Jah Cure, Khago, Damian Marley, Alborosie and Mavado nominated for MOBO Award

Jah Cure, Khago, Damian Marley and Nas, Alborosie, and dancehall artiste Mavado will battle in the UK’s Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards. They were nominated in the Best Reggae Act category.

This is the first nomination for Nas, Jah Cure, Khago and Alborosie. Marley is a previous winner in this category so, too, is Mavado.

The MOBO Awards began in 1996. It recognises urban music across Europe.

This year’s staging will take place on October 5 in Glasgow, Scotland. British pop singer Jessie J leads the pack with five nominations.

Dubkore delivers strong performance at Conscious Reggae Party

Roots reggae singer Dubkore recently delivered a credible set at the Conscious reggae party concert in Kingston.

His half-hour-long set saw him unleashing tracks including Little Love Story, Same Routine, Verandah and Gideon. The audience was quite receptive to the offerings delivered.

According to the Spanish Town-based artiste, “This show was a very big one for us, because we haven’t been on stage in front an audience for a long time now. So as you can imagine we were a bit nervous but we were confident that we would do a good job because we rehearse on a regular basis,” said Dubkore.

Other performances at the event came from Warrior King, Cali P, Keteis Oyonde and Chronix.

Lazah Current releases video for Lately

Reggae artiste Lazah Current recently released the video for his current top 10 single Lately. The music video was shot at various locations across New York under the guidance of music video directors Donald Robinson Cole (Stealth Mode) and Olise Forel (Moving Silence).

A release party for the video was held at the Shadows night club in New York recently.

The artiste has been busy promoting the video since it was released. “Since we drop this video we have been doing a lot of promotion and the response has been very good. It has been getting good rotation on TV channels both in Jamaica and in the states,” said Lazah Current.

Lazah Current is set to release another single from his album A Better Tomorrow.

Chart Updates

Katy Perry has lost her grip at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Her latest single and record setting Last Friday Night (TGIF) has made way for Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera. This is Maroon 5’s second number one Hot 100 single following the 2007 hit Makes Me Wonder. This is Aguilera’s fifth number one and the first since 2005’s Lady Marmalade.

Beyoncé takes the number one spot on the Billboard Dance Music Club Play chart this week with Best Thing I Never Had.

Rapper the Game takes the prize on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week with The RED album which moves some 98,000 copies to give the rapper his third number one album. By stark contrast, the Game’s last album 2008’s LAX moved 239,000 copies in its opening week.

Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV album is on track to sell some 800,000 copies by week’s end to capture the top of next week’s Billboard 200 album chart. If chart prognostics are correct, then Wayne could earn the year’s second biggest debut since Lady Gaga’s Born This Way’s spectacular debut in March with 1.11 million copies.

Over on the UK singles chart, season six X Factor first runner up Olly Murs scores his 6th UK pop single and second number one with Heart Skips a Beat featuring Rizzle Kicks.

DID YOU KNOW?

Today marks the birthday of the late folklorist, writer and educator, Louise Bennett Coverley.

Miss Lou, as she was affectionately, called died in Canada in 2006. But did you know that her most influential recording is probably her 1954 rendition of the Jamaican traditional song Day Dah Light, which was recorded by Harry Belafonte as Day O aka Banana Boat Song in 1955? Belafonte based his version on Bennett’s recording. His famous version was one of the 1950s biggest hit records, leading to the very first gold record ever awarded.