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Queen Omega & Little Lion Sound @ Reggaeville Yearbook 2023

01/24/2024 by Gardy Stein

“DON‘T CALL WE LOCAL - WE INTERNATIONAL, AND WE GLOBAL“ (QUEEN OMEGA)

Dear global community, a blessed 2024 to you! Giving thanks for another year of life, connections and music, we welcome the new solar turn as always with a little throwback. 2023 has blessed us with inspiring releases, exciting concerts and amazing success stories, and on the following pages our annual REGGAEVILLE YEARBOOK will shine a reminiscing light on many of them. 

It will explore the wealth of albums that were created with great talent and diligence by artists around the globe, presenting them in reviews and in our ALBUM OF THE YEAR poll. Like last year, a panel consisting of 78 Reggae experts (journalists, radio moderators, DJs, producers, artists, festival organisers, booking agents, Team Reggaeville… ) suggested their ten personal favourites, resulting in the Top 10 presented on page 134. The winner of this poll is NO DESTROYER by BURNING SPEAR - congratulations! Also, the YEARBOOK brings back sweet memories of last year‘s concerts and festivals in several reports; Sting celebrated 40 years and we‘re even looking back 20 years further, to the historic 20th edition in 2003.

We will let the artists themselves have their say, too, as some of them share their personal highlights of the past twelve months with you. What about our own highlights, you ask? Well, one was the release of the second season of our TAKE ME PLACES series; another the expansion of the GANJAVILLE RIDDIM, now including two more dub singles and the new tune No More Sales by Yaksta, which saw a video release, as did Chezidek‘s Herb Dealer. The latter is among the three singles released in fancy red, gold, and green vinyl, another highlight that served to kick off the brand new video series VINYL VIBES. Also, we are proud to say that our CEO Julian Schmidt received the IRAWMA Award for ‚Outstanding Media Contributions‘ last May.

Definitely outstanding is this edition‘s cover story as well, which invites QUEEN OMEGA and LITTLE LION SOUND to talk about the unparalleled success of their viral dubplate video No Love. Viewed, shared and liked millionfold online (the dizzying numbers beat anything that has ever gone viral in Reggae before.), it shows how the social media curse can become a blessing in certain circumstances, as the new massive reach of their channels gives a voice to established and emerging artists.

Speaking of the digital world: after Chat GPT in 2022, last year brought us the AI graphic design, and we‘ve seen a flood of artificial pictures used for profile pics or cover artwork. However, as the results are rarely as iconic as the Royal Marx Soundsystem Lego DJ-Set, we hope that human creativity will prevail in the end. 

Finally, if we were granted a wish for this young 2024, it would be peace and understanding. With the words of Queen Omega: „You gotta really deal in righteousness, equality, for the people want peace and justice!“ 

YEARBOOK 2023 - READ & DOWNLOAD HERE