The RCS team was in attendance at the The Best of the Best 2014 concert in downtown Miami at Bayfront Park on a beautiful Memorial weekend Sunday. This concert truly encapsulates the best in reggae and soca music with the Emperor of Reggae Beres Hammond, The King of the Dancehall Beenie Man, to the Viking of Soca Bunji Garlin, who is sweeping the international scene with his hit ‘Differentology’.
This all day concert kicked off with a high energy soca segment. All the flags of the different islands and nations (Guyana is not an island!!) were enthusiastically flying as Shal Marshal of Trinidad, and Edwin Yearwood from Barbados and Destra Garcia, one of the Queens of Soca and last but not least Bunji Garlin, the Viking of Soca sang their hits.
Not to be outdone by the fast-paced, flag-flying soca performances, the reggae performers took the stage with passion especially Cocoa Tea! This correspondent personally loves Lovers Rock so it was a fantastic treat to hear real singers with real lyrics. Cocoa Tea always takes command when he takes the stage and he told the crowd that he was not coming off the stage in 20 minutes, he said the promoters could not give him just 20 minutes when he has so many songs for the people, the crowd cheered when he sangs hits like She loves Me Now, Sonia, Tune in and so many more.
Tarrus Riley has been a favorite for many years since his ode to all empresses with She’s Royal. When he took the stage the crowd screamed, he gave a great set and introduced his musical director the great Dean Fraser to play his sax.
One of the members of the Group LUST Singing Melody had a solo spot on this show, He has a great voice and received a great reception when he sang his number one hit and 1999 Reggae and Soca Awards Song of the year ‘Want You Back’. RCS interviewed him backstage and he said one of his concerns was that he felt he did not have enough time onstage to give the type of performance that he wanted to give. We assured him that he did a tremendous job in the time allotted. He pointed out that the promoters gave them the time allotment upon arrival in the U.S. rather than with their management back in Jamaica. Unfortunately, this meant they didn’t realize while rehearsing back home that they would have less time than anticipated in Miami
Everyone gave strong performances, but we have to mention our favorites for the night, Cocoa Tea, Etana the Strong One, Chronixx the Conscious voice and, of course, the Emperor of Reggae Beres Hammond. As mentioned earlier it was a pleasure to listen to conscious music and love songs.
RCS SIDEBAR: One of the sweetest moments for me was seeing Beres at popular spot in South Florida on Memorial day chilling and grooving to the music being played by the DJ, when they played his “Black Beauty” he stood and rocked to his own song. Nice!!
