Bobby Konders, one of the most influential figures in dancehall for the past 25 years, recently Massive B Legacy Volume 1, an album featuring 10 songs he produced or co-produced for his Massive B label. It includes Youths So Cold by Richie Spice, Gal You A Lead from T O K, Wave You Flags by Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel's What You Sellin?
Even though he is responsible for breaking some of the biggest dancehall songs through his weekly radio gig on Hot 97 FM in New York, Konders admits he is still largely an unknown in Jamaican dancehall circles.
Konders has been a part of the dancehall landscape since 1992 when he produced his first rhythm, that had songs by Half Pint ( Can You Feel It), ini Kamoze ( Hotstepper Returns) and Nicodemus ( Ride In A Storm). As a longstanding DJ at Hot 97 FM, he helped push Beenie Man's Who Am I and Sean Paul's Gimmie The Light outside the dancehall and into the pop mainstream.
Konders, who hosts Fire Sundays from 9 pm to 11 pm Sundays on Hot 97 FM with long-time sidekick Jabba, believes radio is still essential to dancehall music even with the dynamics of social media.
“Some artistes don't see the importance of radio because I guess the social media presence is so big. The 20-year-old listens to YouTube music, Spotify or Soundcloud,” he reasoned. “But if you have an opportunity to go on Hot 97 in New York, or Zip (FM), Irie FM or SunCity in Jamaica, you should take every opportunity you have.”
THE colourful career of British broadcaster and sound system maestro David Rodigan, as well as the history of Jamaican music in the United Kingdom, are the focus of David Rodigan: Reggae Fever, a documentary that aired last Friday on BBC Four Television.
British company Somethin' Else produced the hour-long project looking at Rodigan's 40-year career, which included groundbreaking stops at at the British Broadcasting Corporation and Capital Radio.
There are interviews with reggae/punk authority Don Letts, Damian “Junior Gong” Marley, musician/actor Goldie, Brinsley Forde of Aswad, and lovers' rock pioneer Dennis Bovell. Rodigan also revisits the area where he met Bob Marley in 1973.
David Rodigan: Reggae Fever is released one year after his reflective Rodigan: My Life In Reggae hit bookshelves in the UK.
“I think it is a very important film because it traces Jamaican music and sound system culture back to its origins in the West Indies, and how it was brought to the UK in the early '60s and developed here with British sound systems and singers and artistes,” he said. “The film also reflects on what life was like for West Indians when they came to England and what they had to endure.”
Rodigan was born in Germany to British parents in 1951, three years after the Empire Windrush ship brought the first wave of migrant West Indians to the UK. The Jamaicans among them, and who followed, took their music culture to what was then known as the 'Mother Country'.
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