About one and a half years ago, the Jamaican police and army assaulted the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, in West Kingston, hunting for the area don and alleged drug-lord Christopher »Dudus« Coke.
Now, The New Yorker looks back at the »Massacre in Jamaica«: Journalist Mattathias Schwartz lived in and around Tivoli for about three months, reporting his story on »Operation Garden Parish«, a story he builds around the fate of Radcliffe »Mickey« Freeman who was one of the seventy-three civilians killed during the operation.
Schwartz talked to residents, government officials, and sources close to the police searching for
[...] any evidence they might have showing that Freeman was anything other than a noncombatant who was intentionally shot and killed by the security forces. No one was able to provide such evidence.
However,
The question of Freeman’s innocence or guilt on May 24, 2010, wasn’t decided by a court, a journalist, or, most likely, anyone who knew him. It was decided by members of the security forces in Tivoli Gardens. None of them have spoken out about that day, and no court has compelled them to. It is therefore impossible to know what standards they applied to the question of who would live and who would die.
»Journey to Jah« is a feature documentary about the search for identity and spirituality in the homeland of Reggae and Rasta – Jamaica. It features interviews with Gentleman, Alborosie, Terry Lynn, Luciano, Carolyn Cooper amongst others.
Noël Dernesch and Moritz Springer have been working on the movie for the past five years and are now seeking for our support to be able to finish it up. They have therefore set up a »Journey to Jah« project on a site called »Kickstarter« which offers a way to crowd-fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. Kickstarter works with an all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.
You can back the project with an amount of your choice – starting from $1. Depending on your pledge, you will receive respective incentives when the project is funded and finished (e.g. a download link for the movie for pledging $25).
Besides supporting the project personally, we would also like to support it with SEEN and we will therefore pledge 5 EUR of every shirt ordered in our online shop from today until October 18th.
Celebrating 49 years of Jamaican independence, you can SAVE 49% ON ALL T-SHIRTS in the SEEN online shop by entering the code GOLDGREENBLACK62 during checkout.
The offer is valid until Monday, August 8th, 2011.
When was the last time a Jamaican artists was featured in three major US print publications within just a couple of days (not to mention Dazed and Confused, Riddim etc.)? Must have been when Sean Paul came out with »Dutty Rock«. (via Peter Dean Rickards)
Looks like besides being a superb self-promoter – you can even follow »all of Vybz Kartel’s Blackberry updates« online now – he seems to have the right team around him to get that kind of main stream attention just before the Dre Skull-produced album »Kingston Story« dropping early next week.
»Kartel has remixed the notion of what it means to be a dancehall star«, said the Jamaican novelist and essayist Colin Channer. »He’s a pop artist in the sense of somebody like Madonna or Lady Gaga, who are aware of how transforming their image makes them attractive to different segments of the public.« (via New York Times)
There’s really only one rule to this – NO SAMPLES! Ok, maybe two rules. You should also change the tempo. We don’t want a 100 bpm dancehall mix. We’ve already got that, it’s called the original. Other than that, get as crazy as possible. Don’t feel like you need to use the full vocals. You can chop, screw, speed up, slow down, reverse, etc. It can be electro, house, techno, pop, moombahton, dubstep, polka… whatever. We’re going to pick the best remix and release it. Please do not post your remixes online until we’ve picked the winner, which will be available exclsuively on an upcoming digital release. You won’t get paid but if you feel like it’s a good look, let’s do this! Please send all remix submissions to federationsound@gmail.com with REMIX ME in the subject.
