I’ve been in love with hip-hop since I was eight years old. I’ve been in love with reggae nearly as long. But the words I’ve written about the former outnumber the words I’ve written about the latter by two orders of magnitude. Maybe three.

Most of that is due to cultural prominence. Hip-hop being the dominant engine of pop culture gave me plenty to write about, and plenty of places to do it. Hell, it gave me a career: My very very very first clips were artist profiles in Paper and a book review of Douglas Century’s Street Kingdom. Reggae, though? That was the exception, not the rule. (One of those exceptions being this piece from [gulp] 2003¹.)

I still love hip-hop. Always will. I keep up with it as well as I can, try not to yell at clouds too much. The thing is, it doesn’t hold many rabbit holes for me. How could it? I was there the whole time. It’s my security blanket, my Madeleine.

But with reggae, there’s always a new trail of breadcrumbs, a new thrill of discovery. Fifty-plus years of interconnection, innovation, creation. I wanted to find a way to share that thrill. And so: CHUNE.

It’s not much. A little subdomain to this site that posts a song every day. Mostly dancehall. Some roots. Some lover’s rock. A little history mixed in there, because how could there not be? Whether you’re a deep fan or you’ve never listened to anything that wasn’t by Bob Marley, I hope there’ll be something for you in there. A surprise. A connection. A tune you can’t get out of your head. Some breadcrumbs for you to follow, just like I’ve followed them over the years and decades.

I hope you enjoy it. I know I enjoy making it.

1. Disregard, if you will, the apostrophe in the word “ting.” Not my choice. ↩︎