Hack at work.
Killing Bono
"The best book I have ever read about trying to make it in the music business" - Elton John
"A fantastic book, which manages the difficult trick of being simultaneously very funny and very sad." - Bob Geldof
"I was Neil McCormick's fan in school. He was much cooler than me, a much better writer and I thought he'd make a much better rock star. I was wrong on one count. He's written a great book" - Bono
The Jolly Boys: sound that rocked Jamaica
Published: 5:18PM BST 21 Jul 2010
Jolly Boys, featuring Albert Minott, centre
‘Everybody knows Albert,” says Albert Minott proudly as he walks through the streets of Port Antonio, Jamaica, recognised by many of the passers-by. “This is my town. I was born here, and I’ll die here. All my life, singing and dancing. It’s like a fire inside.”
Tall and lean, the 71-year-old Minott cuts a dapper figure in a matching ensemble of crisp shirts and slacks, waistcoats and cravats, set off with nifty colour co-ordinated trilby hats. He would stand out anywhere, let alone amid the faded Caribbean glamour of Jamaica’s north coast resort, where painted wooden shacks lean up against collapsing colonial buildings, and the locals favour bright T-shirts and shorts.
Albert pauses to point out the marina, where he used to dive for coins back in the Forties, when the banana boat pulled in. “Way back when England was our mother,” he says, a mischievous smile displaying his few remaining teeth.
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Nas and Damian Marley: two tribes don’t go to war
Nas and Damian Marley, Hammersmith Apollo live review * * * * *
Published: 21 Jul 2010
the dude with the hair is the reggae superstar
The police were out in force for this concert bringing together superstars of two musical genres not particularly celebrated for advocating compliance with the letter of the law: hip hop and reggae. Perhaps it was the explicit declaration of opening number ’As We Enter’ that had Her Majesty’s constabulary concerned, when rapper Nasir Jones declares “I got the guns” and Damian Marley gleefully responds “And I got the ganja.”
Any apprehension that this might prove anything other than a celebratory union of exceptional talents was misplaced. Hammersmith Apollo was packed with the loudest, happiest, most upbeat audience I have witnessed in a while, and it wasn’t all down to secondary inhalation.
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