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Showing posts from August, 2013

106 & Park does dancehall, sorry "Caribbean"

Haven't watched it yet, but posting it. Will update once I've seen it. Ge'me. Beenie Man, Mr. Vegas and Wayne Wonder all on here.         All I'm saying is I'm not really feeling how these people seem to be taking dancehall for some fad. I'm hoping they get over it soon, because anything the Yanks get hold of dies soon thereafter. But anyway, I'll watch and return with my verdict. Let's just say the line-up suggests another throwback session. I'm hoping it isn't though. Would like them to bring through some of the newer acts.

Why hasn't dancehall produced another Sean Paul?

Welcome people them. Me again, obviously. Today we here at Marvin Sparks discuss possible theories on why we feel dancehall hasn't produced another of their greatest commercial experts. This post was originally going to be a response to this ignorant post on MTV Iggy , but I held it down because that's negative energy. So, I post it as 10 years ago to the week Sean Paul scored his first UK #1 alongside Blu Cantrell. Today Sean Paul is on the verge of a top ten having already taken The Saturday's to their first top spot earlier this year and scoring the 51st best-selling song in UK last year with "She Doesn't Mind", not forgetting "Got 2 Luv U" his topped 12 national charts across the world. Longevity. ("Other Side of Love" entered at #7.) First off, let's talk about the man in question. What makes him worthy of this post like he's a great? In short, because he is. Too often he's on the receiving end of jokes and unfair criti

Why I hope reggae never crosses over in USA (formerly "Why reggae doesn't need Snoop Lion")

That's right. We here at Marvin Sparks never want to see reggae succeed in mainstream USA. I began writing this in about March, so the Snoop Lion thing doesn't hit the way it should. Nor did the album, but hey, that's another post for another day. Excuse the delay. But anyway, let me explain why. I questioned a US-based dancehall & reggae radio DJ on comments she made about Snoop Lion being good for reggae and hoping it crosses over to American masses so other Jamaicans can follow. Over the course of the Twitter conversation I said "reggae doesn't need Snoop Lion," before ending on "I hope reggae never crosses to mainstream America" to which she replied "You alone wish that". To be fair, she's pretty close to 100% correct so I didn't dispute the point lol. However, I don't mind being alone if that's the case. American mainstream has a great way of pumping money into something, taking ownership, manipulating the nar