No-Maddz

“An Evening with Kenny ‘BabyFace’ Edmonds”, which was staged at the National Indoor Sports Centre (NISC) on November 13, kicked off with the high-energy act of the night – the award-winning Silver Birds Steel Orchestra, who mesmerised the audience from the start to the end of their set. The patrons were truly captivated by the ‘Birds’ scintillating renditions of many popular songs.


The ‘Birds’ took the energy level to the sky, but the eclectic, artful and infinitely-talented NoMaddz took the show outside the stratosphere. The musical odyssey was far enough to blow your mind but close enough to keep your senses in tact. The always impressive band instantly found favour with the audience as they reeled off cheekily written, cleverly produced
numbers.


Their mixed-genre music
incorporates the elements of all eras moulded into an undefined but delightful sound. The instruments, dubstep, vocals and gyrating antics of each band member produced a serendipitous performance which should undoubtedly spark a surge in their fan base. NoMaddz’s left centre stage to the rapturous cheers of existing and newly-acquired admirers.
- Gleaner

Sheldon Shepherd, Everaldo Creary, Oneil Peart and Christopher Gordon share several things in common. In addition to being poets, each has been a winner of the Prime Minister Youth Award for Art and Culture, and each was a student of Kingston College.

More recently, two of the four, Shepherd and Creary were part of a full-length feature film,
Better Mus’ Come.

Thankful for the opportunity to share the stage with the hugely successful Babyface, Shepherd said the group has big plans of its own and has just released an album featuring some of their previous performances. “In four months, we have just successfully staged, recorded, mastered and launch our ‘live’ album,” he said.
“The album is called The Trod and is available now.”

Successful summer
It was a hugely successful summer tour that afforded them the chance to be on the concert; that, and the efforts of their sponsors. “After we did our event ‘The Trod Live, Summer Tour Finale’ at the SportsMax Zone on August 28, our sponsor Supreme Ventures thought it would be a great experience for us to be featured on this concert, so here we are,” Shepherd said.


- Gleaner

Saturday night's poetry session of the Manifesto Jamaica Festival of ART'ical Empowerment presented two strikingly different styles of dub poetry by No-Maddz and D'bi Young.
They were the main performers, coming on stage at the dance studio, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, back to back before strikingly different audiences as well. For after No-Maddz finished a blistering performance, in which the audience threatened to take the roof off with screams and at one point member Sheldon Shepherd observed that if the 'pull up' did not stop they would be unable to finish a particular poem, about a third of the almost full house left.
What No-Maddz and Young had in common was the use of repetition in their poetry. Totally different was the style, No-Maddz utilising three poetic voices for chorale and sequential delivery, as well as a singer, while Young did it solo.
The No-Maddz got off to a flying start on their poetic 'trod' and, infusing drama, humour and chorale-speaking techniques into their set to go with the accompanying music, brought the house down again and again and again. They asked 'Wha Dis?' and took all on the merry Trodding Jah Road. But it was their 'easy' flow on a poem about the man-woman sexual connection that they had to stop and restart several times, from the first staccato 'jam' through the rejection of the 'pump action' approach to satisfaction.
Gordon took a theatric run around the stage twice and, along with Creary, took his turn at delivering to especially the ladies' delight, screams spiralling in the enclosed space.
When, at the end of the No-Maddz set, Peart crooned a promise to take a lady to a place she has never ever seen, one woman in the audience said "we reach!" They ended with an ode to the 'ganja stain'.
Young was intense in her incessant opening poem about child abuse, which upped the tempo incrementally from an already quick start. She put tremendous passion into the piece, even as she restricted her movement to a small area of the stage, going back and forth a step or two and sometimes delivering from a crouching stance. Young verbally beat back Misinformation and closed with an appeal to Jamaica around the Tivoli incursion, berating US imperialism and "bogus election with two party".
Gordon took a theatric run around the stage twice and, along with Creary, took his turn at delivering to especially the ladies' delight, screams spiralling in the enclosed space.
When, at the end of the No-Maddz set, Peart crooned a promise to take a lady to a place she has never ever seen, one woman in the audience said "we reach!" They ended with an ode to the 'ganja stain'.
Young was intense in her incessant opening poem about child abuse, which upped the tempo incrementally from an already quick start. She put tremendous passion into the piece, even as she restricted her movement to a small area of the stage, going back and forth a step or two and sometimes delivering from a crouching stance. Young verbally beat back Misinformation and closed with an appeal to Jamaica around the Tivoli incursion, berating US imperialism and "bogus election with two party".
Raquel Jones, accompanied by two guitarists, was slated to do one poem. After she took on, sized up and dismissed a sexual braggart, the audience, though shrunken after the post No-Maddz exit, hollered for more. Jones was again caustic, dismissing an ex-partner and his current flame ("you did not even look familiar/I had a case of amnesia"). Yashika Graham explored the Dream of all creative persons, in an unaffected, effective single piece.
With the hour getting late, Dexta Malawi took the stage, with Ganja and Charlie Bobus also on the slated list of performers.
- Gleaner

The final and featured performers for the evening were No-Maddz, who rescued the eclec-ticity of the evening with a brilliant performance made even more difficult by the challenge of fitting the trio into the space with the full band, PA and engineer. A very talented group, they have remembered what so many others locally have forgotten- that show business involves a “show”. Their vocal interplay, humour and seamless (and very well rehearsed) transitions between songs were original, refreshing and most of all entertaining. I need to go find their album sooner rather than later…
- Yardedge