An explosive version of "Feel the rush" with Shaggy on stage that does his better to express the concept there's no best reggae party in the world but Rototom Sunsplash,is the conclusion of a great music night. A few hours before the concert of the great Jamaican dancehall artisthe told us about himself at the first session of the REggae University, explaining his fight by shooting hits and his impressive numbers of copies sold, to whom doesn't consider him to be a dancehall artist, to whom says his music is too little Jamaican and that with his career he's just been lucky.
Mr. Lover Lover has then given a very interesting contribution to a lesson about manhood in the Jamaican dancehall accomplished by the professor Donna Hope (University of West Indies): The audience showed a big interest for the way to study the dancehall world by a Jamaican academic institution which aims to give to the huge musical resource of the island an deserved cultural profile, all along connected with the popular Jamaican heart.
The music of the Main Stage started with a great show of the French Dub. Inc. Every night the headliners put up performances worth of their fame in front of a public already warmed up by many hours of music, but who plays first faces the though job to catch the audience in a few minutes and take it straight to action: with their catchy mix of punchy reggae, Mediterranean sounds and Arabic cultural music Dub Inc. immediately warmed up the scene and got us to find out the energy of the French public who gave its best to support their artists singing, dancing and moving simultaneously dance. Sincere congratulations to this very interesting band. After Dub Inc.
Today's musical trip finally took us to Jamaica: Queen Ifrica is a roots artist who uses an incomparable fervent ispiration and a great social militancy in her lyrics. Since the first notes of her concert she showed two complementary sides of her artistic temperament, that means the sweetness of her most intimist moments but also the powerful roar of her deejay style. "Daddy", "Lioness on the rise’, ‘Put on your thong’ and ‘Genocide’ for who's writing have been the top of her set, followed by her mentor Tony Rebel. With a particular version of "Soul Rebel" and with "We'll be forever loving Jah" in duet with Ifrica, Rebel payed tribute to Bob Marley, but at first he went wild in a large series of tracks both from his glorious past in the nineties and most recent ones, reminding us how many classics of the istory of reggae are part of his repertory. Shaggy himself got earlier on the Main Stage to assist to the final part of the "Rebel" concert of Manchester, before giving life to his sow in which he gave his best to make the Sunsplash massive dance.
After "Long time" in the opening, huge roars of the public accompanied "Bonafide girl" and "Boombastic" with the band to show an energy definitely rock based. Shaggy showed with his irony his sensual side keeping the public on his pocket with his voice and his undisputed charisma. The final part has been an excellent crescendo from "Church Heaten" on with "Fly high" with the beautiful chorister in evidence and the final explosions of "Big up", "Come around" and "Feel the rush". Who had some spare energy left went to the Dancehall Yard to keep still dancing for hours.
Pier Tosi | Trad: Nicol Pora
