I think every Jamaica-phile would agree that almost as important as its sound, is the aesthetics of a soundsystem. Klara Geist, a two-people operation in Berlin, masters both disciplines. They build beautiful sondsystems for mobile and stationary use.
My personal favourite – even if I don’t own a Bullit bike for which it was designed to be used with – is »The Transfomer« (see image above).
The combination of balanced design and new technology makes this portable PA one of the most powerful systems on the world market.
Looking at the portfolio of one the SEEN team’s favourite designers and typographers, Kevin Lyons, you will find many references to the world of reggae and dancehall.
Currently he shows a selection of drawings and installations at Colette, Paris: The »Red, Gold, and Green« exhibition opened on January 31st and will run until February 26th.
Eddie Stats sat down with Lyons to talk with him about his favourite reggae albums, the influence of people like Wilfred Limonious and Tony McDermott on his work, and the influence of the Caribbean on gobal pop culture in general:
I am a designer by trade, so I am obsessed with words and meaning, pronunciations and interpretations. That is why I loved punk as a kid, and then hiphop, and then reggae and dancehall. The language is fantastic and so fun to illustrate and draw; words like »BOOMBASTIC« or »COLLIE WEED«. The letters are fat and juicy. (via Large Up)
A couple of days ago, self-appointed »dub artist« David Cox got in touch to share his latest work »Rub A Dub – Modern Art Version«. I really liked what I saw and asked him to send me some more information on him and work from him:
I make 2d and 3d work about music (mainly reggae) and I’m just moving into animation. »Rub A Dub« was my first go.
I’m designing work for a collaboration based on the Stars riddim with Bristol based producer Mr Benn and filmmaker Ben Dowden for a film/animation project for a WOMAD festival later this year.
Earlier work of David includes a collaboration with legendary DJ Derek. Find pictures of that and some more pieces from him after the jump.
Round two of the Jamaica Blog Awards is on and we are happy to see that our Kingstonstyle friends are standing strong with chances to win three titles. Keep those votes coming:
For Large Up, Erin MacLeod talks to Anicee Gaddis, former executive editor of Trace magazine and now writer for Puma and Chris Blackwell amongst others. Together with photographer Alessandro »Zuek« Simonetti she just published »Small Kings« – a collection of impressions from Passa Passa, Swatch International’s world-famous street dance on Spanish Town Road at Bread Lane, in Kingston, Jamaica.
Jamaica is more than the sum of its parts. It’s layered. The people are layered an nuanced and spiritual—not necessarily in the religious sense, but in the human sense. They have such an internal beauty that is expressed in the culture and the dancing and the music and the soundbattles. Jamaicans as a people are some of the richest and most gorgeous that I have encountered. And I think that the true expression of that is for me at something like Passa Passa where you see so many dimensions.
For MTV UK, Marvin Sparks talks to deejay Vybz Kartel e.g. about his early days as ghost writer for Bounty Killer, his collaborations with British artist Kano and his upcoming Dre Skull-produced album on Mixpak Records (see the video announcement here).
We’ve got a record that we’re working on for next year with Dre Skull from Mixpak records. He’s this white kid from New York that builds some sick beats. So next year me and him – Adidjaheim records/Mixpak records – it’s going to be for April. We haven’t even started the promotion for the album yet. It’s going to be like 14 exclusive tracks.
For the Jamaican Observer, reporter Kimmo Matthews speaks to 24-year old wanted man Christopher »Dog Paw« Linton via phone about life on the run.
Life? Life is very stressing first of all. I’m kind of stressed out every day. [...] It makes you want to drink. It makes you want to smoke a weed or cigarette. It’s very frustrating.
