Sheldon Blackman

Music and more music!! - Sheldon Blackman Soundcloud

Music and more music!! - Sheldon Blackman Soundcloud

View Artistsamfunnet´s interview with Sheldon Blackman, also check out http://www.artistsamfunnet.no/album-r... for more about this artist and many more. - Jon Bøhn

View Artistsamfunnet´s interview with Sheldon Blackman, also check out http://www.artistsamfunnet.no/album-r... for more about this artist and many more. - Jon Bøhn

Sheldon Blackman’s Hope, produced with his band The Soul Rebels, finds the son of Ras Shorty I channelling his father’s vibe across a wide range of disciplines backed by Nordic musicians: roots soca recorded in Oslo.

It’s surreal to hear 80s-era soca being anchored with such authority by drummer Thomas Dulsrud and bassist William Pedersen Stavik.

After an odd introduction, an aural soundscape meant to be a rallying of crowds to a train ride, the band explodes into Steelband Oi, a lavway that might credibly have been played to coax a weary mas band home by a combo on its second wind late on a Carnival Tuesday afternoon.

The next number, a fusion jazz number, Reach for the Sky (Mama Africa), suggests a signal from Blackman that anything can and will be permissible on this album.

While the music is wide ranging, with bluesy ballads and skanking rockers, the themes are almost painfully constrained. After so many years working abroad, much of Sheldon Blackman’s songwriting seems to be straitjacketed into the lesser themes of his father’s legacy.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because Garfield Blackman’s work was not just diverse and genre defining, it was adventurous and exploratory before it became mired in dogmatic preachiness.

The man who mastered calypso, evolved it into soca and then anchored it in conscious music with Jamoo left impossibly large shoes to fill and it might be argued that the whole Blackman family, raised to compose, sing and play have been enthusiastically stepping out in all directions.

But this is an album about loving and losing love, irritatingly vague social concerns, maternal love and feel good aspiration.

When the album really works, it absolutely soars.

The hypnotic beauty of Ocean, with its snaky bass and seductive harmonies is a siren call of bubbling rhythms.

The title song, Hope, seems to speak to where Sheldon Blackman finds himself as an artist.

As Peder Øiseth’s wailing trumpet provides sympathetic counterpoint, Blackman sings:

Deep within my soul I seek for direction
Hoping that in thy message I find a solution
‘Cause in my heart and in my soul there’s such confusion
The question and answers I can’t find them nowhere and from no one
I say oh my soul why are thou so heavy
Oh my spirit why are thou so heavy

This is where the snide reviewer might note that Blackman has good reason to be worried, particularly after wading through the desultory old-school reggae beats of Fret Not, Good Things and Miss You Today, but there’s so much craft in the best work on the album that it would be absurd to dismiss it on its weakest moments.

There’s so much sweetness to the music when it meets the words in that deft lockstep of sound, meaning and mood that Blackman can channel when his head is fully in the game, but he needs to step away from the easy Marleyisms that plague this work and pull it down into the maudlin and ordinary.

When he stands boldly on the shoulders of his family’s legacy of work as he does confidently on Ocean and Hope, speaks his mind and sings his soul as he does on the achingly spare Lonely, well, then there’s more than hope, and there’s little that’s more fulfilling than that.

Hope by Sheldon Blackman & the Soul Rebels is available for download and as hard copy on trinidadtunes.com - Trinidad Guardian

Artist: Sheldon Blackman
Song: Two Is Better Than One
Album: One Big Fat Love Bomb
Dir: Stephan Jones - Sheldon Blackman youtube

Artist: Sheldon Blackman
Song: Two Is Better Than One
Album: One Big Fat Love Bomb
Dir: Stephan Jones - Sheldon Blackman youtube

Sheldon Blackman and the Love Circle live at the 2008 Rainforest World Music Festiva Malaysia.
this was one of those moments to remember!! - Sheldon Blackman youtube

Lonely - Sheldon Blackman & The Soul Rebels

taken from the album "Hope" - Nordic Black

Lonely - Sheldon Blackman & The Soul Rebels

taken from the album "Hope" - Nordic Black

Oslo-basert sanger, musiker og artist som opprinnelig er fra Trinidad og Tobago. Han har et eget band, The Soul Rebels, og er i tillegg tilknyttet Nordic Black Theatre.

Musikken har helt fra fødselen vært en viktig del av Sheldons liv. Hans far, Ras Shorty I, er kjent som en pioner innenfor genrene Soca og Jamoo og leder av familiebandet The Love Circle. Blackman har selv utgitt tre album og til sommeren utgir han sitt fjerde, Hope.

Debuterer denne våren på Trøndelag Teater i rollen som Hud i Hair. - Trøndelag Teater

Oslo-based musician Sheldon Blackman treated his old T&T fans to a taste of new music last Thursday, when he performed for patrons at MovieTowne’s Fiesta Plaza, with his band, the Soul Rebels. Blackman, with eight band members, lit up the stage with his characteristic brand of jamoo, in a set of songs off his new album, Hope. Hope is Blackman’s fourth album, but his first with his group of Norwegian bandmates, with whom he has been playing for two years. He said it was their first time performing in T&T, adding that it was a blessing to be back home.

The Afro Caribbean music revealed influences including calypso, rapso, soca, reggae, gospelypso and rock. Lyrics, melody and rhythm joined with an uplifting message, delivered by Blackman in his characteristic warm and outgoing fashion. Band members included Jorn “Jam” Hansen, lead guitar; William Pedersen Stavic, bass; Jon Eeg Henriksen, percussion; Thomas Dulsrud, drums; Sara Osmundsen and Mimi Tamba, background vocals; Clifton Harrydass on pan and Jerel De Leon on keys; with Blackman on vocals and rhythm guitar. The set started off with Steel Band Oi, a pan calypso with a sweet, retro feel, before Reach For the Sky (Mama Africa), which Blackman said was dedicated to last year’s UN observance of the Year for People of African Descent.

The set included Good Things, Ocean and Fret Not, a song which Blackman said his musical family often sang together. He called family members up from the audience. Brothers Eldon and Isaac, sisters Nehilet and Abbi, as well as mom Claudette joined in and sang along. Next, Blackman performed Love Is the Only Thing We Need, a sweet melodic number to which the crowd sang along. The band even threw in a chorus in Norwegian. Stop the War, with its feel-good message and reggae drop followed, before Lonely, a balad, beautiful and bittersweet. They performed Steel Band Oi one more time, with its rousing call and response, before Blackman thanked the audience and all who had helped make the Soul Rebels' appearance possible. - Trinidad Guardian

Oslo-based musician Sheldon Blackman treated his old T&T fans to a taste of new music last Thursday, when he performed for patrons at MovieTowne’s Fiesta Plaza, with his band, the Soul Rebels. Blackman, with eight band members, lit up the stage with his characteristic brand of jamoo, in a set of songs off his new album, Hope. Hope is Blackman’s fourth album, but his first with his group of Norwegian bandmates, with whom he has been playing for two years. He said it was their first time performing in T&T, adding that it was a blessing to be back home.

The Afro Caribbean music revealed influences including calypso, rapso, soca, reggae, gospelypso and rock. Lyrics, melody and rhythm joined with an uplifting message, delivered by Blackman in his characteristic warm and outgoing fashion. Band members included Jorn “Jam” Hansen, lead guitar; William Pedersen Stavic, bass; Jon Eeg Henriksen, percussion; Thomas Dulsrud, drums; Sara Osmundsen and Mimi Tamba, background vocals; Clifton Harrydass on pan and Jerel De Leon on keys; with Blackman on vocals and rhythm guitar. The set started off with Steel Band Oi, a pan calypso with a sweet, retro feel, before Reach For the Sky (Mama Africa), which Blackman said was dedicated to last year’s UN observance of the Year for People of African Descent.

The set included Good Things, Ocean and Fret Not, a song which Blackman said his musical family often sang together. He called family members up from the audience. Brothers Eldon and Isaac, sisters Nehilet and Abbi, as well as mom Claudette joined in and sang along. Next, Blackman performed Love Is the Only Thing We Need, a sweet melodic number to which the crowd sang along. The band even threw in a chorus in Norwegian. Stop the War, with its feel-good message and reggae drop followed, before Lonely, a balad, beautiful and bittersweet. They performed Steel Band Oi one more time, with its rousing call and response, before Blackman thanked the audience and all who had helped make the Soul Rebels' appearance possible. - Trinidad Guardian