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Pimento and Hot Pepper: The Story of Mento Music, directed by Rick Elgood. Bilmon Productions, 2017.
The Caribbean island of Jamaica has been world-famous for its reggae music ever since Bob Marley gained popularity in North America and Europe during the early 1970s. Over the past decades, and particularly since the 2010s, a plethora of documentaries have been made to understand and celebrate the genre and its main legend, with Kevin Macdonald's Marley (2012) undoubtedly as most prominent example. At the same time, the Jamaican folk genres from which the reggae sound evolved are also getting renewed attention and appreciation. A few years ago, Legends of Ska: Cool & Copasetic (2015) told the story of ska music, and now there is a new documentary on its predecessor, Pimento and Hot Pepper: The Story of Mento Music (2017).
Pimento and Hot Pepper is directed by Rick Elgood, the British director who created a sensation back in 1997 with the Jamaican feature film Dancehall Queen (which he co-directed with Don Letts). He has continued to work...