Black Santino is about the most celebrated reggae music presenter on radio any day. After eleven years of pushing reggae music, he might not be able to say it’s the most commercially viable genre for local acts but what is evident is that he has been able to create a large following for the genre that is constantly growing.

Santino (real name: Nii Ayitey Okine) has become a godfather of reggae music radio besides the fact that he also runs the biggest reggae night partying show that has come to have a large expatriate fan base in the last three years.

What has always been great about his show is the amazing diversity of reggae sub- genres he surprises his audience with.

From roots & culture to soca and dancehall, Santino has represented the full spectrum of Caribbean music and stayed true to the grassroots from whence it came, always serving its core audience first, moving swiftly to keep up with the sounds of the street.

Vibe FM has been his ‘home’ all this while, transmitting to the world and everybody within reach of his voice.

Reggae is a broad term encompassing a related variety of musical styles that emerged from the island nation of Jamaica after 1960. These styles include ska, rock steady, reggae, and dancehall, all of which swept Jamaican music in distinct stylistic waves, one after the other, during the 1960S and 197oS. Musically, these styles share a common loping rhythm that accents the subsidiary beat.

It can be seen as merely another great Caribbean rhythm, but at the same time many of its songs have highly political overtones. Since its arrival on the world scene after 1960, reggae and its associated styles have become immensely popular around the world.

If you can create that one special format that sets you apart then you will be a legend and Santino wants to at least leave his generation with something to remember him for. But it hasn’t always been this good. He thinks the genre still has a lot of ground to cover where this country is concerned; especially when people still associate the sound with weed.

“People always associate reggae with weed, when you listen to reggae you automatically fit into a module that presupposes that you smoke marijuana. So there is a lot of prejudicial assessment of the genre and the people behind it.

It’s really tough doing reggae shows because most of the time getting sponsorship for such shows is just impossible. They don’t even want to know. I started a very serious crusade back in the day and now people don’t have those perceptions in their minds like before.

Everybody listens to reggae these days, in the listening to Lucy Banini on GBC radio growing up, for him the intrigue lay in the fact that a woman was playing songs that were more or less considered macho in those days.

He still has recordings of her shows in his archives “Lucy was the first person I remember, playing reggae music then. It was so different. Samson Quinn took over later and is still remembered as one of the few people in his time who fed a lingering thirst for reggae.

It took a long time for people to accept it but somehow it broke through the resistance. “I tell my friends people like us are pioneers, and pioneers don’t make a lot of money,” he says. “You might get a little bit of money and a lot of fame but what we are doing now is mainly sacrificial.”

Until recently, Santino was operating an adapted version of the Reggae Sun Splash at the La Pleasure Beach on Wednesday nights. It was a place reggae music lovers would gather to hear pre album releases and local reggae artists.

His landlords suddenly decided to take over the show and it has gradually sunk into the shoreline that covers it. Santino and his crew have since moved to a new location close to Coco beach to start all over again. Does he feel robbed? Apparently he doesn’t.

‘Sometimes people think they can just get up and take over other people’s work,” he says. “I’m not really bothered because we are going to work this new place the same way we did to La Beach and it will certainly take off.”

Whatever happens, Black Santino still remains one of radio’s most influential reggae presenters reaching out to his audience through music and he is not about to quit.

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