TIME FOR ROOTSHALL
written by Roger Grant
The two main branches of reggae are roots reggae and dancehall.
One is message oriented emphasising spiritual themes and the other is street and more often stresses materialism and sex. None the less they have been able to coexist and their birthplace Jamaica experiences cyclical waves where one dominates the other at any given period.
In recent times, dancehall has been able to sustain its dominance over its cultural counterpart for longer periods. This can be attributed to radio and sound systems formats. Playlist in most dances play a section of tunes in what they call early juggling and these are mainly roots songs. The primetime is for dancehall songs and increasingly so, hip hop as well.
This reality drones out artists who express themselves within the dancehall framework but not in the typical fashion. They toast on the same dancehall riddims with positive text.
For the artists of this persuasion desiring to build a career I say it's time for Rootshall. An identifiable genre to encourage the cultural youngsters not inclined to promote guns, gangs and greed while still staying on the cutting edge with sounds of the street.
Credit must be given to artists such as Bugle who have succeeded in staying relevant without lowering himself into the lyrical gutter. Chronixx and Taurus Riley cleverly utilises dancehall riddims to their advantage but Bugle being a dancehall dj is typical of what could be called Rootshall.
Newcomer Jahmeil with his latest hit Gain The World would easily fit into the new genre and it would go a long way if radio embraced Rootshall in a deliberate way and for a chart to be introduced specifically for it.
ROGER GRANT - CONTACT:
https://www.facebook.com/rogerbooksread
Email:
fiftymost50@gmail.com
Phone:
1-2674076262 or 0033753430366
No comments:
Post a Comment