An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Once again Mar­lon Ash­er shows why he is one in­ter­na­tion­al reg­gae artiste T&T can boast of. Last Sat­ur­day night, the Ch­agua­nas res­i­dent not on­ly launched a new sin­gle, but to­tal­ly em­bar­rassed a Ja­maican singer in the process. Kokopel­li Night Club in Cunu­pia host­ed the lo­cal reg­gae singer and Port­more Em­pire singer She­ba. Port­more Em­pire was found­ed by cur­rent­ly im­pris­oned Ja­maican reg­gae singer Adid­ja Palmer, bet­ter known as Vy­bz Kar­tel. She­ba, who was the head­line act, is very pop­u­lar among the ladies and the cli­max was build­ing steady for the per­for­mance.

From the mo­ment the singer opened her mouth, pa­trons im­me­di­ate­ly won­dered if it was the same per­son they adored hear­ing on the ra­dio, CDs and mp3s.

She­ba's voice could be par­al­leled to that of a mouse stuck in some­one's throat. Her stage pres­ence was non-ex­is­tent and she was un­able to move the crowd. Al­though she sang her hits and some of her col­lab­o­ra­tions, like Mon­ey, No Id­iot Gal, No Stylin, Do Me That, Benz Punany and Mi Nah, the set wasn't enough to im­pressed those who came ex­pect­ing at least a favourable per­for­mance. What made the per­for­mance more dis­ap­point­ing was the great re­sponse Mar­lon Ash­er re­ceived pri­or to her. Mar­lon, who re­cent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with Stephanie Kalloo on a song called Beau­ti­ful Day, has hit the reg­gae fra­ter­ni­ty an­oth­er blow, show­ing that he is in a league by him­self.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his name was an­nounced for him to per­form, the crowd erupt­ed in­to loud bursts of ap­proval. Mar­lon, who has con­stant­ly been tour­ing Eu­rope since his very first song-Gan­ga Farmer, showed that with the right man­age­ment, reg­gae mu­sic can be a vi­able in­dus­try in a tra­di­tion­al­ly non-reg­gae based coun­try. Mar­lon's manger, Geron Woodruffe of Woodruffe & Woodruffe Man­age­ment Ser­vices, said on the night: "The new song Gan­ja Pro­fes­sor has brought new life to Mar­lon. He will be giv­en a new im­age and stream­lined for a wider au­di­ence." The song was pro­duced by Lack­az of Mill Beat En­ter­tain­ment who was the same per­son who pro­duced Gan­ga Wuk which is still to be of­fi­cial­ly re­leased. In June, Ash­er will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the High Times Cannabis Cup in San Fran­cis­co, USA. Mar­lon was sched­uled to pre­miere his tour last evening, at the Dub Club, be­fore leav­ing for Den­ver, Hawaii, Am­s­ter­dam, and Africa.