Get your summer reading ready as we launch the Rude Girls Book Club! I will be hosting a live Zoom every Wednesday night this summer beginning June 7th. These one-hour sessions will bring together readers of Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond as we read chapter-by-chapter and discuss the lives and stories of these inspirational women. We will listen to some music together and I will also invite some of the women themselves, so stay tuned to see who might drop in! The Rude Girl Book Club invites everyone and will meet each Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST. It all kicks off on June 7th with ..read more

Just picked up the promotional CDs that DJ Chuck Wren of Jump Up Records made especially for Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond! And I am beyond–excited about this collection of rare 2 Tone inspired tracks from around the world which will be given away free to the first 200 orders of my book at skabook.com. It all drops on International Women’s Day, March 8th! Chuck will play these selections on March 8th from 9pm-10pm on his long-running weekly show, “Everything Off Beat.” Listen here: https://wnur.northwestern.edu/ or https://wluw.org/ Chuck Wren is the ultimate collaborator an ..read more

Happy Women’s History Month! Let’s get ready to celebrate! I am so excited to announce that the first 200 orders of Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond will receive a free CD created by DJ Chuck Wren of Jump Up Records! Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond is the first book to tell the history of the women in ska. It contains exclusive interviews from over 50 women who were part of ska history. On sale March 8th, International Women’s Day, right here at skabook.com ..read more

February is Reggae Month in Jamaica which features the Institute of Jamaica’s “Grounation” event hosted by the Jamaica Music Museum. This event is always enlightening with lectures, music, film, and reasoning. This year’s series looked at the sociopolitical, creative, and artistic response to developments and their consequences since Jamaica gained independence in 1962. Today they talked about the oppression of the Rastafari, the Coral Gardens Massacre, and Bob Marley The Jamaica Music Museum houses a number of crucial artifacts, but top on my list is the accordion used by Adina Edwards. Read ..read more

So excited that Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond will be released on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023! Before then, I wanted to take a moment and discuss the cover, since I have had a few people ask me about the woman in the photo. The cover features none other than Sarah-Jane Owen, guitarist for the Bodysnatchers and the Belle Stars. This photo was taken by Toni Tye whose iconic photos of the 2 Tone era also grace the cover of Rhoda Dakar Sings the Bodysnatchers’ album, seen below, as well as one of my other books, Ska: The Rhythm of Liberation, also seen below. Sara ..read more

Photo of Terry Hall by Heather Augustyn, 2016, Chicago Terry Hall was one of the pillars of 2 Tone. His performance was a dichotomy of profound emotion and non-emotion, of energy and aloofness, of statement and saying nothing, all at the same time. He was the perfect front for the movement. Losing Terry Hall to the cruel swiftness of pancreatic cancer this past December was a shock to everyone who ever sang along with his voice. Many of us grew up with the sounds of Terry Hall and so he was part of our identity. And for those who were close enough to call him a friend, and for those who colla ..read more

The following is an article by historian Roberto Moore about Lord Power, posted on 7 Nov. 2022. http://kool97fm.com/about/kool-blogs/jamaica-s-first-champion-calypsonian-leonard-lord-power-williams ..read more

The following is a presentation I delivered at the Pop Culture Association conference last month in Indianapolis: “Like a cultural barometer, the rise of ska indicates when and where social, political, and economic institutions disappoint their people and push them to reinvent the process for making meaning out of life. When a group embarks on this process, it becomes even more necessary to embrace expressive, liberating forms of art for help during the struggle. In its history as a music of freedom, ska has flowed freely to wherever people are celebrating the rhythms and sounds of hope,” wro ..read more

You can hear it in her voice–she is definitely her mama’s child. But Jaelee Small does not, by any means, sing in the shadow of her mother, Millie Small. Jaelee is her own woman, with her own sound and her own deeply creative vision which is on full display in her new EP titled Memoirs (Part II). This five-song collection, released on October 11th, showcases the many facets of Jaelee–sweet and glimmering, catchy and feisty, soulful and layered. Woman has got some chops! This is Jaelee Small’s first EP. She studied at LCCM, the London Centre of Contemporary Music, graduating with honors and ea ..read more

When I heard the news on NPR this morning that Paul Allen had died, my mind immediately went to Sister Ignatius. I had long heard rumors that Allen, co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates and billionaire businessman and philanthropist, purchased Sister Ignatius’s record collection and so I inquired and confirmed this fact in December 2015 with the director of curatorial affairs for the Experience Music Project, the museum that Allen founded in Seattle. Today the museum is called the Museum of Pop Culture and one year after it opened in 2000 it housed an exhibit called, “Island Revolution: Jam ..read more