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| Clockwise from top; Soweto Ska Band, Marcia Griffiths, Leroy Sibbles, and the Skatalites |
Kingston, Jamaica the birthplace of Ska
and Rocksteady music, two of the most popular musical genres played around the
world today, will host the 1st Annual One World Ska & Rocksteady Music
Festival on Saturday and Sunday, November 26 and 27, 2016 at the Ranny Williams
Entertainment Centre, in Kingston. Some of the leading entertainers of these
two genres will be in performance from 3 PM to 3 AM on the first day. A
symposium on the originators of Jamaican music, two tours to Culcha Yard in
Trench Town, and Downtown Kingston Music Heritage sites, and two documentaries
on the genres will be on from 10 AM to 7 PM, on day 2.
Ska music,
which was first played in 1963 by the Skatalites band in the Kingston recording
studios, and night clubs, is today played by thousands of bands around the
world. It will be the first time a music festival of this kind will be held in
the birthplace of the music.
Artistes
performing include The Skatalites (USA), Soweto Ska Band (Spain), Marcia
Griffiths (Jamaica), B.B. Seaton and the Gaylads (UK), Sparrow Martin and
Skasonic (Jamaica), Brooklyn Attractors (USA), Leroy Sibbles former lead singer
of the Heptones (Jamaica), Hugh Roy, the King of the Jamaican toasters, Derrick
Morgan, the King of Ska music (Jamaica), and Stranjah Cole (Jamaica), and the
Alpha School Band, with students of the school that produced many of Jamaica's
great musicians, like Dizzy Reece, Harold "Little G" McNair, Joe
Harriot, Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, and Rico Rodriguez. Other bands are
expected to perform.
The festival
is a production of Sounds & Pressure Foundation
(www.soundsandpressure.org), in association with Fiwi Productions Inc. Sponsors
are the Jamaica Tourist Board, National Integrity Action, the KSAC/UNESCO
Creative Cities, Knutsford Court, the Courtleigh, and Pegasus Hotels, POWER
106, KOOL FM, The Gleaner Company, Happy Ice, and Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.
"The
Festival is intended to position Kingston as a cultural tourism
destination," stated festival director Julian "Jingles"
Reynolds, CEO of Sounds & Pressure Foundation, in Jamaica, and Fiwi
Productions Inc. in the United States, at the festival launch recently in
Kingston.
"Ska
and rocksteady represents a great period of our renaissance….and so to identify
with a music festival that celebrates that beginning and accentuates the role
that that particular period has played in the development of our civilization
today is very, very critical to us in tourism……it is building out the music
experience as a discrete product for the world to come and enjoy, and pay
for," stated Jamaica tourism minister, the Honourable Ed Bartlett.
Kingston,
the capital of Jamaica was designated last December a UNESCO Creative City for
its music. This year's festival is dedicated to Clement "Coxsone"
Dodd, Arthur "Duke" Reid, Cecil "Prince Buster" Campbell,
Chris Blackwell, Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez, Marcia Griffiths, and the Alpha
Boys School, all making major contributions to Jamaican music.
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