Since the release of her first album Liberation For Africa in 1983, Sister Carol has put out a number of quality collections which have earned a loyal following in Europe and the United States. Her latest effort, MMS Millenium Movie Star Riddim, holds a special place in the veteran roots artiste’s heart.
Along with her daughter, Nakeeba Amaniyea, she is executive producer of the 14-track set which is scheduled for release on January 14. It contains songs by fellow roots luminaries and upcoming acts, all done on a revamped version of the famous Movie Star beat first recorded at Studio One during the 1960s.
Be Alone, the lead single from MMS Millenium Movie Star Riddim, is a collaboration between mother and daughter that was released last September. Sister Nancy, Lady G, Lady Ann, Marcia Aitken, Glen Washington, Michael Palmer, Sammy Dread, Ilawi Johnson, Hempress Sativa and Empress TreJah are also featured on the album.
Familiarity, Sister Carol noted, made production an easy process.
“We have personal relationships with all of the artistes featured on this album. We were able to leverage the beauty of those connections and create an artistic synergy powered by spiritual energy. We have such a reverence for the Studio One original version of this track. We were committed to getting the best musicians to execute this production and we want to offer our new interpretation of this classic to the rich tradition of Jamaican music,” she told World A Reggae.
Delroy Wilson’s song of the same name, done in the mid-1960s, is the most popular recording on Movie Star. In 1979, Jennifer Lara cut Consider Me on the same ‘riddim’ for Studio One.
Empress TreJah covers Consider Me for MMS Millenium Movie Star Riddim. Lara, a stalwart of Studio One, died in 2005 at age 52 shortly after suffering a stroke.
Born Carol East in west Kingston, Sister Carol came of age musically in New York City where she migrated with her family during the early 1970s. She made her name on the Big Apple’s rocking sound system circuit late that decade, and took off as a recording artiste in the 1980s and 1990s with a succession of well-received albums such as Black Cinderella and Lyrically Potent.
Her admirers are not limited to reggae. Sister Carol has appeared in three movies by American director Jonathan Demme. In 2020, she collaborated with pop singer Jason Mraz on Time Out, a song from his album, Time Out.
By Howard Campbell for Worldareggae.com
