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Review, Videos & Photos: Cocoa Tea & Frankie Paul in Wuppertal, Germany 11/29/2011

11/30/2011 by Lea Jerczynski

Review: Cocoa Tea & Frankie Paul in Wuppertal, Germany @ U-Club

Cocoa Tea and Frankie Paul, two veterans of Dancehall Music are currently on a 4-week tour across Europe. Last night they performed at U-Club in Wuppertal, voted Germany’s number one Reggae/Dancehall Club. Even though it was a weekday the Wuppertal massive showed up.

After one warm-up song by one of the backing singers, it was Frankie Paul who entered the stage suited semi-fitted in a light grew suit. His multifaceted voice is still able to grief listeners deeply after working in the music business as a singer for more than 25 years. Frankie Paul stroke every chord on the point and his sense of tact was close to perfect. Proven by the setlist of his performance, Paul’s aim was to deliver a show as entertaining and as rich in variety as possible. Mr. Paul shuffled between the different styles of Jamaican music.

His great amount of classic hits offers what satisfied both Ragga/Dancehall and also Lovers Rock fans and he proved his ability to spread some energy without acting too hectic on stage. As a professional entertainer, Frankie Paul knows how to express himself or more precisely his emotions and concepts via singing his songs indeed. No topic was left out, love and consciousness (Sarah), the highest grades (Pass The Tu-Sheng Peng) or the approaching Christmas season (Merry Christmas). Most impressive and striking was the joy of life that you could read from his face and his whole attitude. It really infected the audience, a colorful mixture of youth and adults from all kinds of social backgrounds.

Cocoa Tea’s performance started very traditional with a 10 minutes version of Rastaman Chant. He entered the stage praising Jah and announcing the demise of Babylon. A bright red cellular shirt under a dark striped chemise made him really stick out of the stage set, and also the color-coordinated beanie and shackle fitted to his flashy style. Unlike Frankie Paul, Cocoa Tea moved physically a lot jumping up and down and left to right. Not only the that was different, but of course also their singing style. Whereas Frankie Paul focused on his huge and clear singing voice, Cocoa Tea played with his toasting skills but both of them were chanting down any kind of badness in the world. Playing all of his classic hits from Strikers Island up to I Lost My Sonia he also gave the audience a preview of some new music. Recapitulated Cocoa Tea delivered an energetic show full of skanking vibes and Rub-A-Dub what stopped him from leaving the stage, his encoure took abot 30 minutes.

Both performances were a delight to every single visitor’s eyes and ears, the combination of two grandmasters really worked complementary. After the awaited performance of 18 and Over, at around 0.20am Cocoa Tea left the stage and closed the show.

The third star on stage that night and definitely worth being mentioned was the band. Every single member of it saw itself as a part of a whole. Both Frankie Paul and Cocoa Tea cohered with them.

Nuff Respect!