It was an icy wicked wind blowing outside Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts that Saturday night, but inside that auditorium a tropical spirit was warming up the crowd. Brave fans withstood subzero temperatures to bask in the glow and smooth sounds of Mr. Big Ship himself! We were first treated to electric sounds of his Millennium Band followed up by his daughter, and background vocalist, who gave us a new take on some of Marcia Griffith’s hits. Then as the MC promised the next voice we heard was Freddie hailing us from the wings.

This forty year veteran performer ripped up the show. Without running up and down or screaming jumbled lyrics, he had the whole place swaying to his big tunes like, “Push Come To Shove”, “Loving Pauper”, “Winner”, and, of course, “Big Ship”. Then he killed it when he sat on the edge of the stage for a ladies-only serenade which included, my personal favorite, “I’ll Wait for You”!! The crowd cried out for more Freddie and did he give it to us. He gave up with a fitting tribute to his brother beyond the wall, Dennis Brown, leading the auditorium like a chorus in “Here I Come”! The whole place was on their feet chanting and dancing as he showed his international versatility performing an entire song in Japanese followed by the infamous “Guantanamera” in español! It was a truly awesome event put on by one of Reggae’s true hit makers.

After the concert CV had a chance to sit down with this incredibly humble icon and talk a little bit about his strong commitment to our massive Reggae catalog. When asked to expand on comments about dancehall music’s lyrical content, he had this to say:

“Unfortunately, I do blame the media because when people make lewd records, the sound system people not supposed to play it, the radio not supposed to play it, the nightclub people not supposed to play it, the newspaper people not supposed to write about it, and this is what we are faced with today. A lot of people who are in media today are younger people. They understand from Beenie Man and upwards. They don’t understand what was before. If you have a country and you don’t understand your country’s history then you are lost. I consider them some lost people. Since the death of Bob Marley everybody is jostling to become the next big person, but it doesn’t work like that, for except the Lord build the house, they that labor, labor in vain. A lot of youths come up today and if a song gets played a couple times on the radio and the on the video show, you become a superstar. But that’s not how it is – you have to earn it. Bob Marley earned it, Dennis Brown earned it, Beres Hammond earned it, people like myself who have done 40 years…. So it really does affect us when we see things gone wrong. Sean Paul, we applaud him, he’s one of the Jamaican youth in this who has come through and keeps it decent and he sold over 3 million records. Shaggy do the same thing. No lewd lyrics and don’t have to use curse words, beautiful music and the world buy it; and that is what we need to do. I don’t know, we always say we hope we will be an example to them, but somehow they don’t follow. [laughs] I guess we’ll have to keep trying.”