Reggae-related Message-Boards

While there aren´t that many blogs out there focussing on Reggae- and Dancehallmusic, there´s a whole bunch of Message Boards dealing with the varieties of Jamaican music.

Everybody probably knows dancehallreggae.com, the epicenter of online Passa Passa. Giving an well-written overview of English-speaking forums, Dance Crasher also lists some less popular boards:

Blood And Fire
The message board survives even if the record label is currently inactive. For old music, especially 70’s Roots, Blood And Fire was always the busiest board. Nowadays there seems to be a bit of a struggle between Revival people and those who follow Jah Shacka and Steppers almost exclusively. Also for some reason the board has a tradition of wind ups by people using false names when posting, this means that it’s sometimes hard to tell if some people using the board is genuine or not.
Chatty Mouth
The original melt down board. This one has seen more blazing rows and toys chucked out of the pram than an entire lifetime of soap operas. As a result membership seems to fluctuate quite alot. It seems to be have settled down quite alot in recent weeks.
Champion Sound
Champion Sound emerged out of one of the melt downs on Chatty Mouth, though since Chatty Mouth has settled down this board has been fairly quiet. There is a loyal user base who are sticking with it though. It’s too early to say if it will prosper or fade away.
Pama Forum
As the name implies this board seems to focus mainly on the era up to the early 70’s. It’s relatively quiet but has a loyal user base that is very knowledgeable. The presence of several record sellers means that they have a slightly unhealthy obsession with ebay.
Dancehallreggae.com
The undisputed leader for modern Reggae and the busiest board on the web. There are far too many sections and some members seem to take their online badman personas far beyond what is normal and sane. That said there is a huge amount of knowledge there. The foundation board is superb for 80’s sound tape downloads.
Roots Archives Forum
This board seems to have expanded rapidly and is currently quite lively. It’s most frequent focus is 70’s Roots.
Trojan
A little quieter than it use to be and it’s future seems unsure following the purchase of the label by Universal. The main problems with this board is there are far too many sections.
SNWMF Forum
The board for the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival this has grown to be very popular, particularly with Americans. It’s not the easiest on the eye and lacks some of the features on other boards but it’s simple approach is quite refreshing. Beware, some of the conversations about who is the best Rasta, dreadlocks etc. can be a bit alarming on occasions.

Any others you know of?

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