These are the eyes of guy who is hungry for hits. I am not going to play that game where I pretend to be indifferent and that this or that was beyond my wildest dreams. Bullsh☆t. My wildest dreams involve a really nice outdoor show on the moon.
I want hits. I want to parlay them into world tours. Now now hear here, I am not talking about watering music down until it’s just a moist jelly donut,
I am talking about songs, songs, songs. Song after song. If some label gives me a real 360 deal I am going to go savage like a thirsty ass Lion in a park full of delicious tasty penguins.
Sorry Penguins. I’m a Lion.
I want to cut an album in Nigeria and premier it at The Shrine.
The music industry is in shambles. It’s a shadow of what it once was. Everything is just a jingle to sell more overpriced phones in exchange for slave labor.
“Oh you made $533 of YouTube making and marketing the equivalent of a TV show for them. Winning. You’re totally not a victim of sharecropping, and IG modeling is really more valuable than creating the next musical opus nobody is going to make. Yeah we’ll treasure these Insta photos like forever. You’re like visual Mozart of selling unnecessary and redundant brands.”
I know the game is trash. But don’t get caught up in the game. Write good songs. Promote them. And let certain people pretend they supported you when you’re dead. That’s just human nature. But good art has the chance to transcend all that f☆ckery.
We live in world where the basics go around calling everyone basic.
Basically…
But I just think about where Napoleon may have been when he said he found the French Empire in a gutter, and he picked it up.
Welcome to f☆cking Jam Rock.
If you really want to see the last place Rock & Roll will ever live, because in this corner it never ever died…you come here.
Oh but it’s dangerous.
Yeah kinda. Sometimes, yeah, but even Jazz used to be dangerous. And that’s when it mattered the most. That’s why it’s alive every night in New Orleans.
Music is supposed to be dangerous and beautiful. And don’t forget it.
A good song can be very simple. But life in which a good song describes or simply imbibes, is a bit more complicated.
Good God Jamaican hustle is legendary. Chris from One Shot Studios listened to my demo I made with pwile chile as a thank you for his BrodieNation Music Festival shout out.
He listens turns around and says,
“I like what I am hearing. Can you come back at 9 am and record a 9 track album?”
I reply,
“I’m ready to lay down all the ideas I came up with, writing with your young artists around the studio. You got a strong EP there.”
“We’ll give you ideas, you’ll record a 9 track.”
I don’t mention I write a song idea a day.
He tells Pwile Chile to show up at 8 am to structure the three sections I came up with.
Dude. I am about walk home…or to the place I call home one more day, and be back sitting here in 10.5 hours.
If anybody ever calls Jamaicans lazy, smack them in the face and yell,
“Bumbaclot”
That is pretty much the only time you get to.
G’night.
Making Mento Magic here at Axxe Studios with Butos from The Jolly Boys.When Jamaicans think I am 30, and I am 40, I am doing well.
Nah…I’m doing Good.
The concept of Black don’t Crack is a real thing. There is a science to it. It’s about the oil in your skin.
And I got the motor oil.
In the car on the way back from the dancehall video shoot in a packed sedan the Jamaicans explained that they accept that I am mixed but on an island this West African skin color is a relative term. The language just doesn’t have the nuance to fully articulate the uniqueness of my identity and character.
And there is a certain joy a Jamaican seems to feel shouting “White Mon” as if they just saw a very rare Volkwagon Beetle.
This was all explained in heavy patois, and was summed up by the gentleman next to me agreeing with the gentleman to his own left, that said I was mixed,
“You’re a White ☆☆☆☆☆ Mon!!!!”
I hate the term but in such a cramped quarters it was a heartfelt olive branch, that gave them permission to keep calling me White Mon, and why rob them of such joy because of mere details of parentage and boring genetic data.
Tuning the Rhumba Box. Bull tunes, Devon Bradshaw listens. Axxe Studios, Norwhich, Jamaica ☆ note: Bradshaw was the bass player in Burning Spear’s band and I cherish every opportunity to work with him on West Indian Rock.For this a land of the darkest and undeniably beautiful tones, that once upon a time bullied Bob Marley for looking like his White Dad with a perm.
Race is made up. It’s also relative. My last trip I remember a beautiful young Jamaican woman that would be considered Black and beautiful in any other context, explained to me in detail why she was not Black but rather Brown. What I read for years about colorism and how it shifts in various contexts, came to a tunnel of blinding light.
This is not New Orleans with 40 shades of one color named and gamed, and blood stained, baked into stupid things like the paper bag test.
This is a context where the otherwise outrageously racist word pickney is an endearing catch all for any child on this isle.
Still ain’t in my vocab though.
It cuts so many ways. I wonder if some people assumption that Lenni I’s show was my production is by some percentage related to skin color.
But nevertheless, the oil of my African and Arawak blood preserves me.
I am living like it’s 2009. 10 years is a very long time.
These are the eyes of guy who is hungry for hits. I am not going to play that game where I pretend to be indifferent and that this or that was beyond my wildest dreams. Bullsh☆t. My wildest dreams involve a really nice outdoor show on the moon.
Good God Jamaican hustle is legendary. Chris from One Shot Studios listened to my demo I made with pwile chile as a thank you for his BrodieNation Music Festival shout out.
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com. Davin’s new song 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: Tuff Gong Television. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is available here.
