Comedy

Bus Can Dance: BlackGold Crew Demonstrate the “Nobody Canna Cross It”

June 24, 2011

Words by DJ Gravy, Photo by Georgia Blake

If you go to dancehall parties in New York City, you’ve surely noticed this dance crew called BlackGold. They’re seriously out repping their squad like nobody’s business. The trio consists of Hanna Herbertson, a Swedish choreographer of Korean descent, and Korie Genius and Kendell Hinds (AKA H1st0ry). Always up to di time with their seemingly effortless movements and lighthearted vibe, the crew has sprung into action with a new dance inspired by Jamaica’s first major viral Youtube remix. The “Nobody Canna Cross It” video has become an instant classic in the nine days since it first showed up online, and the dance stands to add to the legend, thoroughly illustrating concerned resident Clifton Brown’s twang-heavy story about how floods swept away a bridge crossing the Yallahs River in St. Thomas, Jamaica.

Tags:BlackGold Dance Crew, Clifton Brown, H1st0ry, Hanna Herbertson, Jamaica, Nobody Canna Cross It, St. Thomas, Yallahs River

Video: Clifton Brown, “Nobody Canna Cross It (Di Bus Can Swim)”

June 20, 2011

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Words by Matei Korley and Jesse Serwer

Clifton Brown has the most talked about tune in Jamaica right now but we doubt his name rings too many bells. You see, Brown isn’t actually an artist but a rural worker tapped by a TV reporter to explain the situation after floods swept away a bridge crossing the Yallahs River in St. Thomas. Brown’s speaky-spokey twang caught the attention of Kevin-Sean Hamilton, A/K/A DJ Powa, a college student who is quickly becoming Jamaica’s answer to the Gregory Brothers, the pranksters behind Antoine Dobson’s “Bed Intruder.” (Watch “Patty Shop,” his “refix” of a recent TV interview with former Vybz Kartel business partner Corey Todd.)

Tags:Antoine Dobson, Clifton Brown, DJ Powa, Jamaica, TVJ, Yallahs River

Burning & Looting: Top 10 Actual Pirates Of The Caribbean

May 25, 2011

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Words by Jason “J-Rockaz” Orford and Eddie STATS Houghton

If you live anyplace which receives TV signals from Earth, you are probably aware that the new Pirates of The Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, opened this past Friday because it was actually bigger news than The Apocalypse (which premiered Saturday to disappointing box office turnout.) Of course this just confirmed our own irrational belief-system here at LargeUp, which revolves around the idea that all gigantic pop culture phenomena actually start in the Caribbean.Well, then. Here is our top 10 list of the original gun-pon-teeth badmen, the real-life, self-made maritime gangstas who inspired the Disney World ride turned Johnny Depp movie franchise.

Tags:Anne Bonny, Bahamas, Black Bart, Black Caesar, Blackbeard, Captain Morgan, Disney, Hendrick Quintor, Henry Morgan, Jamaica, John Julien, John King, Mary Read, pirates, Pirates of the Caribbean, Samuel Bellamy, ToppaTop10

Visual Culture: Jamaica Reggae Film Festival

April 29, 2011

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Words by Jesse Serwer

It’s been a big year for the intersection of Caribbean music and movies, from the smart reggae-and-calypso soundtrack in British director Stevan Riley’s outstanding West Indies cricket documentary Fire in Babylon (not to mention its well-drawn connection between the West Indies cricket team’s ascension and the rise of reggae music) to the recent news that Justine Henzell, daughter of the late The Harder They Come director Perry Henzell, will oversee a remake of Jamaica’s most seminal film. Adding to the momentum, this week the Jamaica Film Academy announced the slate for its fourth Jamaica Reggae Film Festival May 23-27.

Tags:Bob Marley: Making of a Legend, Cabbie Chronicles, Esther Anderson, Fire in Babylon, Jamaica Film Academy, Jamaica Reggae Film Festival, Kingston, Regga Britannia, Rocksteady-The Movie, Room for Rent, Steel Pulse, The Harder They Come

Up in The Sky: Ziggy Marley Unveils ‘Marijuanaman’ Comic

April 20, 2011

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Words by Eddie Stats

Everybody celebrates 4/20 in their own way. You might catch a Collie Buddz show or download a paranoid rap EP and listen to it a hotel room with the shades drawn. Ziggy Marley decided to celebrate it by launching a comic book. The eponymous hero of this new creation is Marijuanaman as you may have suspected, he crashed to earth in his bong-shaped spaceship while on a mission to save his THC-starved home planet. Marijuanaman is the result of a three-way collabo between Ziggy, writer Joe Casey and illustrator Jim Mahfood, who apparently linked up with the Marley scion through artist Overton Lloyd of P-Funk fame. The comic went up on Amazon today and unlike actual Brooklyn botanicals you can watch the YouTube promo below and get a preview of what you’re getting into before you buy:

Tags:Marijuana, Ziggy Marley

Bare Puppetry: Roger Alexis’ Trini Soap Pupperas Gone Viral

April 12, 2011

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Words by Eddie STATS Houghton

Whether it takes the form of Vybz Kartel virtual piano-duels or Slap-Chop face-offs, it seems YouTube is where Caribbean diasporic culture lives these days. The latest craze that’s caught our attention is the wave of Trini puppet soap operas and soliloquies that have popped up online. In case you haven’t seen them, these are no 30-second sock-puppet one-offs. These are full-scale muppet epics with recurring characters (Whitney and Santana, for two), original soca soundtracks, daggering interludes, scandalous preachers and steamy puppet-sex scenes. We could, of course, throw a bunch of info at you about Roger Alexis, the evil genius who is behind most of these short films and the astronomical number of views they’ve garnered. But perhaps this is one facet of Caribbean culture better absorbed without any context–unless by ‘context’ you mean “weed.” Watch after the jump.

Tags:Puppets, soca, Trinidad