Strasbourg, France Reggae Global Report Image

by Florian ‘Dj WhaGwaan’ Ehrlacher / Mar 5, 2012 02:10 pm

I fell in love with the Jamaican culture during my first trip to Jamaica in the summer of 2000. It is mainly the omnipresence of the music in the life of the Jamaicans which impressed me enormously. On my return to France, I became interested in dancehall current events.

Indeed with the technological progress of Internet in the 2000s, it was easy to keep abreast of the latest riddims and singles releases through social networks, blogs and other forums. So now I find it simply impossible to go a day without listening to dancehall, with promotional music at home, Zip FM at the office, the latest live audio mix by Coppershot in my car or watching to Hype TV online. It is also impossible not to represent the Jamaican culture in my clothing style, from Cooyah and RepJA t-shirts, the pair of Clarks, through to the Reggae Boyz football jerseys. In my daily home activities too everything is dancehall or Jamaica-minded- trying to have a kind of Jamaican 'dream world' as if I was set in the island.

Unfortunately in the region where I live (eastern France), the dancehall culture is not really developed. People are not informed about the news in Jamaica and as I see it, the dancehall music is a means of translation of the daily Jamaican life, so the gap is huge. The average audience will react in the same way with a conscious song, a gun lyrics song between Gaza and Gully, a whining song for the girls or a song for the dancers while all these messages are totally different. 

Usually you will have to move a little bit further in Germany or Switzerland to meet a public that understands the dancehall culture better. For me, the best way to express my own dancehall perception is to produce and share mixtapes regularly on the Internet, in addition to juggle from time to time at local bars.

That is why, as the web manager of my own company called Tekk-It, I developed my French website to promote the city of Kingston called EasyKingston.com sharing my good plans of Jamaica's capital.
view all

TOPICS

SIGN UP / SIGN IN

  • MY PLAYLIST
Artist Title Album / Riddim Label / Producer iTunes Social  
You have not yet added any tracks.