Stories about Music from February, 2009
Jamaica, Guyana: Action or Reaction?
Both Active Voice [Jamaica] and Guyanese blogger C.D. Valere (writing at Baiganchoka) continue the discussion about recent attempts by the Jamaican Broadcasting Commission to “clean up” the airwaves.
D.R of Congo: Listen to Staff Benda Bilili
Jeremy writes about Staff Benda Bilili, a group of paraplegic street musicians who live in and around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo.
Haiti: Carnival History
Real Hope for Haiti writes a detailed post about the island's Carnival traditions.
Guyana: Mash 2009
Guyana Providence Stadium posts photos from this year's Mashramani celebrations.
Georgia: Punk Rock
Georgian Live Music says the country's second largest city of Kutaisi was synonymous with rock and punk bands in the 1990s. The blog posts information and photos of some of them.
Costa Rica: Creativity Through Collectivity
Like a delicious recipe, artistic, musical and visual talents are placed together as ingredients in a functional and creative tendency: collectives. Across Costa Rica, many creative groups and collectives are using social media to showcase their work and connect with like-minded enthusiasts. These are some examples of collectives in the fields of film, music and the visual arts.
South Asian Rock Music Festival
Salik Shah of Kathmandu Speaks! Are you listening? attended the second South Asian Bands festival at Purana Qila in New Delhi and shares his reactions.
Cuba: Women in Jazz
Havana Times focuses on the contribution of women to Cuban jazz.
Jamaica: The Power of Words
“Everybody who has felt the need to prove their Jamaican-ness has said it: gays and lesbians ought to be expelled from the national body…”: Long Bench has had enough of that kind of talk, saying, “maybe we are ready to start acting like we live in a democracy, where every...
Trinidad & Tobago: Ready for Carnival
Caribbean Free Radio posts the final installment in the cut + clear Carnival podcast series, as the team visits with photographer Jeffrey Chock to discuss the Carnival experience.
Georgia: Eurovision Controversy
Following its recent war with Russia, Georgia had initially planned to boycott this year's Eurovision Song Contest to be staged in Moscow, but later changed its mind. However, if reversing that decision might have initially seemed an attempt to repair damaged relations, yesterday's national song contest proved otherwise. Eurovision bloggers react.
Georgia: Eurovision Pop Protest
Writing for the new Frontline Club blog, Matthew Collin says that Georgia might use this this year's Eurovision international song contest to be held in Moscow to poke fun at its foe in last year's short lived August war with an entry entitled “Put-In Disco.”
Jamaica: Explicit music banned
The long-standing controversy over the appropriateness of certain music for public airplay has once again reared its head in Jamaica. Bloggers make their voices heard.
Trinidad & Tobago: Curmudgeonly Carnival
“Carnival is big business. Fetes costing five hundred dollars and up, mas costumes that are equivalent to a house or car payment, is it all worth bankrupting yourself?”: Coffeewallah explains why, national festival or not, she won't be participating in this year's Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.
Armenia: Be Free
Unzipped: Gay Armenia says that while the voice and music of local singer Shprot might be nothing remarkable, her performances are. Challenging traditional notions of gender, sexuality, religion and nationality in the South Caucasus country, the blog says that the controversial singer's message is one that all Armenians should take...
East Timor: Suai Media Space Challenges the Digital Divide
In this second post of a series to celebrate the 9th anniversary of the arrival of the Internet in East Timor, Sara Moreira interviews Australian documentary-maker Jen Hughes - founder of Suai Media Space, whose main objective is to make the voices of Suai youth heard all over the world - and discusses the fight to minimize the digital divide even without broadband connection in Suai.
Egypt's Leading Women
Egyptian women, like many other women, have great potential once they unleash their power. Eva habil, Passant Refaat, and Radwa Saad El Din are three women who took the lead in three different fields. Marwa Rakha has more in this round up from Egypt's blogs.
Bahamas: Artistic Tourism
“All studies about the creative industries…and tourist development indicate that a failsure way of driving tourists to a destination is by creating a purpose for them to visit…but a word of caution to those…who think that they can develop such festivals without the participation and buy-in of the cultural community:...
Barbados: Supporting Rihanna
Living in Barbados says that Rihanna's assault “is deeply felt here as a personal beating up on many individuals”, while Cheese-on-Bread! learns that “Rihanna is back home to recover from the trauma of the past few days.”
Jamaica: Dancehall Ban
Following the broadcast ban on Rampin Shop and other sexually explicit songs, Raw Politics…Jamaica Style! thinks that dancehall must rehabilitate its public image, while Long Bench believes that while the ban should have been enforced a long time ago, now it's being done “for the wrong reasons, and under the...
Trinidad & Tobago: Carnival is Woman
Another great podcast from Trinidad's Caribbean Free Radio, where Georgia Popplewell and the 3 Canal crew talk about everything from the role of women in Carnival to the “fine line between self expression and censorship”.
