Mardi Gras arrives around the moment winter starts to feel long, a party to remind us of what it feels like when the good times roll and a happy release before Lent, the old Christian countdown of the dark hours before dawn.… Read More
Rootfire is based in Charlottesville, which is a little-bitty college town in the center of the state of Virginia. Not exactly a spot known for its reggae past, but the reggae future is pretty sunny. Let’s talk about the present for a moment, shall we?… Read More… Read More
On my 30th birthday, a friend of mine gave me a black t-shirt with a picture of Bob Marley playing soccer on the front and the slogan “Free Bob!” printed over top of it. He had written a story for Slate with that title, but I didn’t know… Read More
In high school I had a friend, two years older than me, who had Judah’s Lion tattooed on his arm. In D.C. that meant Bad Brains and to me it was cooler than cool. Never mind he was a star soccer player, had a hot girlfriend, and drove a… Read More
A Nigerian political dissident working in Austria. A Jewish bike messenger from Long Island. A fashion designer in Manhattan who grew up in a Durban township. A writer from an apple farm in Western Massachusetts. An Oglala Lakota painter raised on the Rez in South Dakota.… Read… Read More
This is an introduction. For I and you. I first met Seth Herman in a building called the Pink Warehouse, which houses the Rootfire office, and our friendship is the true result of good ingredients: soccer, music, and writing. When I moved to Charlottesville to run a newspaper, I… Read More
