Ramblings (12/7/2011)

Welcome to my 2nd blog. This is where you will find me for the time being…then again, where else am I going to go? As my advisors have said, this blog can lead to so many, many, opportunities. Well, we will see about that…while watching MSNBC about 7 months ago, they were interviewing this 52 year-old African-American business woman, who was one of many senior staff members that was let go from this major corporation (don’t recall which one right now) but this lady lives in Brooklyn and was with the company from she graduated college….however, during the interview she was asked how she is managing now, she said had opened a little boutique with her daughter and they were doing fine…and it was something that she always wanted to do… she went on to say something that really made a great impression on me, something I took to heart, she said “do what you love, love what you do, and change with the times!” Since then, I’ve seen the world (especially my industry) much, much differently! I see such similarities with her, I have been in this industry since graduation, heck, not true… really started in 1975, left NY Tech in 1981 (check my bio)…when I listen to today’s radio, I sometimes feel good, other times I am crushed by the programming and music being played!  However, when I am on the radio, I certainly do not join that group, I still do it the way I was taught. I am not one to sit and criticize those on radio today, I just accept it as “that’s the way it goes now-a-days”

I remember back in the 70’s as a teenager in the Bronx, on Saturdays when my grandmother used to go shopping on White Plains Road, I used to blast my music for the whole of 218 street to hear, we were like the only visible Jamaicans living on the block then…and doing my weekend chores with Big Youth, Ernie Smith, U Roy, Junior Byles, Johnny Clarke, Dennis Brown, Trinity, Bob Marley and others blasting in the background, while the stereo system was “buck” to the max, I had to be looking out for my grandmother coming up that little steep sidewalk at Bronxwood and 218 street so I can turn down the music!. That lady was always complaining about the “noisey buggie yagga” music I was playing. So one day I asked her why she always a criticize my music, I was taken aback with her answer…she said she only hear noise, lots of noise, doesn’t understand what the heck they are saying, especially the DJ’s, she honestly could not relate to the “chanting” and that stuck in my mind to this day! I realized then that music is generational. She wanted to know why I do not play more Jackie Edwards, Dionne Warwick, Blues Busters, Brook Benton, Nancy Wilson, The Platters, Tom Jones, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, etc…me? a red-hot, hormone boiling teenager playing these artists? gimme a break! Well…guess what? years later, I live to see me calling out Spencer to “turn down that noisey buggie yagga music you playing upstairs!” man, I couldn’t understand a single word those rappers were saying…I wondered if they were speaking another language…oops, I have become my grandmother!  I am totally lost with most of today’s DJ’s…now, gimme the singers anytime….it’s generational I tell you, generational!

So, back to what that lady said, “…change with the times” applies to me right now joining the world of bloggers , here I am, a 55 year-old radio personality without a radio program! Georgia always reminds that the lady that started Huffington Post, started just like this, and recently she was bought out by AOL for over $100m!   Wow, this is encouraging, $100m?

I do hope people will respond to my daily ramblings, somehow, I believe I still have relevant arguments to make on some of today’s hot issues, American, Jamaican or anything on the global level I find interesting. From time to time, I will take you down the history road of my personal struggles on the promotion development of Reggae in America (especially in the 80’s  – when I had a little juice) – stay tuned for that…you know, I think I’m gonna enjoy this blog ting! Tamika and others are constantly telling me to start writing my bio, well, here is a platform on which to start…well, what do yu think? give me some feedback…