Aba A Luke

Weeks pri­or to East­er Sun­day, it had been pro­mot­ed on the air­waves as the boat ride to be a part of on the East­er hol­i­day week­end. Ole Skool ver­sus New Skool was the theme se­lect­ed by lo­cal DJ ex­tra­or­di­naire, Howie T-a se­lec­tor who's been a part of the en­ter­tain­ment fra­ter­ni­ty for the past 25 years. He had de­cid­ed to give the peo­ple what they'd been call­ing for some time-an en­tire three hours of noth­ing and no one else, but Howie T. An 11 pm board­ing time saw a mam­moth crowd gath­ered dock­side at Pier II, Ch­aguara­mas, and the ex­cite­ment could not be ig­nored. Dressed in their best threads, the women came out, and so did the par­ty-lov­ing men, many of whom seemed to know just what was in store with the pro­mo­tion of Howie in a three-hour-long con­cert aboard the Trea­sure Queen.

The boat sailed at around 12.30 am. But from the mo­ment it did, there was noth­ing but pure en­joy­ment.

To­geth­er with ra­dio mic man and artiste, Jah­moun Men­doza, who prompt­ed con­stant cheers from the crowd, Howie re­leased a slate of hits, start­ing with the ole skool be­fore dab­bling in the new skool vibes of artistes like Vy­bz Kar­tel, Busy Sig­nal and Mova­do. The ap­pre­ci­a­tion was, how­ev­er, stronger for the mu­sic of the past from artistes like Bu­ju Ban­ton, Sprag­ga Benz, Bee­nie Man, Siz­zla and oth­ers of the reg­gae/dance­hall genre. So­ca was king on board the cruise, as it was met with much love by the par­ty­ing crew, all of whom seemed to have had the time of their lives, bask­ing in the flow of mu­sic that was time­less, easy on the ear and en­joy­able in every sense.

Bits of con­scious, spurts of so­ca, and snip­pets of al­ter­na­tive mu­sic added to a lot of skill made for a cruise that will be re­mem­bered for some time to come. It was the per­fect way to rock the East­er Sun­day, and even when the boat docked at 3 am, the vibe nev­er stopped as many lin­gered around in the car park area lis­ten­ing to mu­sic that blared through the speak­ers of their car stere­os. They didn't want the night to end, and it was all be­cause a mas­ter DJ had giv­en them what they want­ed-ole skool/new skool mu­sic played with per­fec­tion and de­liv­ered with love. The Hit Man Howie T, on East­er Sun­day, proved that he is the best ole skool DJ of this time, and he has no in­ten­tion of slow­ing down any­time soon.