Jammin'

Come to the Jammin’ island of Jamaica to explore the roots and various off-shoots of reggae and other island music. This irie mix of tunes with the heavy beats from past legends and current stars is sure to get your body moving to the riddim.... Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff remain the foundation of this entrancing form of island pop.

Stephen is one of our Galaxie programmers who is based in Ottawa, our nation’s capital. He is also one of our programmers who has spent time expressing and sharing his musical interest as a show host on the great Ottawa radio station: CKCU-FM.

Completely fascinated by reggae music, and through the necessary exposure to the culture, he has also developed a healthy appetite for curried goat and the sport of cricket! When it comes to programming Galaxie Jammin’, his aim is to bring his fascination with the music to the channel. He is especially drawn to the fact that reggae music is so entwined in the day to day life of Jamaica. The song selection for Galaxie Jammin’ is primarily based on first, a great rhythm, or riddim, as it is often referred to, and then second, conscious lyrics that are telling the listener something about the daily life of the artists. At the same time, there is also a deep selection of the Lovers Rock style of reggae, where artists like Gregory Isaacs, Sanchez and Marcia Griffiths receive a fair amount of airtime! Stephen continues to build the channel by adding the newest and best of reggae music at it becomes available. But it is not only music from Jamaica that is used to keep the channel fresh: there are also many great tracks being produced right here, in Canada, and he wants to see that they get to the airwaves and that they are heard right across the country.

As for the curried goat (which he makes a pretty fine batch) and the cricket, well those are really longer stories!