BACKSTAGE at this week’s Reggae Wednesdays show at Mandela Park, Raymond ‘Bear’ Mantack pitched his birthday show to fans and fellow musicians.

Mantack, a popular figure in music circles, celebrates his big day this evening with a gig at Irace Rehearsal Studio in Kingston.

His Rasta Band, Raging Fyah, Mark Wonder, Exile The Brave, Ishabel, Wild Life and Natty Pablo are scheduled to perform.

A drummer/percussionist, Mantack has played on songs like Be Careful by Matthew McAnuff and the Rasta Band’s Dog a Guh Eat Dog. He has also worked with the rising Raging Fyah and singer Crucial Banky of St Kitts/Nevis.

Through his songs with the Reggae Band, Mantack is pushing for a sound he was weaned on during the 1970s.

“The music nowadays have no feeling, it too commercialise ’cause everybody a look a dollar. Wi need good songs,” he said.

Mantack is from Franklin Town in east Kingston. He got his start in music through sound systems in the 1970s and became a musician at the start of the next decade.

This evening’s show is the third celebration of his ‘earthstrong’.

— Howard Campbell