grandfather Perry Henzell passed away, a little over a year ago, that my children took in how significant his influence had been around the world. Of course, they knew he was the co-writer and director of Jamaica's first feature film, The Harder They Come. My son had the poster over his bed; his sister was old enough to actually watch the film. But they were a little surprised by the magnitude of the tributes and obituaries that streamed in.

Excerpt: As the film travelled, so too did its soundtrack, featuring stars such as Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals. Between 1973 and 1978 Bob Marley and the Wailers released landmark albums, having been signed by Chris Blackwell at Island Records. Reggae was becoming a worldwide cultural phenomenon.

Article Title: Is Reggae Dead?

Excerpt: But since the hullabaloo that put reggae in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, what has happened to put the much-loved music in the headlines on a more positive basis? While some within the reggae fraternity have dubbed this year “two thousand and great,” is there really much to celebrate?

Excerpt: There’s no denying that reggae is by no means considered a priority by mainstream media. Regarded by many as a ‘seasonal’ music, it can often only enjoy airplay on commercial radio stations whenever carnival rolls around. But are there any emerging reggae talents who genuinely have the potential to enjoy international stardom?

Excerpt: One person who may be able to whip up a greater sense of professionalism within the genre is Cristy Barber, who recently returned to VP Records, after seven years of working with the Marleys at their label Tuff Gong. Now the Vice President of Marketing and Promotions at VP (who have now practically corneredthe reggae market, following their takeover of Greensleeves), Barber said: “Unless we educate ourselves on what is going on in the overall music industry, reggae as a genre will not survive. We need to start putting together well-built albums and stop compiling artist albums as if they were riddim albums. People are still thirsty for the music, but the only albums they will buy are well put together albums. That’s why people like Amy Winehouse sell records; because her album is fresh, well put together and just overall brilliant!”

Article Title: island records & lee "scratch" perry

Excerpt: February is the month 49 years ago when Island Records began and in 2009 Island Records will be 50 years old. Unfortunately Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who started the label in Jamaica in 1959 sold the storied company to Polygram/Universal Records in 1999 and it has become a shell of its former self under its corporate owners. For reggae lovers worldwide Island Records’ history will always be synonymous with two people - Chris Blackwell and the artist who brought the label to prominence, Bob Marley.

Excerpt: Although Blackwell was responsible for exposing audiences worldwide to reggae music and had a strong hand in building Bob Marley’s international career, there was a maverick producer in Island’s camp - Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry aka The Upsetter. While Blackwell was responsible for bringing Ska to the table, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry arguably created the musical form we know as reggae.

Excerpt: Let’s hope the owners of Island Records realize the vast repository of music and cultural history they are sitting on in time for the label’s 50th anniversary. As The Congos song ‘La La Bam Bam’ goes - “For thirty pieces of silver They sold Jah Rasta And why did they do that? Joseph with his coat of many colours Was cast in the pit By his own brothers.”

Article Title: Rasta Revealed

Excerpt: The most recognizable face of the Rastafari movement is the late musician Bob Marley, immortalized on T-shirts and posters wearing a crocheted red, gold and green cap over natty dreadlocks in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Yet the movement, which has more than one million adherents, is "not about singing reggae," says Jake Homiak, a cultural anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. "It taps into an enormously deep root—a sense of longing for a place in the world by peoples of African descent."

Excerpt: "This is a faith of extraordinary commitment," says Homiak, who describes how early Rastafarians in Jamaica were beaten and publicly humiliated. "People have sacrificed and struggled to keep this faith alive." A glass case at the Smithsonian exhibit displays such manuscripts as the Holy Piby, a proto-Rastafarian text that was widely circulated across the African diaspora before being banned in Jamaica during the 1920s.

Article Title: Governor General to officially declare February Reggae Month

Excerpt: "I have written to the Governor General advising him to issue a proclamation declaring the month of February Reggae Month, and I am assured that that proclamation will be issued within the next few days so that you will have full authority to put the programme together," Prime Minister Golding announced.

Excerpt: Some of the activities slated for the first observation of February as Reggae Month, include the hosting of the Reggae Academy Awards, the Bob Marley Photographic Exhibition, Africa Unite/Smile Jamaica Youth Symposium, the annual Bob Marley Lecture, the African Film Festival, the Reggae Film Festival, the annual Irie FM Reggae Music Awards and the Bob Marley Creative Expression Day.

Article Title: One Love: Discovering Rastafari!

Excerpt: Along with a panel of 17 Rastafarian advisers, Homiak created the exhibit to dispel the stereotype that Rastafarian culture is merely about marijuana and reggae music. On display are artifacts that represent the cultural, political and social origins of the cultural movement.

Excerpt: Can you talk about the origins of Rastafari culture? It started with Ethiopianism, which is a philosophy that gained ground in the American colonies in the late 1700s. It emerged as the first literate blacks began to discover a way of relating and reading themselves into the Bible. The reason why these references were important to blacks is because the Bible was their only literate source at a time when they were seen as less than human. The single reference in the Bible that was most important to the flourishing of this ideology is found in Psalm 68, verse 32. It's a redemptive verse that goes "Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God."

Excerpt: What famous Bob Marley song really exemplifies the culture and his beliefs? One of the most important songs he ever sang is called "Jah Lives" and it was important because he sang that song when Selassie was declared dead in 1975. Marley wrote and recorded that song within two weeks of Selassie's passing. It was a statement to the world and fellow Rastafari that God could not parish off the face of the Earth and certainly not the Rasta man's conception of God. Also, when Bob Marley sang the racial song “War,” all he was doing was putting Selassie's words to music. He was singing a speech that Selassie made to the UN in October 1963.

Article Title: There's more to reggae than Bob Marley

Excerpt: Reggae is supposed to make you feel something, whether it's a lazy, warm-weather calm or heated outrage at injustice. The one thing reggae isn't really about is itself.

Excerpt: Which is why the snobbery that surrounds the music is strange. It spawns pointless discussions about which of reggae's permutations (ska, rocksteady, dancehall, etc.) are of greater or lesser value than others. Who the lost legends are, or whether everyone in the genre is a lost legend cowering in Bob Marley's shadow. Whether Marley is the genre's father or just its very popular uncle.

Excerpt: Most reggae performers don't seem particularly interested in talking about reggae as a genre. That might be because reggae — like its predecessors rocksteady and ska and its successor dancehall — is a mutt of a music form, borrowing from different cultures and different countries. Last year when asked what reggae records had moved him lately, Ziggy Marley didn't name one. His current listening was Green Day's American Idiot.