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Executive Produced by Kerry-Ann Reid-Brown of Breadfruit Media
We’re closing out Caribbean American Heritage Month and I’m sharing how I celebrated the month hosting CITE Week (by Caribbeans in Tech & Entrepreneurship Collective ) hosting a fireside chat about The Digital Voice and Pure Vibes Night. I’m also talking Caribbeans bringing the vibes at the BET Awards and Luke Cage season 2’s Jamaican villain Bushmaster and if we’re seeing authentic Caribbean characters in film and television.
***Podcast schedule: Every 2 week going forward. ***
Transcription:
Di vibes cya done.
Welcome to the Style and Vibes Podcast with me, Mikelah. I’ll be giving you the inside scoop on music, fashion, culture, and more from Caribbean celebrities and pacemakers across the globe, pushing our culture with authenticity, and of course, style and vibes.
Hi, everyone. It’s Mikelah from Style and Vibes, and you’re listening to the Style and Vibes Podcast episode five. Today, it is just myself. As I told you before, I’m going to be doing some conversations and some solo episodes for you. So today I’m kind of doing like a thank you and a wrap up all in one. We just completed Caribbean American Heritage Month. I came out with a bang. I had an episode every week. So starting from today going forward, you get an episode every two weeks, but I wanted to kind of start off giving a flavor of what you can expect from the podcast. So on our first podcast, we had Etana, the reggae singer and songstress. We had Kerry-Ann Reid of Carry on Friends, talking about Caribbean American Heritage Month. And then in our third episode, we had Konshens, the dancehall artiste who gave us bare vibes on that episode. As well as on episode four, I talked about my trip to Trinidad Carnival and how you can prepare. I just really wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has given amazing feedback. I get e-mails, tweets, people are sharing on Instagram. Thank you so much for all of the support. I truly appreciate it. This has been a great journey and I’m looking forward to just bringing you more on the podcast.
So speaking of Caribbean American Heritage Month, I participated in CITE week. It’s Caribbean in Tech and Entrepreneurship, a collective. It’s their annual week-long series of events. That’s kind of how I kind of wrapped up my Caribbean American Heritage Month. I did a lot of stuff with the podcast and on the website, but I actually hosted a fireside chat. We were talking about the digital voice, so kind of speaking about my journey into podcasting along with Kerry-Ann of Breadfruit Media. So Breadfruit Media actually produces this podcast. If it wasn’t for all of the steps that I had to take within that whole entire startup phase, I kind of wouldn’t have understood how much time and effort kind of goes into producing a podcast. So there is more information, and actually, the founder of CITE Collective, Georgie-Ann Getton-McKoy, she actually posted some videos. I’ll be sure to share the links with you. So if you missed it or if you’re not in the New York City area, you can kind of get a flavor of what we kind of discussed. And then on Thursday, I hosted Pure Vibes Night, and that was so much fun. We had a DJ, there was networking. We had demos and then we had samples from different vendors in the area. We just really had a good time. I had a keynote conversation with Ravi Ramkissoon, who has the app, “Find My Fans”. I’m actually hoping to kind of schedule some time with him on a future a episode, because I think what he’s really working on is really interesting, and I’ll leave a link to what he’s doing as well. So that’s kind of how we celebrated or how I kind of celebrated Caribbean American Heritage Month, by just showing some love and networking. And being in the New York area, there are so many different events and ways to kind of access all the Caribbean events that are kind of happening. So it was really good to kind of get out and just kind of network and meet new people in the Caribbean tech and entrepreneur space. So that was a lot of fun.
So a lot of things actually happened during the month of June, and the BET Awards in the BET Experience is one of them. So if you were watching the BET Experience, you kind of saw some of our dancehall and Caribbean artistes. Nailah Blackman was actually nominated for Best New International artist for BET. You could have voted for her and I voted for her. I shared it on my Instagram. We were like killing it on social—although she didn’t win, she was one of the few that were kind of represented on the Caribbean space from the Caribbean. I think there were some artists from Africa. Davido actually won, who’s a Nigerian Afrobeats artiste, which I totally happy for him, but I wanted to see my girl, Nailah, win but she did not. She’s definitely continuing to kind of push Soca to new levels. So big up to her and all the things that she is doing. But not only that, we brought a lot of Caribbean flavor to the whole BET Awards and experience. Safaree was hosting, along with Amara La Negra. So they kind of brought the Jamaica and Dominican flair. It was like on and popping as they were hosting the BET Experience. Fay Ann Lyons and Bunji Garlin also did a performance during this time. And of course, they brought carnival to the BET experience, and actually that same weekend, Hollywood Carnival was happening. So it was very timely and right up their alley, in terms of just bringing the culture to the next level of a new audience essentially. Shenseea, as well as Konshens brought their dancehall flavor to the stage as well. Konshens kept it very dancehall, he brought on his dancer and she did all kind of a flip. I thought she was going to start climbing some things, and showing them a whole different side of dancehall that a lot of people have not seen. So big up to all of the artists that were in the building, kind of representing the culture at that level.
Spice was in the area. She did not perform. She did attend the BET Awards. You saw some videos of her singing for Nicki Minaj and all that good stuff. So she definitely was in the building and kind of just taking it all in with everyone else. Spice has kind of been on Love and Hip Hop. I think they’re winding down. They might have a few more episodes. I recently actually have been able to catch up on a few episodes. And while I’m happy for the exposure that she is getting on that show, I’m not sure that—she’s kind of falling into a little bit of the whole pettiness and gossip of getting caught up with the other ladies, rather than really showcasing a lot of her musical talent I think. For me, knowing who Spice is and where she comes from in terms of artistry, as I don’t know her personally, but as an artist, she’s probably one, if not the biggest artiste, that they have on that platform, because she can literally sell out her own shows. So I kind of wanted her to show a little bit more of the dancehall flavor and not necessarily assimilating to what is happening in the space of them. She kind of is seemingly getting caught up, but I’m sure we’ll kind of hear more from her once they kind of wrap the season and do the reunion that they always do. So I’ll kind of wait and kind of reserve most of my opinions until after she’s kind of had that time to kind of just recap. But definitely big up to her. Any platform where we can kind of spread the love for Caribbean culture and dancehall, I’m all for it.
So speaking of representation, Luke Cage, Marvel’s Luke Cage, released their second season and they actually have a Jamaican villain. I know. It’s a great thing for us as a people because yuh know wi love when wi in a supp’n. But again, the accents are just completely off. I love the character and I love that they are really infusing what New York really is, by having this Brooklyn, Jamaican villain that is going up against Luke Cage. The actor that plays the villain, the villain’s name is Bush Master, is played by Mustafa Shakir. While he does do a good job as the villain, and I’ve only watched a few episodes, I haven’t seen the entire season, the accents from all of the Jamaican actors that he interacts with and even him himself, is so off. We have so many talented Caribbean actors. I personally think that Paul Campbell would have done an amazing job playing the villain because—and I get why they kind of have—the accents are a struggle, but they do have coaches and things for perfecting accents of any different language. So I don’t think that it’s hard or it’s challenging. I think the biggest challenge is kind of balancing our patois with people being able to understand. So I think as an actor, anyone who could kind of really get that down, it would be great, or if they used Caribbean actors or even a Jamaican actor like a Paul Campbell, it would have brought the authenticity that it needed. It’s not intolerable. He actually does a really good job playing the villain. So I would say I’m going to watch the entire series and I think you guys should give it a chance. But again, I really want to emphasize that representation in its proper and authentic form is really important, because if we’re going to be represented in a way, the authenticity of the language is important.
So that’s why I kind of really have this podcast, because I think there’s not as many authentic voices and understanding. And really talking about how we can kind of push that gap, I think when you talk about—and that only black people make up the Caribbean, there’s all different kinds of people, but people of color, but I think when we talk about the experience for people of color, it needs to be as vibrant as the people really are. Especially if we’re talking about the black experience, the black experience globally, it looks and it feels different, I think it’s important. I think being here in the States when we talk about the black experience, we kind of talk about a singular experience or it’s kind of from a narrow view. So I think having platforms where we can kind of have these discussions and open the doors to kind of really representing the culture of people of color all over the world. I think social media and digital advancements have allowed us to see these different cultures on an easily accessible scale. So I think that that is going to continue to grow. I love all of the film and creativity and representation that is happening, because no longer do we have to wait for a studio to kind of finance or put their backing, literally with your phone and a camera, it might not be the best quality, but it would be you putting yourself out there and creating content around things that you see every day and sharing it with the world, to kind of have them experience your experiences as well. So that’s kind of why these platforms are important.
So I definitely want to hear more from you. Please comment, send me an email, or hit me up on social media and let me know what do you want to hear, what do you want more of on the Style and Vibes Podcast and our community. This is definitely about you guys. So I definitely want to take your feedback and kind of infuse that into the show into future episodes. So thank you so much for listening. This is it for the episode five and you’ll definitely keep it going. Until next time, lata mi peeps.
Thanks for listening to the latest episode of the Style and Vibes Podcast. If you like what you hear, and I know you do, share it with your friends and family. If you want more, make sure you visit styleandvibes.com and follow us on our social channels, Twitter and Instagram at Style and Vibes. Until next time, lata mi peeps.
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