Dre Skull lectures at the Kingston, Jamaica RBMA Info Session

Tuff Gong Studios played host to the Red Bull Music Academy Info Session in Kingston, Jamaica on Saturday, February 21, 2015. The rehearsal room quickly filled as musicians and music fans turned out to hear guest lecturers Sawandi Simon, 2006 RBMA Alumni and Dre Skull, a Brooklyn based producer who has made a name for himself in the dancehall world after working with popular Jamaican artistes like Vybz Kartel, Beenie Man, and Popcaan, among others. Jamaican based producer, Chris Edmonds served as moderator for the session.

RBMA Info Sessions are held all over the world during the application period (January 14 – March 4, 2015) to give potential applicants a taste of what to expect at the Academy. By providing localised fora where RBMA lecturers can share with upcoming musicians, these sessions inspire and prepare musicians for their journey to the Academy. The Sessions take on a lecture format encouraging dialogue between the participants and the speakers.

The Academy is an annual music programme bringing together musicians from all over the world to learn from legends in the music business. This year’s Academy will be held in Paris, France from October 25 – November 27. The Academy is divided into two terms, each two weeks long and of the thousands of applicants, only 60 are accepted and each term hosts 30 students.

Dre Skull is a two time lecturer at the RBMA and also is the visionary behind Mixpak Records, started in early 2009. “I wanted to build something that could bridge many different worlds,” said Dre Skull. While he is known in Jamaica for his work with the dancehall genre, his label Mixpak Records works on a lot of hybrid genre music falling outside of the dancehall umbrella. A long time fan of Jamaican music and culture, luminaries like Bob Marley and, more so, Lee Scratch Perry influenced Dre Skull musically.

“It’s unbelievable that this island has about 3 million people, just the number of studios and successful artistes per capita, particularly that have such an international reach. I don’t know if there’s another place in the world that has anything similar, so it is very special to be able to work with artistes that come from that culture, because music is such a deeply ingrained part of who they are, there’s such a deep history there”, said Dre Skull. A fitting statement considering the iconic venue of the Session.

Another of Dre Skull’s musical conquests includes the controversial Snoop Lion aka Snoop Dog, whose conversion to Rastafarianism left many Jamaicans skeptical. Having worked with Snoop Lion on his reggae album, Dre Skull had to say, “I think his inspiration came out of just turning 40 and wanting to make a greater contribution through his lyrical content. I think he found a lot of inspiration from many of the great reggae artistes.”

The origins of Dre Skull’s partnerships in the dancehall world emerged as a result of the easy communication the internet facilitates. Much of his early work with Jamaicans, including Sizzla, were done via email. Having successfully utilised this medium he reminded the audience that forging connections is important, whether in person or virtually, and that outlets like SoundCloud allow them to have their music heard by people all over the world.

Because all work and no play makes anyone dull, after the session at Tuff Gong Studios, CRU Bar was the destination of choice for the RBMA Club Night, music was provided by Jamaican electronic/hip hop band Acmatic.