3 years ago
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Greetings roadies! Firstly, what a year right!?! If you're reading this, you made it through 2020 and for that, you should be thankful. If you want to watch the 2020 video highlight reel scroll down, but I implore you to stick with me and read this blog post.
We made it through a crazy year of sickness, elections, demonstrations, and chaos. It was a very interesting year for DownDiRoad JA & I. As a hospitality professional, my place of employment was not spared from the COVID-19 hotel industry onslaught. I'm thankful I still have my job, but I constantly think about my colleagues who haven't been so lucky.
Work aside, the crew and I would usually be outside most weekends conducting DownDiRoad activities, but with the many COVID-19 restrictions and curfews, it was a very tame year.
There were still a lot of wins for DDR in 2020!
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The year started out with the third staging of Inner Ear, the collaborative silent headphone concert organized by DownDiRoad JA, Ras-I Musique and Silent Noise by Delano was a success! We had Runkus, Joby Jay, Indie Allen & Munga! Really excited for outside to be open again so we can get back to the event.
DDR collaborated with a whole bunch of brands in 2020! Many big ups to Red Bull for featuring images on their website [Check it out!]. Big up ups to Hungry Man JA, Likkle Tea, Love A Little, Baked by Bri, and the many other brands we featured in 2020.
The DownDiRoad travelogue was very active in the summer thankfully! So many adventures and so many memories! You can watch all the videos on the Youtube channel. Watch here
We relaunched the Crav'nish food series on the Youtube channel! It was really fun producing those videos with Ayesha & Tenny. Looking forward to more visuals in the new year!
2020 was the year of the first DownDiRoad documentary! This one was immensely important to me and my growth as a filmmaker. "Blvk H3ro - The Immortal Steppa Documentary" was released in June 2020. It was awesome to be a part of Blvk H3ro's story and a great first step in filmmaking. Many thanks to my brother BP for the support throughout the process. Be sure to watch the film on the Blvk H3ro Youtube channel! Watch here
Lots of work was also done with my brother Ras-I, another aspiring musician. I was the Director of Photography for his Know Herb Steamix music video, as well as covered Behind The Scenes footage of his 'KingMan Ting' music video. One of the most memorable projects was the Tsojourna story short film. Go enjoy all these visuals! Watch The Tsojourna Story here
People who have known me for a long time know that I used to be an online dj (disc jockey). It was an amazing feeling finally ventured back into the discipline, when I released the official DownDiRoad mixtape called 'Cruise Control'. Not only was this a mixtape, but of course I used footage from the extensive catalogue to creative a visualizer and create an immersive audio-visual experience. Go give that a watch if you haven't seen it yet. Watch Cruise Control here
2020 was an amazing year of growth for DownDiRoad in general. While in lockdown, I executed a cross-platform campaign where I featured memories from previous trips across all the parishes of Jamaica. 35 short films later, all social media pages have seen between 100%-300% between January 2020 and now!
DownDiRoad JA turned 3 years old in 2020! Cheers to more growth in 2021.
I did a few freelance projects as well under the DDRMedia JA brand. Big thank you to everyone who loves DownDiRoad JA and has suggested services!
All in all, the biggest lesson of 2020 has been to slow down and appreciate what matters. There is so much happening in the world, but we have life. I made a highlight reel of my favourite moments of 2020, you can watch it below. Cheers to a new year! See you soon!
- Duane 'Doofy' Phillips
English (US) ·