(para-phrased from a 2003, New York newspaper article) - dJ FidEL CAN NOT.. If you dont know the story, here is your lesson: Back in the eighties, when Hip-Hop mixtapes were taking off in New York City, USA, Italian and African promoters, and street-vendors already had good Hip-Hop DJs like DJ Clue, Kid Capri and Funkmaster Flex on mixtapes but they needed good reggae mixes to go with their DJ Clu
e mixtapes. These promoters searched AND LISTENED TO EVERY SOUND/SET IN JAMAICA-- the Jamaican sound systems had the tunes, but no sound system was mixing the tunes properly. The promoters then searched American DJs-- these DJs were mixing properly, but they had no tunes and no knowledge of Reggae music. Everyone recognized DJ Fidel's amazing mixing and blending skills, along with his knowledge of crowd pleasing, so these people recorded his parties and sold the cassettes in the streets. Vendors ALL OVER THE WORLD would then make personal copies of these recordings by the BILLIONS, (that’s Billions… with a ‘B’) and sell them in practically EVERY COUNTRY ON PLANET EARTH… from Zimbabwe, to Germany; from Tokyo to Bermuda, with dJ FidEL getting ABSOLUTELY NO money from it. Then came modernization and the cd boom as the entire music world was going from cassette-tape to cd, and therefore, the vendors burned all their mixtape-parties on to cd. So, although DJ Fidel had no knowledge of it, or no control over it, he was indeed the first reggae selecta on the first reggae mix cd ever, in the world. He has been receiving awards for "Number One Reggae DJ" every single year since. He has won the Justo mix award- “number one reggae mix”, back to back, and he is the selecta on the number one reggae mix cd on the street, every month, for 12 years. DJ Fidel has been personally responsible for ‘blowing up’ every major reggae hit song after 1997. From Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” to Sean Paul’s “Gimme The Light” to No Doubt’s “Underneath It All” (among countless other hits from other artists), by constantly rinsing them on tour and including them in his critically acclaimed official mixes. Even to this day, the biggest record companies in the world eagerly send DJ Fidel pre-release music from all their artists, from Jay-Z To Michael Jackson, pleading and begging DJ Fidel to include these records in his mixes. DJ Fidel retired just after the millennium because he was fed up. He was fed up of ignorant, illiterate, third world people who did not understand. He was ahead of his time; they could not keep up with his genius and they started to bother him. You see, back when the entire world was going from cassette-tape to cd, a certain simple-minded Jamaican, who knew nothing about music, along with his friend who was a farmer by trade, (from the country-side in Jamaica) were just about getting ready to try their luck at producing a one-time record. They heard that the very wack and boring song they put out, was on a mix-cd but they did not understand what a mix cd was. They thought that people were selling their actual song. They did not know that it was just a few seconds of the song. They did not know that it was a live party juggling, mixed in with 50 other songs. They thought their song was on a real album cd, and having a song on a cd was like BIG TIME to them because they were used to cassettes and maybe vinyl. They did not understand that a mix-cd is a live performance of a selecta or dj, skillfully blending approximately EIGHTY (80) songs within a sixty (60) minute time frame, displaying and showcasing his talent and knowledge of the Reggae genre, while constantly talking and adding drops over the music. They did not understand that a mix cd only plays each song for an average of ten to forty-five (10 to 45) seconds, in such a mesmerizing way, that the listener just simply cannot press “stop”. . . leading to the average listener playing it over and over. (Can someone say promotion?) They did not understand that a mix-cd is not an album. They did not understand that mix-cds were promoting artistes and producers because each song is played for a short time and it basically teases the audience and advertises the record so that the public can go to a store and buy the real actual official record. Let me give you an idea of the amazing and massive impact that this guy, dJ FidEL has had on Reggae music and the immense, colossal impact that dJ FidEL has had on all other Reggae DJs coming up: Before dJ FidEL, no other Reggae D.J. used “DJ” in their name. It was always a sound system, and then a list of nick-names of the 3 to 9 selectas that play on the set. For example: Stone Love sound with Weepow, Rory and Cancer… or Body Guard Sound with so on… or Killamanjaro with Mr so and so. “It used to be a difficult challenge when I meet a thousand people and all one-thousand of them would ask me, every time: ‘oh, so you are a DJ like Shabba Ranks?’ or ‘Oh so you sing Reggae like Yellowman?’… … … You see, this DJ thing in front of the selector’s name was weird to Jamaicans. It was different and strange because Jamaicans refer to artists who rap or chant Patois on Reggae beats as ‘Deejays’ or ‘DJ’s’, and the people who play music at parties, they call them ‘selectors’. Very, very, very, very rarely, and I mean one in a million Jamaicans, would think of a radio disc jock as a DJ but it wasn’t spoken out, and this uncanny thought would probably occur once every 2 years… so whenever they would ask me if I am a DJ like Shabba or Yellowman, i would always respond to them by saying I am a Disc Jock”. Currently the UNDISPUTED KING of the reggae-mix-cd world, a title held for many years, with over 600 different mixes on the streets, DJ Fidel is on the final leg of an extensive international tour, playing major venues only. He has just completed two revolutionary reggae mix cds for two major U.S. record labels. We still marvel at his modesty and humbleness. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, his love for music was evident at the very beginning. One birthday, his mom gave him the choice between a $30 cassette deck and $150 pair of sneakers, and he chose the cassette deck! As a pre-teen, Andre dJ FidEL Campbell appeared on Jamaican National TV a few times with Jamaica’s honoured folklore, the iconic Dr Louise Bennett M.B.E., OM, OJ otherwise known as “Miss Lou”, Jamaica’s cultural ambassador, in the infamous, notorious and popular RING DING. He represented his local church at two different educational/academic “quiz events” and placed first on both occasions. At eleven years old, he sang, performed and recorded a radio commercial for D&G Soft-drinks who was and still is Jamaica's most prominent bottlers of soft-drinks/soda; he was paid $50. He wanted to go further but his family was very strict about him finishing school before taking up music. He graduated High School at 15 years old and moved to New York. One day he saw a vendor on the street, selling a recording of an experimental mix he had made back in Jamaica, when he was about 12 years old; a mix that he had given to his friend who at that time, was migrating to New York! dJ FidEL was amazed by this. He started DJ-ing at a very small club in Bushwick, two blocks from where he used to live. He then m.c.’d for a while, when he met and started touring with KRS-1/Nervous/Weeded recording artist Mad Lion, as professional concert / tour D.J. The mix cd thing was taking off and so he decided to stick with his mixes to see where it would take him. But for every tape that DJ Fidel made, street vendors would illegally reproduce approximately 15,000,000 copies with absolutely no money whatsoever coming to DJ Fidel. Needless to say, this was frustrating. Through Lyndon Brown, Fidel then accepted a job as sole Radio DJ on the only radio station then, in New York, dedicated to Reggae: WRTN 93.5fm. The program was called “Caribbean Dancehall”, but with no car, and little money, the commute from Brooklyn to New Rochelle started to take its toll. It was now the early nineties, and DJ Fidel was unbelievably famous for his number one mix cds, and he was winning awards back to back while still doing parties out of state and a few ones out of the country. He was contacted by DJ Yonnie. Yonnie had just left popular New York club sound “Road International”, and was looking to branch out on his own. He invited DJ Fidel to provide and play records as a DJ, (selecta in Jamaican dialect), with DJ Yonnie and the Ruff Kutt Krew, playing all the major clubs in New York. He reluctantly agreed. This only lasted two (1) month, as the sound system boasted nine (9) members, and money was tight. DJ Fidel felt lost in the crowd. He knew that he was worth much more. There was never any animosity whatsoever, no hard feelings, nothing like that, and even to this day, Fidel and Yonnie still remain great friends. Fidel wanted more. In 1997, Fidel met Tony (a man who referred to himself as “Rich Kid TC”) and accepted an offer as ace D.J. (“main selecta” in Jamaican patois) with the T.C.Connection (doing all the work, all alone), providing/using his own records, and playing major night clubs all around New York, from Liguanea to Act III, from Callalloo to the Q.Club … all night, under terms where he would maintain his identity, in “DJ FIDEL and the T.C.Connection”. DJ Fidel’s mix cds were becoming even more popular, but the money from the nightclubs stayed the same. This lasted only two (2) months and this was the last time that DJ Fidel would play on a ‘sound’. It was 1998, and the awards continued to roll in. EVERY MAJOR SOUND SYSTEM FROM JAMAICA TO ZIMBABWE AND ALL OVER THE WORLD, WANTED HIM TO BE ON THEIR SOUND, AND SOME OFFERED HIM RIDICULOUS MONEY, but he turned them down. Anyway, so many offers were coming in for DJ Fidel himself, to do major events by himself, that DJ Fidel was booked solid for parties all around the world for the next four years! He refused to do local New York clubs, as he said that they were very cheap, and playing alongside these hundreds of selectors with no talent, would just demean and belittle his image. “I am on a higher level” he commented in a 1999 Zimbabwe T.V. Interview … “The sound clashes in Jamaica and in the ethnic markets like New York, etc., is not for me. I am in a higher class. All these sound clashes do is prove which selecta or which sound have the most money. That’s it! It’s the sound with the most dub plates and the wickeddes dub plates that wins the clash right? And they proclaim this sound to be the best sound, and the ‘wickedest’ sound, and the number one sound right? But all it takes to get these dub plates is money right? Sometime you can also just get a man that can trace and love to argue and cuss, and you win the clash right? I don’t have to prove that I have money. I have skills, and I am on a bigger stage. Look, Jamaicans record and put out reggae, but Jamaicans actually purchase a very, very, very, very small percentage of reggae music worldwide. Jamaicans are getting cable TV from the U.S. now and they are wearing more sneakers and jeans with basketball jerseys, they have stopped wearing the ‘roach-killers’ and linen and sequins, right? They are slowly emulating and understanding certain things … maybe the average dancehall fan in Jamaica will realize and understand the qualities of a mix by about the year 2004. Don’t get me wrong I am not, and I will never, ever talk bad about Jamaica. I love Jamaica to my heart and soul, but I was just explaining why I turn down a lot of ethnic shows.” DJ Fidel forever. Everlasting; ‘til Shiloh. --UPDATE: DJ FIDEL RETIRED JUST AFTER THE MILLENNIUM, BEFORE HE WAS EVEN 30 YEARS OLD! [email protected]
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another award for dJ FideL
