What do you think about this sneak peak at my latest song out of Jamaica? I took this back to MY Roots.
I have yet to try to sound Jamaican. I don’t see the point. I just have common influences. I feel the African diaspora in my blood. Even if my DNA didn’t come up with surprises like…Bantu… so many musicians just do.
Endless Blues and Soul and Folk melodies, they work so easily on Reggae and Dancehall. African based music is more American than Apple Pie. The Caribbean is an easy bake oven.
This type of song is my roots. It’s what I really started out doing, before I ever really sang. I was rapping over instrumentals. Any instrumental I could find. Wyatt Powell and Casey Fraser, they can recall those days.
Reggae Powerhouse Band sent me an instrumental. So I banged out this track out, and gave it a Mays Pond mushroom stamp.
In Jamaica, they call “dem Riddims”, and they make the best beats in the World.
Mell Dettmer had to record me over an MP3 to voice the track as they say in Kingston. But I had to give you a taste.
I’m exhausted. But this is what I asked for. An opportunity.
Can you dig it?
(Sept 12th) What sweet company. You see this Anthony Red Rose & Sly Dunbar? To have my name on that flier with legends. Nectar Lounge was where The Staxx Brothers made their name as a headliner that could pick a weekend.
After a while, I grew tired of packing clubs with all my friends and NOT being able to hit the road as a national act. It was so much work, maybe not all for not, but in the end, whiskey soaked and not for much. Not enough to justify the means.
Sold out Seattle shows should have been a homecoming. In the end national support paid less but meant more, and the glory even less fleeting as we stormed the gates of another’s hard fought fanbase.
We took prisoners.
And without a doubt, we did tear up San Francisco on 12 occasions. We had a real following and happening buzz there, but as rents were doubling and labels were vanishing, I had to rethink this approach to relative Stardom.
For even the charms of SF was fading each subsequent trip as techies offset the balance of freakdom, like invasive fish smacking you in the face with awkward boredom.
So I took a guitar around to Europe and the Caribbean during the horifying rise of MAGA and started cutting songs in the Old English Empire. I cut songs in the old French stronghold of New Orleans, on Frenchman Street. From close and afar, I watched as a big stupid crack spread across the bow of Our Empire.
Where ever I went, instead of scorn for my authentic American swag, my thoughts were welcomed, for the times had become so weird, as Hunter predicted, my weirdness had gone all pro.
…and then I came home and I started selling Jazz Cabbage to give me just enough financial freedom to afford me even just one more move.
Today was my last day opening on Saturday mornings at the ol’ shop, because it’s time to reamerge and start booking more weekends and being present and more people’s shows.
It is time to start revealing the magic of 100milesofmusic.com. It is time to MC shows. It is time to travel to other cities…and still slang that Devil’s Lettuce on the side, far and wide (though not beyond Washington!).
But Daddy…Daddy needs to stay up all night and not wake up at 6 am on Saturday mornings. I should be falling asleep at 6 am on a Friday night.
Now gather round. Here is a song produced by Scott Rowe that has been released from my adventures in Brighton that you should make a part of your twilight adventures.
The glimmering shimmering slide is performed exquisitely by the Englishman Alex Roberts, yet hatched in the mind of Lane Schultz who I am indebted to for writing this tune with me some time ago in Everett. How I shook my head when The Staxx Brothers passed on it. But those English boys heard what I heard. Yes they did.
There are many more to come. Stay tuned for the next one..
I Don’t Want to Leave by
Davin Michael Stedman & Sherlock Soul☆Come hang with me when I join Hold in Fyah in a set opening for reggae legends Israel Vibration & The Roots Radics on Wednesday, Sept 12th.
Davin’s new song has been released and has become a global earworm and Caribbean dancehall hit. Listen here on Reggaeville: DAVIN MICHAEL STEDMAN & ANTHONY RED ROSE – FREE YOUR MIND FEAT. SLY & ROBBIE WITH LENKY MARSDEN. The video is now available on Youtube.
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com, and is one of the driving forces behind the Staxx Brothers. This past spring he spent weeks networking in and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is now available as well.
