Reggae Artiste Julian Marley currently has the second most downloaded reggae album in America, but the album released this week, has yet to tick onto the Billboard charts.

His album Awake is number two on iTunes US reggae album charts. His father, reggae icon Bob Marley, is number one in that market and most other European iTunes markets. Julian Marley is not fussy about chart success. "Anything it do we would be grateful," he told the Sunday Observer at his soft launch earlier this month.

The US iTunes chart (amongst the internet's most popular music stores) has five Marley entries in the top 10. Indeed, Julian beat his brother Ziggy Marley, whose Family Time album now sits at number four on the chart. Family Time had peaked at number one on iTunes and Billboard but now lags in the top 10 on both charts.

Asked why both Marleys launched albums in the same month, Ziggy told the Sunday Observer: "I had my album first."

Julian's lead single Boom Draw written by George Owen Reid has yet to make the iTunes reggae singles charts in any of the 22 iTunes countries cited. He, however, fears that radio would not play the lead single, which speaks about ganja as a sacrament, due to increased policing of the airways. The song is tagged on iTunes as explicit, even though there are no "four lettered words" except "herb" in the song. He thinks a similar response could occur locally.

The bleeping of songs are no longer allowed since February, when the Broadcast Commission (BC) issued directives aimed at curtailing on-air explicit lyrics.

BC directives speak to guns and sexually explicit lyrics but not ganja even though it is illegal under law.

Following the BC directives, president of Greensleeves records Olivier Chastan argued that the BC' restrictions could impact on artiste creativity; self-editing in order to secure airplay. He says that artistic freedom enables creativity.


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