I don’t keep up with what the kids are listening to these days, so I only heard of Collie Buddz yesterday. He’s got a hit reggae song called “Come Around”; the video was hot on BET and MTV, plus 900,000 views on YouTube. (Click here to watch it.)Yeah, it’s catchy. But the twist is that Collie Buddz is white. Born in New Orleans, raised in Bermuda, Buddz (real name: Colin Harper) blew up in Europe before catching on in Jamaica and then here. White people love white people who sing like black people... and black people don’t seem to mind them either. (Ellliott Yamin, you still mah boy.)
Michel Martin interviewed Buddz last week on her National Public Radio program, “Tell Me More.” They dealt with the race thing. I’m streaming a one-minute clip on my Vox site; click here to hear it.
For Michel’s complete 9-minute interview, you can download a free podcast from iTunes. (Go to the Podcast section of the iTunes store; click “NPR” under Featured Providers; find “NPR: Music.” The Collie Buddz piece is part of the podcast dated 08-15-2007.)
6 comments:
raised in Bermuda
Guess that gives him island cred.
Whatever happened to Snow?
I guess Snow was the Vanilla Ice of dancehall.
Nice to hear "Informer" again, though.
I don't know that the Snow/Ice comparison is apt (at least, I've never heard it before), but he did have some visa problems gaining entry to this country for concerts and his "presence" on radio here evaporated shortly thereafter.
^ Visa problems? From Canada?
Tell me the truth, dez... doesn't he even look like Vanilla Ice a little bit?
^ LOL, yeah, a little.
I think the visa problems had to do with him being a convicted criminal or something of that nature. It was a long time ago :-)
^ Yah, it was... Back when "The Real World" was fresh. ;^D
I was shocked to see on allmusic.com that Snow has been putting out albums throughout this decade. Canadians must dig him.
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