Classic 1962 ska video

I couldn't resist putting up this 1962 video of ska at Kingston's uptown Club Sombrero with backing band Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, and a hard-skanking cast of hundreds.



Incidentally, I peeped this video at the website of London-based DJ Hugo Mendes, who recently compiled and put out this killer compilation CD called "Tumbélé!" with biguine, afro & latin music from the Guadeloupe and Martinique c. 1963-74 which has had me pretty much hard-skanking around the apto. the last few days myself.

Conferencia sobre cimarrones en Jamaica

The Second International Maroon Conference
June 21-23, Charles Town, Portland, Jamaica

This inter- and multi-disciplinary project seeks papers and panels that explore representations of Maroon culture in literature, art, music, film, theatre, and history.

This conference strives to increase awareness of Maroon contributions to contemporary societies, bringing together Maroons with scholars interested in Maroon heritage and indigenous cultures. In addition to exploring Maroon history and culture, the various events aim to develop strategies for sustainable development and wealth creation in Maroon communities.
With the theme, "Meet me in the Circle," the conference aims to establish a "Maroon Connection" beyond Jamaica, reaching out to communities in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. The conference will host cultural events to commemorate the Annual Quao's Victory Day (June 23).
Please send abstracts by April 20 to fbotkin@towson.edu

Marley family: "Gonna chase them crazy copyright infringers outta town"

According to the AP:

The Marley name, look and sound are estimated to generate an estimated $600 million a year in sales of unlicensed wares. Legal sales are much smaller — just $4 million for his descendants in 2007, according to Forbes magazine. The Marleys refuse to give a figure.

Now the family has hired Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital to protect their rights to the brand. Hilco CEO Jamie Salter believes Marley products could be a $1 billion business in a few years.

The Bobo Rastas are apparently on board too.

"Bob Marley was and still is a stepping stone for many around the world who seek Rastafari roots and culture," said the Rasta rep who identified himself as the Honorable Prophet Moambeh Acosta in an e-mail. "We can only hope and pray for the (family's) success ... as the task seems insurmountable due to the years of piracy and counterfeiting."

Continues the article,

The turn to big business has stirred some grousing from die-hard fans in Internet chat rooms, who say it goes against the grain of a singer who preached nonmaterialism and popularized the Rastafarian credo of oneness with nature and marijuana consumption as a sacrament.

Rather than focusing on street vendors, who hawk everything from Bob Marley T-shirts to beach towels, the partnership is creating a new line of products dubbed "House of Marley" and will police the trademark vigilantly.

The family says it cares less about moving merchandise than about preserving the patriarch's legacy in such efforts as the Marley organic coffee farm, whose product is dried, roasted and packaged in bags emblazoned with Marley song titles such as "One Love" and "Mystic Morning."

"People need to know what they're getting is from the Marley movement, a movement of sustainability," said son Rohan as he showed The Associated Press around the farm...

Cultural Studies Conference in Jamaica / Conferencia sobre Estudios Culturales en Jamaica

7th International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference

Cultural Studies Initiative
University of the West Indies
Kingston, Jamaica


CALL FOR SESSIONS

Proposals are invited for SESSIONS at the 7th International
Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, scheduled for July 3 to 7,
2008 in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean could well be regarded as one of the first
crossroads of the modern era, where Africa and Asia met Europe on
Amerindian soil. The conditions were a forced and bitter crucible. The
results of that encounter contributed not only to the making of the
modern western world but also to the dynamism that is central to all
the cultures of the Western Hemisphere.

Of Sacred Crossroads
Being a site of conquest, dislocation, crossings, enslavement
and rebellion, but also of memory and survival, hope of return,
culture-building, in-between-ness, and immense creativity and heritage,
the Caribbean is a relevant site for hosting the 7th International
Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, under the theme Of Sacred
Crossroads.
Contemporary emphasis on materialism and consumerism as
measures of our humanity, arising from the unbridled excesses to which
science and technology have been sometimes put, is of growing concern,
putting under duress the intangibles embodied in the values by which we
live as human beings. Out of these concerns has sprung deepening
dialogue at the interface between science and spirituality. UNESCO?s
celebration of the intangible heritage of humankind is a timely
reminder that civilizations rise not only on great edifices, monuments
and artefacts that defy time, but also on those moments of ?livity?, or
human relationships, that last only as long as they are lived, without
which human life would have little meaning.

Of Sacred Crossroads captures many of these concerns in a
manner that allows for the broadest of interpretation and accommodation
across disciplines and forms?religion, art, dance, song, orature,
healing, re-creation, performance, ritual, belief systems, ethics,
globalization, communication, among others. Key themes for the
Conference include: Rituals of arrival and contact; Crossings?the art
of the crossroads; Spirituality and identity; Language rituals;
Globalization and the spirit; Indigenous spiritualities; Rituals of
conflict - rites of rebellion; Virtual realities; virtual
spiritualities; (Spiritual) Tourism; Rituals, substances and sacred
geographies; The spirit of music; Cultures of reconciliation;
Storytelling; Crossroad deities and divination; Geographies of the body
and spirit.


General areas of interest include:

- Body
- Identity and difference
- Media
- Gender and sexuality
- Popular culture
- Cultural industries
- Performance and gender
- Youth culture
- Religion and culture
- Nation states
- Power and knowledge
- New information technology
- Globalization and diaspora
- Nationalism and locality
- Consumerism and fetishism
- Culture and economy
- Fundamentalisms
- Cultural Studies pedagogy
- Policing the crisis
- Culture and ethics
- Critical methodologies
- Politics of opposition
- Cultures of everyday life
- Social and cultural theory
- The city
- Cultural policy
- Centre and periphery
- Space and culture
- Imagined communities


GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
The deadline for submission of session proposals is June 30,
2007. Please see the Session Organizer's Manual posted on the website
for information on length, format and guidelines for submission of
proposals. Please submit you session abstracts on our website at
www.crossroads2008.org.

THE VENUE
The 7th Crossroads Conference will be held at the University of
the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica, the largest of
the three UWI campuses. The Campus is situated in a suburb of the city
of Kingston, itself a cultural magnet, with excellent communications
and telecommunications systems, accessibility through two international
airports, and a highly developed road network.

The campus, with a student population of over 15,000, has a
rich tradition in hosting international conferences. Nestled in the
Hope Valley under the Blue Mountains, the campus is itself culturally
diverse, drawing on regional as well as international students and
boasting its own choir, steel band, dance group and rich nightlife.
There is accommodation in student Halls of Residence as well as the
Mona Visitor's Lodge, and interconnectivity including an extensive
wireless network is a feature.
Given Jamaica's appeal as a tourist destination we encourage
international participants to plan a vacation which can include
excursions to famous beaches in Negril, Ocho Rios, Montego Bay or
Portland. Various cultural and natural sites of interest include, in
Kingston, the Bob Marley Museum and the National Gallery of Art, and
elsewhere in the island the spectacular Dunn?s River Falls, the Blue
and John Crow Mountains National Park, Seville Heritage Park, and
Treasure Beach, among many others.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Registration information will be available by summer 2007.
Note: To avoid no-shows and guarantee the quality of all sessions, all
paper presenters will be asked to register before April 30, 2008.

CALL FOR PAPERS
- A General Call for Papers will be Issued in July 2007

For further details on the Conference
or on the Cultural Studies Initiative and Programme
at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus,
please email: crossroads_2008@yahoo.com



Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 2008:
www.crossroads2008.org
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