Jamaica

On a warm evening last month, inside a cluster of nondescript office spaces south of Miami, a rehearsal studio with a giant lion’s head painted in red, green, and gold on the concrete-block wall hums with activity. Long after the businesses surrounding them have shut down for the day, Stephen “Ragga” Marley and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley are putting their band through its paces, tuning up for the Traffic Jam tour, which will be crisscrossing the U.S. and Canada through Mar. 30.  “Practice make perfect,” Damian, 45,…

Filming a scene as the title mystic in Bob Marley: One Love, Kingsley Ben-Adir was striding across a room in Jamaica when he heard, “Cut!” Marley’s son Ziggy, who was on set, had some input: He told the actor that his father wouldn’t have walked that particular way. “He was going up the stairs,” Marley says, “and I tell him, ‘Listen! When Bob walks, he takes two steps at a time.’ ” Months later, in New York, Ben-Adir re-creates the revised move, his knees almost coming up to his chin. “Everyone was doing an…

Rising dancehall star Teejay is prepping to release his debut EP with single, “Dip,” featuring fellow Jamaican singer, Tommy Lee Sparta. The song, which dropped Friday, opens with an ominous intro as Teejay joins in for his verse. “It was inspired by the streets and the skankers,” said Teejay of the song, referring to Jamaican dancers, in a press release. “Basically, bad-mind people can’t stop us, and we’re not going to pree violence, we’re just gonna dance it off.” The single is set to be featured on…

Congratulations on winning. You made it on your seventh attempt. Please walk us through your previous attempts.  Winner of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Kwame McPherson (Courtesy the Commonwealth Short Story Prize) My first entry was in 2009. I then just kept writing and entering as and when, but there was no initial plan to do just the Commonwealth Short Story Prize since I do enter other competitions.  What stories had you submitted in the previous years, and what were they broadly about? …

Fire Rush springs from the well of the personal. Please talk about its genesis and how it has travelled with you for nearly a decade. Author Jacqueline Crooks (Courtesy the subject) I was living in a remote mountain village when I started to think about the dub-reggae music that I had danced to 30 years ago, part of the Black sound revolution. The silence of that village created space for memories of that supra-watt loud subterranean world of dub-reggae dancehalls. People, riots, racist murders, Thatcherism. I…

Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Andre Gray ‘marry in Jamaica'(Photo Credit: Bang Showbiz) Leigh-Anne Pinnock has reportedly got married. The 31-year-old singer and soccer star Andre Gray – the father of her 21-month-old twins – flew out to Jamaica to tie the knot in front of friends and family including her former Little Mix bandmate Jade Thirlwall. Sources told the Daily Mirror newspaper – who obtained footage and photos of the celebrations – the couple celebrated their wedding with a beachfront reception that went on late…

Just as Colorado cools off for winter’s second act, Jamaica is heating up to a consistent 85 degrees, with clear skies and little to no precipitation in the forecast. Sound tempting? On Feb. 24, Frontier introduced its first direct route from Denver to Montego Bay, cutting down to around five hours a trip that used to take all day, with a stopover. The National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston. Provided by the Jamaica Tourist Board The flight lands 500 miles south of Miami on Jamaica’s northwest coast and tourist capital.…

People traveling abroad this Christmas may not find their favorite holiday food on the menu.That's because traditional holiday fare varies around the world.To see who's eating what this weekend, the culinary website Chef's Pencil created a map showing what it says are the most popular Christmas dishes around the world.Where turkey is the traditionTravelers spending the holiday in the United States, Canada, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom can expect turkey on the table this Christmas, according to the map.Those…

After a hectic and triumphant 2021 that kicked off with his debut project The Drive Downtown, Motive105 hasn’t really taken his foot off the gas since, and that looks unlikely to change before the year’s out. In the coming months he’ll be releasing his next project, the aptly titled The Undeniable Run, but before that he’s got a fresh set of visuals for his next single, “F.I.R.E”.“F.I.R.E” is Motive at his rowdiest, most energetic, barking his rhymes at full power over ParkedUp’s heavy-duty production. There’s also a…

Jamaica’s independence in August 1962 marked not just the sovereignty of a new nation but the arrival of a new music destined to become a global force. Reggae as a genre lay a few years down the line, but this expansive two-CD collection drawn from independence year captures its innovative origins. Jamaica’s template was the shuffle and boogie of American R&B, but that was swiftly alchemised by the verve of an island brimming with young talent. On one side were gifted singers such as Owen Gray and Derrick Morgan,…