2023:
Bob Marley and Media
Representation and Audiences
MIKE HAJIMICHAEL
Bob Marley and Media: Representation and Audiences presents an analysis of how media, radio, television and print represented Bob Marley, including his popularity after his death. Mike Hajimichael examines unexplored connections between Bob Marley and media representation and the specifics of audiences, including coverage in tabloids, music magazines, and fanzines, as well as radio and television interviews.
Hajimichael builds an extensive catalogue of Bob Marley’s media engagements and connects Marley to media through forms of political discourse and ideologies relevant to social change in different contexts globally, such as civil rights, anti-racism, Rastafari, and liberation movements. Given that varieties of representation exist, the book unpacks these media discourses with regard to public perceptions and key themes articulated, including mainstream versus fan-based coverage, issues of Rastafari, Black Consciousness, economic crisis, legacies of colonialism, slavery, racism, links to other music idioms, concepts of identity, and Marley’s personal relationships.
Do be sure to visit Haji’s blog on his 2023 invitation to deliver The 26th Annual Bob Marley Lecture at The University of West Indies HERE
Reggae and Dub album releases:
Taj Weekes – Pause (Jatta)
Fikir Amlak / Brizion – Higher Level (Akashic/i Roots) Review Here
Brain Damage meets Big Youth – Beyond The Blue (Jarring Effects) Review Here
Micah Shemaiah / Zion I Kings – Still (i Roots)
Acoustic Vibes:
Pzed “Mi Guitar Sound Sweet Again” from the EP Country Man (Lost On Green Mile)
Aza Lineage “No Winners of War (Be Forgiving)” (More Life Productions)
Standout Tunes:
Majical x Kibir La Amlak “Do You Know” 7″ (Before Zero)
RAkoon “Hoi An” from the album Something Precious (X-Ray Productions)
Ancient Astronauts Feat. Ife Piankhi “Social Distancing” from the album ZIK ZAK (Switchstance Recordings)
People who passed, foundations of Reggae, folks we miss big time: U-Roy, Lee Perry, Toots Hibbert and Robbie Shakespeare
Best Live: Anemourio, Cyprus
Favourite Session: Xaratsi, Old Town, Nicosia, Cyprus.
The most inspirational person featured on ‘The Outernationalist’ Radio Show: Taj Weekes
Full review of 2021 Selections here
I started writing about music from the early 1980s while at Essex University. After graduating in Government and Sociology and completing an MA I moved back to London and started a PhD in Cultural Studies at Birmingham’s famed Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, CCCS. It took me a while to get into freelance writing about music, mainly because I was DJing and studying, but by the end of the 80s I started dabbling more in music and performance poetry. It dawned on me then that as an independent artist most music writers, but not all, were like sharks. They baited for gossip, had a preference for anything controversial and out of the USA. I had this feeling that the artist’s stories were not being told in their own words. It’s fair enough to write about how we felt about the music, and those views just went out there, but there were all these stories that were not being told. So that’s how I got into writing about music, mainly reviews, some interviews and ended up with a regular column about Dancehall for ‘Hip Hop Connection UK’ and ‘Straight No Chaser’. I write a lot less nowadays mainly due to a fulltime teaching job at The University of Nicosia, DJing and making music. Rekindling and reconnecting with Steve from UK Vibe was good, we go back to the SNC – early 90s days. I think music will always be a part of my life, it’s consistent, always there…and I will always have something to say about it or through it as a medium of expression.
