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FIRST photographer Marlon Reid speaks about A Picture called Death – his photograph depicting the aftermath of a shooting in Kingston, Jamaica in March 2008.

See the still photographs HERE.

Interested in your own print? E-mail Marlon at marlon.reid@first-magazine.net (the print is limited to 25 and only five per year will be signed and sold).

Photography, video/film development and advertising from the same people who create this magazine – under one roof in Stony Hill, Jamaica.

http://first-studio.net/
Tel: +876.756.2893

Jamaica loves its tourists. Even in economically strained times, there’s no denying that the tourism industry feeds many people, and in return the industry feeds right back, much to the delight of sunseekers, Reggae enthusiasts, weedhead students and Stella’s of all shapes and sizes all looking to get their proverbial grooves back.

Not surprisingly, Jamaica’s tourists are as varied as the places they habitually return to: Italians on the South Coast, Germans in Portland, the Japanese in Kingston and timid returnee Jamaicans in the North Coast hotels.

In Negril, there’s actually a well-established community of repeat tourists who’ve been returning to the west end ever since wandering this way in the 60s when Negril was more or less just a lot of sand, coconut husks, and, of course, dreadlocked disco-dreads selling mushrooms that do bad things to the sky.

Year after year these tourists come back, regardless of the ever-reported crime and the lack of a Starbucks or a Sbarro’s. Ask one of them and almost all will tell you that even if they could have gone to the Bahamas, there’s nothing quite like the personality of this island and its people, who they watch with great interest.

And we watch back…

Tonight at Medusa’s the legendary Silverhawk Sound makes a return to the musical landscape.

For the uninitiated, Silverhawk was the original mouthpiece for the creative powerhouse team of Steely and Clevie, and one of the first Jamaican sounds to voice and play dubplates as a clash tactic when most sound systems were still using live deejays in the dance.

According to Hawks’ Road Manager Palmer, this grew from Steely’s ritual of taking pre-released records to August Town to play on a little system in the community for the residences to hear it first.

With such a creative musical force behind Silverhawk, it wasn’t long before the sound became renowned for its incredible collection of specials from anyone who was anyone in reggae and dancehall.

Then, in 2000, Silverhawk suddenly locked up the crates as Steely and Clevie returned their full attention to their production work at Studio 2000. That is, until 2009 when Steely expressed a real interest in relaunching Silverhawk; a concept that was sadly never realised by the producer before his untimely death in September 2009.

Tonight in Kingston, however, the no-iPod purists will have something to celebrate as Clevie’s beloved Silverhawk powers up again thanks to his former business partner Cleveland ‘Clevie’ Browne who made sure Steely’s got his wish.

The event begins at 6 p.m. at Medusa’s bar at 96 Hope Road. In the meantime, check out this 80 minute dubplate mix of Silverhawk juggling strictly Shabba & Ninjaman:

Download via Megaupload.

Locked up since last summer after just one screening in Kingston, DiMaggio: The Last Don by the Rickards Bros. has spent more time on a stored hard drive than flickering across the faces of unsuspecting audiences, and for good reason.

Besides the fact that it is headed to the NY Television festival in the fall, we wanted to be sure that every audience from Kingston to New York are as surprised by the film (which is actually a television pilot) as the KOTE crowd was at Redbones last year.

Surprise, after all, is just another weapon of the underdog in an arsenal that included just one camera, one microphone, zero lights and a twelve dollar tripod. So, what’s it really all about?

Well, the official line is that it’s a documentary-comedy-drama which draws upon material gathered by mic-ing local record producer Josef Bogdanovich, AKA The Last Don, and interviews with the people who know and work with him – musicians, businesspersons, media and regular working people.

Unofficially, some suggest its like watching a speedier, more foul-mouthed Larry David tearing around Jamaica promoting dancehall while flipping everyone the proverbial bird. A flattering description we think, but Larry David this ain’t.

Check out the second public screening of DiMaggio: The Last Don at the 2010 Reggae Film Festival tomorrow at the Cove, 2 Winchester Avenue, New Kingston (11 p.m.). But please, no ganja smoking as decent people will be there.

“The title that I have given to this chapter of woe is a metaphorical one. I was not, like Columbus, exactly wrecked upon the coast of Jamaica. I was simply banished there by an Esculapian ukase, and forbidden, under penalty of death, to leave the island for six months. In this light, then, I was cast away, and – may Heaven be thanked for all its mercy! – I live to record the fact.”

Source: Harper’s Magazine

One of the regular features that appeared in the original format of this magazine was something we called FIRST People. Our subjects came from a wide cross-section of Jamaican society; some famous, some not so famous, but all with something to say on a variety of topics ranging from politics to selling oranges at the side of the road in Goshen.

FIRST People sought simply to communicate the quirky and diverse elements of the culture. With our move to the web however, and a world where you are expected to say everything you have to say in under 140 characters or less, we’re glad we can cheat a bit by rolling out video (in hackneyed old film style) to keep your attention.

This week its the young UWI academic Rosina Casserly, accompanied by a 20-year-old Billy Ocean dubplate from the relaunching Silverhawk Sound.

Previously on FIRST People: Devon Gordon’s art of extreme patience