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- Happy Birthday NITV shot…
Screening from the 3rd January 2009 on NITV channel 180 or FREE to air Digital channel 40. Catch the Indigenous perspective on world music in Sydney.
NITV – Roots Music program schedule:
Saturday nights 10pm, Sunday repeats 9:30am, 1:30pm & 5:30pm
Watch snippets from the series:
www.onyxmanagementgroup.com
I started out with a pd150 mini DV camera and one volunteer, Delton Aneato. Creating interest in the community I started to delve into friends and family stories of their achievements and the stereotypes that society would assume of them asking questions like “how did they cope” letting people know they are not alone giving a sense of community.
After some time I realized that a lot of the best footage shot was at cultural events within a broad range of communities and with culture came an abundance of story-telling within music. Live music was next on the agenda but not without my next business partner Nick Rodney who I met at a reggae concert – Third World, in fact.
Nick had an amazing story; he came to Australia to participate in the development and upgrade of the nation’s railway system.
Nick is Indigenous to Jamaica with soft dread locks and broad English accent, not what you would expect from a railway engineer in such a conservative arena.
Nick has a great awareness and understanding of grass roots community, with a splash of rum and coke!!
Together we started to pursue the live music scene where the Onyx vision took on yet another program pitch titled “Live in Sydney” In our research we discovered that there is an abundance of live band roots music FREE entry venues.
Creating momentum our selection criteria to work on the crew was enthusiasm & consistency, within the community we recruited volunteers from all walks of life, a crew of ten or more all keen to multi skill and learn the different roles of production.
Our thinking behind the production was to work out a template that could sustain the diversity and availability of different crew we had access to. We sought advice from industry professionals and with Nick’s guidance we refined our template for the program now titled “Roots Music”.
The music program was pitched to several mainstream stations which included National Indigenous Television’s commissioning editor Tanya Denning who seized the opportunity along with her love for live band music providing Onyx the platform to broadcast on a national scale.
Roots Music sought two of Indigenous Australia’s more prominent radio producers to launch the current program that reflects an era of explicit music which is the foundation of modern day songs.
Roots showcases some of Sydney’s finest grass roots talent that have graced the stage with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Barry White, James Brown, Bob Marley, Red Hot Chillie Peppers , Jimmy Little and many more. Our first episode is a tribute to the great James Brown by an artist considered as the pioneer of soul in Australia – Doug Williams.
Proudly presented and critiqued by SBS Radio’s Aboriginal Program producer – Lola Forester & VIBE Australia & Gadigal Radio’s, boxing program presenter of “The Sweet Science” – Claude Williams. These two wonderful Indigenous radio presenters share their years of knowledge and world musical experience throughout this series giving an Indigenous perspective on their undying passion, live band music.
A dedication to the hard working artists / musicians that bring so much joy to our lives….”Thanks in keeping it live”
