Gillian Moore

Ari­api­ta Av­enue was the place to be af­ter 9 pm on Jan­u­ary 21, as 3Canal's video shoot turned in­to a side­walk par­ty. Fans an­swered the call to be part of the rap­so trio's video for their new song, I Am. Hun­dreds turned out to 3Canal head­quar­ters, down­stairs the pop­u­lar Veni Mange restau­rant on Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Wood­brook, to see the singers, backed by their band, Cut+Clear, as cam­eras record­ed live takes of the song be­ing per­formed. The video shoot was di­rect­ed by Walt Lovelace, who has made icon­ic 3Canal video clas­sics like Blue, Mud Mad­ness and Hap­py Song. Lovelace and the sup­port­ing cam­era crew were seen mak­ing their way through the en­thu­si­as­tic crowd, cap­tur­ing scenes of rev­el­ry. In ad­di­tion to some five en­er­getic takes of I Am, the band de­liv­ered pre­vi­ous hits like Boom Up His­to­ry and Blue, as well as oth­er new mu­sic for 2011: Over Me, a sweet J'Ou­vert lavwey; Run de Rhythm; and, Af­ter the Bat­tle, which deals with the Ude­cott scan­dal. Spir­its were high as the au­di­ence was vis­i­bly ex­hil­a­rat­ed by the mu­sic. They made mer­ry and danced along to the band-and to the DJ sounds af­ter the set end­ed.

15 years of mu­sic

In an in­ter­view af­ter the show, Man­war­ren said this year, 3Canal marks 15 years in mu­sic and 18 years in J'Ou­vert mas. He said the ex­cit­ing vibe of the band's new mu­sic had been in­spired in part by their new pro­duc­ers Shaft, and Cut+Clear mem­ber Ke­shav Singh. Za­ck Esau and Samuel Jack en­gi­neered the songs over a month at Stu­dio Ex­press. "The chal­lenge is: how do you re­main rel­e­vant in this ever-chang­ing game?" he said. He said 3Canal had suc­ceed­ed by en­gag­ing their cre­ativ­i­ty "on their own terms."