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Memorial Day Weekend in South Florida is well known for having a plethora of entertainment activities every year, with some of music’s biggest names coming to participate in the long-weekend festivities. This year, one event in particular loomed large on the TJJ calendar - Best Of The Best 2008. Rockers Island Entertainment, in association with Massive B Sound System, Inc., assembled some of the biggest and brightest names in Reggae music for Miami's longest running Reggae extravaganza.

This year's edition of BOTB was definitely the biggest one to date, and the list of both current and legendary performers read like any Dancehall lovers proverbial “wet dream” - Buju Banton aka Gargamel, Beenie Man, Sizzla Kalonji, Junior Reid, Barrington Levy, Tarrus Riley, Mavado, Etana, Dean Frasier, Assassin, Serani, Bling Dawg, New Kidz, Shifta, Demarco, Bugle, Screechy Dan, Rockefella, Dilly Chris, the Taipan of Soca Machel Montano and the original don dada Super Cat! Whew! For Super Cat, BOTB was reportedly his first North American outdoor festival performance ever! As if that wasn't enough, the stage show was hosted by Bobby Konders and Jabba, with DJ Khaled, Jamusa, Tony Matterhorn, and Walshy Fire all in effect.

Bicentennial Park in Downtown Miami, immediately adjacent to the American Airlines Arena (AAA), was packed with a crowd of thousands of Caribbean people with many representing their national colors and flags. The concert kicked off around 2:00pm and TJJ Team Black was making the rounds between the crowd, the media tent and the stage taking in all the action. The weather was virtually summer-perfect, with a lovely breeze from Biscayne Bay blowing across the venue. Jabba and DJ Roy handled most of the hosting duties, and kept things moving along through the early afternoon with performances from Etana, Bling Dawg, New Kidz, Shifta, Demarco, Serani and Bugle keeping the crowd hype. Back at the media tent, TJJ got to spend some time with some of these artists and find out what's coming for them in 2008.
Around the 6pm hour, Taurus Riley hit the stage and delivered an extended set that had the crowd singing along, especially when he dropped his hit ballad, "She's Royal". For us however, the concert really started to get heated when the legendary Barrington Levy hit the stage and delivered a veritable onslaught of hits in his roughly 35-minute set, including "Under mi Sensei", "Murderer", "Here I Come", "Bad Boyz" and "Living Dangerously". He had the audience eating out his hand and nuff lighters were in the air as night fell across the park.

After Barrington heated us up, low and behold, none other than DJ Khaled with special guest T-Pain hit the stage and yuh know Khaled had to remind us that in Miami, “We The BEST!!!” As expected, the crowd went insane as "We Takin' Over" started blaring through the speakers and hands shot through the air repping the 305. T-Pain hit us off with "Buy You A Drink" and after a brief interlude, the incomparable Buju Banton hit the stage. It was pure fyah as Buju went from one hit to the next, from "Magic City" to "Destiny" to the monster track "Driver" which sent the crowd mad! By the end of Gargamel's performance, the crowd was thirsty for more, and we realized that the show was way behind schedule. According to City of Miami ordinance, the concert had to shut down by midnight or face a substantial fine, so we knew some of the remaining artistes were going to have a real short set. After all, how do you fit the 7 acts remaining into just over two hours? Pressure!

When Machel (the lone Soca act on this card) took the stage, we suspected his performance would be shortened, and indeed it was. However, as HD took the stage accompanied by Ziggy, he delivered a powerfully frenzied 15 minute set, accompanied by his sexy HD dancers, and closed us out with his hit single "Defense (The Anthem)". After his set, we got a chance to spend some time with Montano in the media tent, and get caught up on his latest movements for 2K8. As always, Machel showed TJJ much love, noting, "Jungle Juice, allyuh everywhere for real! I was just with allyuh last night in New York!!"

The real negative to the night was that the remaining artists were all rushed through their sets. Junior Reid, who took the stage with his famous "One Blood" anthem had only a 20 min set, and as it neared 11pm, you still had Sizzla, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer AND Super Cat all to perform in an hour ... can you say chaos? In addition, both Bounty Killer and Mavado were no-shows, reportedly due to immigration difficulties. With all those big-name acts squeezed into the last hour, it was a real disservice to what was otherwise an outstanding line-up of Reggae stars. Our main recommendation is to have better time/stage management for 2009. If the promoters are able to do a better job managing the length of the performances, as well as, increasing the media's access to the performers, this show would have truly been one for the ages. In the meantime, TJJ looking forward to BOTB 2009. See you there!

- Supa Grovah