“REGGAE is a music of love, a music of teaching people how live amongst each other from the earliest days. It’s a spiritual thing. Reggae music is almost like gospel music,” said Lloyd ‘Bread’ McDonald of the reggae group Wailing Souls.

In an interview with the website www.tahoedailytribune.com, the reggae veteran spoke about the future of reggae music, the use of musical technology among other topics.

Lloyd ‘Bread’ McDonald (left) and Winston ‘Pipe’ Matthews of Wailing Souls.

According to the entertainer, the future of reggae is very promising and safe.

“I think the future is very great. Most of the time people are getting exposed that are not really doing the right work. These people aren’t all that talented. You have a lot of youth that are coming up out of Jamaica now. But they’re not getting that exposure for some reason or the other,” McDonald said.

McDonald partially blames the use of payola for some of the poor productions that the genre has to offer.

“Money is good and bad. The deejays that spin the records in most places in the world have to be getting money. Sometimes these record companies will pay these deejays to play their artists’ records whether it’s good or not. If a record is not good and you keep hearing it, hearing it, hearing it then it grows on you. A lot of that happens today,” he stated.

He added that as a result a lot of good talent including the group, doesn’t get the exposure they deserve.

The Wailing Souls is one of reggae’s longest running band, which dates back to the 1960s. McDonald and Winston “Pipe” Matthews are currently the group’s constant members. Among the past members are George “Buddy” Haye, Oswald Downer, Norman Davis, Ziggy Thomas, and Joe Higgs. The group has released over 25 albums and remains as one of reggae’s most constant touring group. Among some of their hits are Stalk a Sensimenia, Baby Come Back, Sweetie come brush we, Harbour Shark, and Don’t fight it.

McDonald said he welcomed the changes in reggae music over the years saying

“We live in modern times. Everybody has to grow. We’re growing with the times we live in. We have a lot of computers now. Music is being marketed in a much different way than before. We have television. We have Twitter. We have Facebook. We have all kinds of different media. Back in the day, all we had was radio and television. Now, there’s so many different ways of being exposed. The artiste has to adapt to all of that”.

Among the group’s latest projects are a double CD, which is expected to be released next year.