When I lived in the U.K., I recorded a lot of ska and rock-steady styles of Jamaican music. But people there weren't accepting it. So I began using a faster reggae beat.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In Jamaica, them always have throwback riddims, recycled old beats, and the hardcore reggae scene is always present. You have faster stuff like the more commercialized stuff, but you always have that segment of music that is always from the core, from the original root of it.
If reggae comes from another country, you can have the relationship to reggae that I have to rock. But it's something I grew up with. It's probably something I appreciate more now. In the '80s, I was all about New Wave and synth pop - New Order and Depeche Mode and Eurythmics and Michael Jackson and tons and tons and tons of Prince.
My mother's sister married a man from Barbados, and my cousins were raised in Barbados. So we traveled down there, they came up every summer for camp, and I started paying attention to their music. And that was the first place I ever remember hearing reggae and liking it.
I do have very solid reggae roots based on the fact that I'm Jamaican, and so that is a part of myself; even if I never do all reggae, it has to come out in some way because that's who I am.
I've always been a huge reggae fan.
I listen to a lot of reggae.
I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.
I obviously had my reggae, but I got quite into rockabilly when I was a kid, because I was trying to find something that represented me as a white person.
I came from a very strict background, and didn't hear any Jamaican music when I was growing up.
I'm not a big reggae dude. I have maybe two other reggae albums.