/ honouring the goodness and bawdness of jamaican music culture

/ honouring the goodness and bawdness of jamaican music culture

A portrait of Tasha Rozez taken by Jorian Charlton. Tasha has medium-brown skin and a blunt bob cut with bangs and straight dark brown hair. Tasha is positioned in the centre of the frame, captured from the chest up, standing in front of a tall stack

  • A portrait of Tasha Rozez taken by Jorian Charlton. Tasha has medium-brown skin and a blunt bob cut with bangs and straight dark brown hair. Tasha is positioned in the centre of the frame, captured from the chest up, standing in front of a tall stack of large black speakers cast in a red hue. She is wearing a sleeveless dress with a red, green and beige pattern, gold earrings, and a gold necklace. She has a tattoo of the Scorpio astrological symbol on her right shoulder. Tasha’s head is slightly tilted as she looks down towards the camera. To the top right of the frame is the ceiling of a white industrial-style space.

“You swear you’re a real Jamaican up here, but you go down there, and your relatives are telling you, ‘yuh nuh know nothing.’”

TASHA ROZEZ

SOUNDSYSTEM Hailed as the first-ever female sound clash champion, Gunz’N’Rozez has been active for over 20 years thanks to her vied for trove of dubplates from reggae and dancehall artists like TK and Vybz Kartel. 

HOMETOWN(S) Clarendon, JA/Scarborough, ON

SET UP Rozez is adamant that a soundsystem would be nothing without speaker boxes. “At least have one rack,” says the soundclash veteran, who has toured in Europe, North America and Asia. “Cause if you’re supposed to take your sound on the road, how is it gonna play? Right, we’re just DJs with our computers and our thing. But our real soundsystem can go pon the road and string up and turn on beep, and everybody can hear you.”

RWD << “I would have to big up my good friend, Ron Nelson,” says Rozez, namechecking the legendary Toronto DJ and CKLN 88.1fm Fantastic Voyage radio host. “He kept sound system clashes with 20, 50, and 30 sounds. You were hearing about sounds you never heard of, and that was the point, right? To let people know that this is real.”

FWD >> “Big up Nino Brown, big up.”

INSTAGRAM @itstasharozez

Image description: A portrait of Tasha Rozez. Tasha has medium-brown skin and a blunt bob cut with bangs and straight dark brown hair. Tasha sits on top of a tall stack of black speakerboxes, with her legs stretched straight out across the top of the
A flash photograph of three Black women standing together on pavement outside of a cream and orange building at night. Each of the women are wearing all-white outfits and sandals. The women to the left and right of the frame have dark-brown hair tied

    1. A flash photograph of three Black women standing together on pavement outside of a cream and orange building at night. Each of the women are wearing all-white outfits and sandals. The women to the left and right of the frame have dark-brown hair tied up on their head while the woman in the centre has a short blonde wavy bob. All three women smile and look straight towards the camera. A small crowd of people socialize behind them.

    2. A portrait of Tasha Rozez. Tasha has medium-brown skin and a blunt bob cut with bangs and straight dark brown hair. Tasha sits on top of a tall stack of black speakerboxes, with her legs stretched straight out across the top of the speakers, and her left hand resting further back. She holds her right up to her mouth with her pinky and pointer finger on either side of her face with her tongue stretched out in between. She is wearing a sleeveless dress with a red, green and beige pattern, gold earrings, and a gold necklace. She has a tattoo of the Scorpio astrological symbol on her right shoulder. In the photograph, her daughter takes a photo of her on her phone. She is wearing a black puffer jacket and has her hair pulled in a bun. At the top of the frame is the ceiling of a white industrial-style space with pink and yellow hue cast.