Visual Culture: Wax Poetics Reggae Issue

Words by Jesse Serwer

Our friends at Wax Poetics have focused their attention on reggae before but for the first time they’ve devoted an entire issue to Jamaican music from the front page to the back. In addition to intriguing cover stories on Gregory Isaacs and Augustus Pablo, the freshly printed “Reggae Issue” includes features on Chris Blackwell and Island Records, Bob Andy, Beres Hammond, Panamanian dancehall and, best of all, the late Sugar Minott, as well as a survey of photography from the U.K. dub scene and a spread on Greensleeves’ first 100 covers.

We haven’t had the chance to dip into the text yet but, if issue 43 is anything like every other issue the “best and most exquisitely laid-out music bimonthly in America” (not our words, but we’re the first to agree) has published over the years, it should be well worth the $9.99 cover price. Cop it at your local bookstore and hit the issue release parties in New York (tonight at Happy Ending, see flyer below) and Patty Boom Boom in Washington D.C. (next Wednesday).