{"id":2184,"date":"2012-02-07T12:34:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T20:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2184"},"modified":"2012-02-08T09:18:59","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:18:59","slug":"tanya-stephens-rocks-marley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/02\/07\/tanya-stephens-rocks-marley\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanya Stephens rocks Marley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dancehall veteran Tanya Stephens appreciates the iconic affect Bob Marley has on Jamaica\u2019s arts and culture, there\u2019s no doubt about that. But the Jamaican headliner of the upcoming Bob Marley\u2019s 67th<\/sup> Jubilee Celebration confesses she doesn\u2019t even have a Marley album in her collection.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tanya Stephens is coming to town, much to the delight of reggae fans (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that\u2019s okay: she\u2019s always done things her own way. Unlike most of Jamaica\u2019s iconic musicians, Stephens didn\u2019t come from Kingston. Instead, she hails from the countryside on the northern coast of Jamaica, where the music scene was very scarce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only form of live music I was exposed to in my upbringing was at my town square on the weekends,\u201d explains Stephens.<\/p>\n

Stephens\u2019 style of dancehall is unlike that of most women in Jamaican reggae. She raps and sings her self-composed lyrics for her solo tracks, which cover a huge variety of styles and topics such as politics, love, and social dysfunction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never really had any direct musical influences,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I could even compare my style to anyone else\u2019s considering it\u2019s a huge mish-mash of everything I\u2019ve been exposed to in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephens is currently working on a book that she\u2019s been cooking up for a while now. She explains that her albums are also a form of storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I write my albums I mix things up so there is something for everyone to connect to on a personal level,\u201d she says. \u201cI use my music as a platform for discussion because there are many topics that are still considered taboo which we need to embrace in order to try to solve the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephens believes it\u2019s a lack of communication that perpetuates a lot of the world\u2019s problems and says her music can be a catalyst to come up with solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time I still try to keep some tracks more lighthearted and coat problems with humour so we can all just laugh at ourselves and not take everything too seriously,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Stephens was able to keep her humour recently when she fell while performing in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I fell, I started laughing at myself and decided to stay laying down,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone else laughed as well, and it was a good way to turn something that could be embarrassing into something really funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tanya Stephens<\/strong>
\nThursday, \u00a0February 9
\nClub 9ONE9
\nvictoriaskafest.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dancehall veteran Tanya Stephens appreciates the iconic affect Bob Marley has on Jamaica\u2019s arts and culture, there\u2019s no doubt about that. But the Jamaican headliner of the upcoming Bob Marley\u2019s 67th Jubilee Celebration confesses she doesn\u2019t even have a Marley album in her collection. But that\u2019s okay: she\u2019s always done things her own way. Unlike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-8-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2291,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions\/2291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}