Articles by Brent Hagerman

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  Michael Franti and Spearhead

  The Sound of Sunshine

  PUBLISHED Nov 28, 2010

  Great art comes out of great struggle, so the cliché goes. In Michael Franti's case, a taste of mortality (his appendix burst while...

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  Odel Johnson

  Redemption

  PUBLISHED Nov 28, 2010

  I bought a Messenjah album on vinyl last year; it blew my head off. They're like an Ontario version of Steel Pulse. Odel Johnson drummed fo...

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  Jam Down

  Emmanuel Bonn

  PUBLISHED Nov 1, 2010

  Jam Down, which was shot in 1980, but only released in France, bills itself as "a musical journey into the heart of Jamaica's 1980 roots re...

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  Lee "Scratch" Perry

  Revelation

  PUBLISHED Sep 24, 2010

  Some people, it's often said, can sing the phone book and make it art; Lee Perry is not one of them, despite the fact that at one point her...

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  The Beatdown

  The Beatdown

  PUBLISHED Jul 25, 2010

  The recording sessions for Montreal's the Beatdown ― a band that emerged out of the One Night Band ― must have went something l...

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  Various

  Tribute to a Reggae Legend

  PUBLISHED Jul 13, 2010

  You could argue that Putumayo has erased any incendiary residue from the king of reggae and replaced it with a smiling face, a sun-swept be...

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  Rocky Dawuni

  Hymns for the Rebel Soul

  PUBLISHED Jun 28, 2010

  Ghanaian reggae singer Rocky Dawuni is a freedom fighter for the modern age; his revolution is fought not only in studio and on stage, but,...

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  Markscheider Kunst

  Utopia

  PUBLISHED Jun 17, 2010

  Yes, Russians can skank too. Get ready for the funnest album of the summer. If Benny Hill ever recorded a long lost rocksteady record, it w...