Papa Rosko's newly released song and accompanying music video "NooZies" is a critical look at the news media landscape in the United States. Taking the lead from news stations Papa Rosko's new video display's gratuitous amounts of splashy images and clips comparing news media to entertainment machines. The music video and single is off Papa Rosko's self-titled debut album out now.
Watch the video!
The new video first debuted with Tattoo.com who said, ""NooZies" opens on a cool drum shuffle rolling into searing guitar licks riding a fat, popping bassline. The melody interlaces flavors of country, rock, and reggae with chanting, rap-lite vocals backed by reggae-laced harmonies, imbuing the lyrics with chiding redress. Following the bridge, a deliciously braying saxophone wails with gusto, injecting the harmonics with burnished zest...The video is a trip, depicting the exploitative agenda of news programs and reporters, who inflate, distort, and amplify the news to gargantuan dimensions, playing on the fear and anxiety of their viewers..."NooZies" confronts the news media, challenging them to convey the facts rather than inflammatory innuendo, and does it with potent, swashbuckling music"
When asked about the song, Papa Rosko said, "I actually wrote this song about ten years ago. The lyrics have nothing to do with the coronavirus. But just like Don Henley's media-bashing song "Dirty Laundry" still rings true thirty-eight years after release, I think "NooZies" easily holds true ten years after I wrote it."
Papa Rosko continued, ""NooZies" is an apolitical song about those in the news media who don't adhere to the standards to which we believe they should...which is almost all of them. Truth of the matter is, few of them ever have. They just have always given themselves positive press. The news business is every bit as corrupt as politics, the only real difference; the people in politics are uglier."
"The video is where I tied "NooZies" into what is going on today, right now, regarding the news media industrial complex and this incredible threat to the planet. While the lyrics don't address the coronavirus, there is an abundance of visual imagery tying the song to the pandemic. I used some of the tricks and tools of the trade of the TV news biz in getting and keeping attention in this video: sensationalism, "BREAKING NEWS" headlines, live reporter graphics on-screen, multiple graphic sub-headlines, sub-sub-headines and scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen. And of course, gratuitous amounts of splashy images and clips...just like the NooZies do," recalls Papa Rosko.
For Papa Rosko, ""NooZies" isn't about left vs right, liberal vs conservative, Republican vs Democrat or CNN/MSNBC vs FoxNews. The news media, in whatever format, has been doing this since Mark Twain wrote back in 1885, "If you don't read the newspapers you are uninformed; if you do read the newspapers you are misinformed"."
On his debut album, "NooZies" is one of the many diverse songs where Papa Rosko delivers a timely, relevant and heartfelt genre-bending body of work, fusing elements of rock, pop, alternative, Latin, and country music into a seamless reggae sound. The new album debuted at #2 on Amazon's Reggae Chart, #3 on the Nielsen Soundscan US Current Reggae Albums chart, #5 on iTunes Reggae Chart, and is currently in rotation coast to coast in the U.S. with five songs playing on 66 radio stations in 19 countries on 5 continents! It also includes feature collaborations with the reggae legends Third World lead vocalist AJ Brown, the late Toots Hibbert of Toots & the Maytals, and dancehall and reggae star Gyptian. Papa Rosko is out now and available here: www.paparosko.com.
