· July, 2011

Stories about Music from July, 2011

Russia: News as Rap

Edmund Downie at Foreign Policy Passport reports that Russian president Dmitri Medvedev is much impressed by news agency's RIA-Novosti introduction of news in the form of musical rap info [ru].

Colombia: ‘Padding Journalism’

  29 July 2011

In the wake of the death of singer Joe Arroyo, Colombian news channel NTN24 featured reactions with actresses, models, and former beauty queens in English on its website. The video...

Puerto Rico: PR Indie's LAMC Coverage

  28 July 2011

Redod, the editor of the alternative music blog Puerto Rico Indie [es], reflects on the amazing and intense coverage [es] they offered of the Latin American Music Conference (LAMC) in...

Colombia: Singer Joe Arroyo Dies

  27 July 2011

Colombian salsa singer Álvaro José Arroyo González, better known as Joe Arroyo, passed away on July 26 in Barranquilla. On Twitter, blogs and websites his fans reacted to the news remembering his life and his songs.

Jamaica: Unimpressed with Minaj

  27 July 2011

Active Voice publishes a guest post about singer Nicki Minaj's performance at Jamaica's recent Reggae Sumfest: “Minaj messed up when she displayed such flagrant disrespect to Jamaica by announcing that...

Trinidad & Tobago: A Poem for Amy

  26 July 2011

“I’ve never met Amy Winehouse. I’m not a musician. I’m not British or anything even remotely connected to her. I only discovered her music about three years ago and, honestly,...

Slovakia: Big Money in the Tube

A few weeks ago, the Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights society (SOZA) - the country's music copyright organization - started billing web servers, typically for young music fans, which were embedding YouTube and Vimeo videos on their pages. Tibor Blazko reports on the Slovak netizens' reactions.

Jamaica: Reggae Sumfest

  25 July 2011

Tallawah blogs about the Top 10 performances at this year's Reggae Sumfest, here and here, while Active Voice posts photos.

Jamaica: Rivers & Mountains

  18 July 2011

“One of my favourite Caribbean proverbs comes from Haiti…‘Deye mon genmon’. Translated: behind the mountains there are mountains. It is such a fantastic description of the landscapes of both Jamaica...

Cuba: On Queue

  14 July 2011

“The queue in Cuba…is our music, our magic, our politics. It is the place where we philosophise…the campfire around which we perform our daily routines: conversing, falling for and out...