Reggaeville Yearbook 2012 With Album Of The Year Poll Results
2012 was a busy year for Reggae. Not only riddims and releases kept the fans struggling to keep up with the sheer quantity of news and happenings. It was also a year full of sensations, celebrations, discussions, new trends, old trends, joy and despair. To provide Reggae patrons with a thorough review of the year in Reggae Reggaeville.com publishes its Yearbook for the second time. Completely free to enjoy as a digital magazine and in pdf format to save and keep for having “Reggae inna 2012” at a single glance.
The year was busy with Jamaica celebrating its 50th year of independence. Busy with cheering for the Jamaican track and field heroes who won almost everything that could be won in the short distance disciplines at the London Olympics. And it was literally “busy” with Busy Signal releasing a milestone album bringing back roots vibes not so often heard in the dancehall in recent years. And at the same time he kept fans busy with moaning his sentencing to an American prison. A new generation of artists, symbolized by the Yearbook’s feature artist Protoje, put Reggae on a next level, combining old school vibes with new age styles while the hardcore dancehall fraternity with the likes of Tommy Lee headed towards a completely different direction. Reggae got a tremendous social recognition by Peter Tosh finally being awarded the Order of Merit, Jamaica’s third highest honour, Bunny Wailer got the Order of Jamaica and David Rodigan received the Order of the British Empire out of the hands of Prince Charles. Europe has seen sold out festivals in the summer, India is on the rise not only economically but also in terms of love for Reggae, the US provide the album of the year, “Strength To Survive” by SOJA, in Ivory Coast African Reggae superstar Tiken Jah Fakoly almost gained political power. Reggae is alive globally, it writes the most diversified stories every day. Everywhere.
The Reggaeville Yearbook assembles as much of these stories as possible. Protoje recalls the year in his personal remembrance, several artists talk about their highlight of the year and, of course, there is plenty of fantastic live music, of unique interviews, of interesting reports to give a (as much as possible) full view of what happened in 2012. For free. For the enjoyment of every Reggae fan out there.
Even more, REGGAEVILLE called its users to vote democratically for their album of the year after the Grammy committee once again failed in nominating any relevant albums and instead picked some releases that most of the fans have not heard (and have not even heard of). The race was tough but the result still unequivocally with SOJA finishing first with their “Strength To survive” masterpiece.
