Sister Carol teams with daughter for collaborative album
MMS: Millennium Movie Star Album, a compilation of songs on the revamped rhythm first recorded at Studio One during the 1960s, will be released on January 14.
The set, which has Sister Carol and her daughter Nakeeba Amaniyea as performers and executive producers, contains 14 songs. Their track, Be Alone, was released in September.
“It feels amazing to get this album out and into the hands of the people. This is a tremendous achievement for our family and for myself. To be able to collaborate with my daughter and ‘womanifest’ our collective vision has been a phenomenal experience,” Sister Carol told the Jamaica Observer.
Several of the acts on ‘Millennium Movie Star’ are Sister Carol’s contemporaries. They include Sister Nancy, Sammy Dread, Lady Ann, Lady G and Michael Palmer. Other veterans on the project are Marcia Aitken and Glen Washington, with the new wave of acts represented by Hempress Sativa, Empress TreJah and Tilly Beng.
Empress TreJah’s contribution to the album is a cover of Consider Me, originally done by Jennifer Lara for Studio One in 1980. That song was particularly popular in Twelve Tribes of Israel circles.
“Jennifer Lara’s Consider Me is like an anthem and classic for all music lovers so it’s quite imperative to re-introduce it to this generation as a part of this production,” said Sister Carol.
Sister Carol, whose given name is Carol East, was born in Kingston but grew up in Brooklyn, New York during the 1970s. She cut her musical teeth there on the sound system circuit as well as in neighbouring boroughs of Queens and The Bronx.
During the 1980s and 1990s, she released a series of well-received albums on American labels such as RAS Records and Heartbeat Records. The latter released her 1996 album, Lyrically Potent, which was nominated for the 1997 Best Reggae Album Grammy Award.