This summer I had the privilege to spend an afternoon with reggae icon Dean Fraser. Yes THE Dean Fraser. He was in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few shows with Reggae Recording Artiste Tarrus Riley. Normally I wouldn’t just get up and meet someone in the music industry at their hotel room. But this is Dean Fraser we’re talking about. My mentor and a friend encouraged me to go and meet with him; they assured me that I would be safe. Well Dean treated me with the upmost respect. He recognized the hunger in my eyes is for the MUSIC. He answered any question I had for him and trust I had many. I really enjoyed my afternoon with Mr. Fraser.
What projects are you currently working on?
I just finished doing Duane Stephenson’s album. I’m working on Sherita Lewis. I have some other acts I’m working with but I don’t want to expose their names yet.
What dancehall or reggae artiste would you like to work with?
I would personally like to work with I-Octane. He has a lot to say. He could be one of the forces to be reckoned with. I really would love to work with him. He needs a good album. I think he could stand out.
What do you think of this new genre they’re trying to push called Island Pop?
Island Pop could become something. But right now it doesn’t make sense you just do something and call it Island Pop. If there’s a specific producer or producers who decide to get together and create a genre and call it Island Pop and so we’re going to put Yellowman with Red plastic bag and try to create something then that’s different. But we can’t just play anything and say “bwoy it’s Island Pop” I really don’t see it that way. If there’s something that we’re going after, the Spanish people created Reggaeton. Someone directly went and produced this idiom and said this is Reggaeton and put a label to it. We can’t just take anything and just call it something. We need to label it properly, package it properly, brand boss, I’m sure that is the way to go, brand. I hate when we just do things random and then put a label on it.
What is dancehall missing?
Dancehall producers need to revisit the music. They need to restudy the music in general. They need to study where the music is coming from in order to know where the music is going. This terminology we use “You have to know where you come from to know where you’re going” is a serious thing.
The new dancehall producers, I want to make them understand, if you take any of these great hip hop stars. Take Jay Z, he knows about Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, You name it. He knows the history and the whole body of the music comes from. He knows what’s going on. He knows the genre.
The young producers need to really sit down. Listen to after 30 years how Bob Marley sounds. I guess some of them must think say that Bob Marley music was mixed yesterday. They need to check it. Bob Marley’s music is over 30 years old. When you put on Bob Marley’s music anywhere in the world it sounds fresh. Like its yesterday it what was made. They need to touch base with the quality, the feel, because most of our young producers are adapting a bastard hip hop genre that they’re calling dancehall. I can’t understand for the past couple of years hip-hop producers try to adapt what we play. Now we’re adapting to what they play. Our dancehall is not Jamaican influence anymore; it’s North American we need to go back to what we used to do Dave Kelly, Lenky, Cleevie back to basics. Our music reggae music, dancehall, rock steady, ska, has always been something original. And we should try to keep it that way.
Dancehall is missing the music it had 10 years ago. Let’s take for instance rap music, 15 years ago was more drum machine and little samples there. These days rap has become more musical, adding all the big stars making comeback combinations with the rap artistes. While dancehall to me has lost that musical flavor, dancehall lyrical content is there and the riddims are cool the beats are ok.
These days you have most of our artsistes just going for singles. After a year or two they will find themselves not being able to stand out in the fraternity because they did not do albums and didn’t make cd’s that would go out there and do something for them that would stand out in the music industry.
