Ian Randle: the accidental publisher
Let me declare an interest at this point. I know Ian Randle fairly well, have stayed at his home in Kingston, think of him as a friend as...
Remembering the One Love Concert for Peace
It seems like just yesterday. But the most famous concert in the history of reggae music — probably in the history of Caribbean music in...
Laura Facey: Beauty and the Beast
Laura Facey’s sculpted figures are perfectly formed, pristine in their presentation. They capture the gestures of the human body in all...
Peter Abrahams: The View From Coyaba
In the hills above Kingston, Jamaica’s sprawling, noisy capital, live an extraordinary couple. Daphne, born in Java, is the daughter...
Riddem & Rhyme: Byron Lee
It was a bitterly cold, blustery night in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which happens to be my home town, and also happens to be one of the coldest...
Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd: “Just working on the feel”
It started out from a little restaurant at Lawes Street and Ladd Lane, “Nanny’s Corner”, in Kingston in the ’50s: we used to play...
Tommy Cowan: backstage king
The first time I met Tommy Cowan, I ended up in one of the Caribbean’s most notorious prisons. The year was 1976. I was in the middle of...
Cook it up
I left Trinidad early one January morning, thinking that Jamaica was the two things I most needed: it was warm, and it was 900 miles away...
