This is where PAPA ROBBIE resides on the interwebs...Doing my best to expose the fake garbage while providing some valuable info and great music. Feel free to bookmark this blog & visit often! Wi run tings, tings nah run wi.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
A Band or Turntables/Computer
Well, as I write this I'm listening to Wu-Tang perform with a live band and it sounds really good. Ever since I started doing music, I insisted on using a band for obvious reasons...it's reggae and reggae is organic. But I do dancehall/flavored music and bands never played in the dancehalls, in fact my musical mentor and friend Yellowman started off performing in the Jamaican dancehalls where he would chat his lyrics over the hottest reggae "riddims". Not until dancehall started to get really big in Jamaica did we start to see these artists onstage with backing bands. The first time I saw Yellowman live I KNEW that I wanted to be a reggae performer...he was performing with the great Sagittarius Band. So obviously it only made sense for me to always play with live musicians. A band adds texture to my lyrics and puts punctuation where I need it and makes me sound sooooo much better. A selector (DJ) is great because of the authentic vibe that comes from the dancehall. Cds don't get tired and they're never off-key. There's also less human-behavior hassle involved. Which one do I prefer? It depends on where I am. Sometimes you need sneakers, sometimes you need boots. I just wish that the musicians didn't hate the DJs so much and that the DJs respected the musicians more. In reggae, the reggae bands became famous because the selectors played their music in the dancehalls...If the musicians didn't make music, what would the DJs play? They both serve a purpose. My ideal set-up would be to have them BOTH onstage. A Macy Gray and Fugees styled band/DJ combo...That would make me UNSTOPPABLE (evil laugh).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Nothing is better than a good band, if the band is tired, you've been onstage too long....
Props
Post a Comment