We don’t get report cards or mid-term grades at Rootfire, but five weeks into our new project, we do have some ways to score how things are going. We look at the analytics to see if stories are getting read and if people are sharing them. We pay attention to the types of conversations that the folks around us are having, listen to where they think we fit into the scene and try to understand how they explain what Rootfire is. But mostly we are still just pushing hard to turn this project into what we know it can be, which is the heart of the progressive reggae movement.

Going into this weekend, my biggest takeaways is that we can do this, because good things are already happening. We have some of our favorite musicians writing meaningful stories from the artist’s point of view. We are debuting songs that influence fans of reggae and make new ones. We are providing the context for the music that we think deserves to be heard, to shape the tastes of the youth and earn the respect of the elders dominating the scene.

It’s not that we are hitting perfect scores, or that we have made this thing what we want it to be yet, but with your support we’ve already had some amazing moments that we only imagined were possible when we launched this thing. This week we redesigned the Rootfire.net mobile experience, released a hot single from Collie Buddz, and stayed up all night talking shop with the Easy Star family in NYC, not to mention continuing to publish some killer stories, photos, and artwork. Can’t wait to see what’s in store next week. If there’s something you want to see, please drop me a line.

Root down, live up!