Australia’s coolest festival, Raggamuffin, is only a month away! Nationally in its fourth year – 2011 marks the inaugural Ragamuffin event for Adelaide (February 2nd – Memorial Drive).
With a line up including the queen of R&B, Mary J. Blige, the consummate master of coolness, Jimmy Cliff, plus R&B/reggae icon, Maxi Priest, hip-hop reggae king, Sean Paul, Bob Marley’s “The Original Wailers”, KY-Mani Marley, The Black Seeds, & The Red Eyes, Raggamuffin on February 2 is a date to put in your diary!
“I’m really proud of the 2011 Raggamuffin line up this year, It’s a superstar bill with an amazing array of talent – it will be a little like Womad with a reggae/R&B slant,” says promoter, Andrew McManus.
“2011 is our fourth year – each event gets bigger and better and we’re thrilled to be able to bring it to Adelaide this time. We know Adelaide loves festivals, we know Adelaide people love R&B and soul music and we know from the success of Womad in past years, they love reggae… The Raggamuffin festival is always a lot of fun and the fans walk away feeling uplifted and inspired.”
The 2011 line up for Raggamuffin includes:
Mary J. Blige – 9 Grammy Awards, 50 million albums and 15 million singles sales; collaborations with everyone from Jay Z, Wycliff Jean, Bono, Maroon 5 and Patti Labelle to Andrea Bocelli and Sinead O’Connor. Mary J credits Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin as influences – there’s not many artists in the world with the talent or credentials of Mary J. Blige.
The legendary Jimmy Cliff, last in Adelaide for Womad 2006 is probably best known for his tracks “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” and “Many Rivers to Cross” from the soundtrack to The Harder They Come, which helped popularise reggae across the world, and his covers of Cat Stevens’ ” Wild World” and Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” from the film Cool Runnings. Jimmy Cliff was one of five performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Maxi Priest is one of the most successful reggae fusion (reggae with an R&B/pop flavour) acts of all time – best known for his #1 hit “Close to You” and Top 20 “That Girl”.
Sean Paul – Grammy Award winner, American Music Award winner and recent Soul Train Award winner, Sean Paul is one of the most in demand artists going with collaborations featuring everyone from Beyonce to Rihanna and Ziggy Marley.
In addition, over the last four decades, Bob Marley & The Wailers have sold more than 400 million albums. Today, three legendary Wailers have reformed to create The Original Wailers, who will perform at Raggamuffin in 2011. Ky-Mani Marley, son of Bob Marley, will also perform at Raggamuffin in 2011. Following in his father’s musical footsteps, Ky-Mani Marley continues on with the pop-reggae sound for which his family is famous for and has developed a huge following on the reggae charts.
New Zealand band, The Black Seeds, have achieved two double-platinum selling albums and with a masterful 8-piece live show, are looking forward to performing at Raggamuffin in 2011.
Melbourne band, The Red Eyes, continue to wow audiences with their unique sound, combining masterfully produced beats, soulful, heartfelt lyrics and grooves with shake-the-house dub rhythms that have set a benchmark for Australian dub/reggae. MC/DJ will be DJ Nino Brown.
Raggamuffin will be held at Adelaide Memorial Drive on Wednesday 2 February.
Tickets available at www.venuetix.com.au
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