Articles by Brent Hagerman

Johnny Osbourne

Truths and Rights

PUBLISHED Sep 27, 2008

Osbourne recorded this album after spending much of the ’70s in Toronto, and his Northern excursion accounts for some of the themes and sou...

Lee Perry

Repentance

PUBLISHED Sep 27, 2008

I would be the first to say Lee Perry is a genius but, like other mad geniuses (Victor Frankenstein, Lex Luthor), Perry creates the occasio...

Various

The Rough Guide to the Music of Mali

PUBLISHED Sep 27, 2008

Many of the African artists that are best known on this side of the ocean come from Mali, and this disc is a virtual one-stop shop for Mali...

Richie Spice

PUBLISHED Jul 30, 2008

Richie Spice perfectly embodies what has become the archetypal Rasta-Moses: a dread wordsmith whose mission is to "lead the youths dem outt...

Babylon Circus

Dances of Resistance

PUBLISHED Apr 26, 2008

"A Bricolage Of Beats” might be a suitable sub-title for Dances of Resistance. Ten-piece French band Babylon Circus manage to create an aur...

Andru Branch

The Only Constant

PUBLISHED Apr 26, 2008

When he’s not backing up artists such as Vybz Kartel and Sean Paul on percussion, Andru Branch is leading his band, Halfway Tree, in some o...

Cultural Roots

Hell A Go Pop

PUBLISHED Apr 26, 2008

Junjo Lawes’ legacy was built producing some of early dancehall’s greatest deejay records but he was also deftly aware of how to get cultur...

Idlers

Corner

PUBLISHED Apr 26, 2008

Could it be that the spirit of Jamaican ska trombone guru Don Drummond has taken up residence in St. John’s, Newfoundland? One might think...