Outer Active: Tasha Rozez x IFrogz x Dread & Alive

Words by DJ Gravy

You may recall we put the universe up on Dread & Alive last year, when the rasta comic book released its first reggae soundtrack, Dread & Alive’s The Lost Tapes Volume 1, providing crucial theme music for the superhero inside each and every one of us. The comic and music compilation series is back with a new issue and a new partner, iFrogz, the swaggerific brand of audio accessories. You can hear the results on the music sampler from Volume 6 of The Lost Tapes made by ‘the wickedest lady deejay pon di road’ and longtime iFrogz fan, Tasha Rozez from Gunz N Rozez Sound. LargeUp got the premiere on the video for Tasha’s sampler which is below and includes each of the tracks on the Lost Tapes Volume 6 (although 3 and 4 are notably/curiously missing) including roots rock, Spanish reggae, soul and hiphop vibes from Bushman, Messenjah Selah, Rootz Underground and even Tasha Rozez herself–who shines with a throwback vibe on the tune “Foot Loose” with Toronto rapper Wio K. You can download the sampler here.

Outside of music and comic book circles, Dread & Alive is known as much for its integration and promotion of interactive features, such as the use of QR tags (2-Dimensional bar codes), which earned it the #4 pick on Web Designer Magazine’s Hot 100 for 2011 earlier this year… Dread & Alive was sandwiched between “social network optimization” (#3) and “increased physicality” (#4). To see and hear how a QR tag can work, scan the QR tag below with your smart phone and save the mp3 of Tasha Rozez’ sampler (7MB) to take it with you. QR tags can be scanned with a smartphone–just like a case of beer in the self-checkout line at the grocery store–except there is no purchase necessary and here you can enjoy while driving as well as walking and talking. You will need a bar code scanner on your phone— free for Blackberry users (try the QR Code Scanner Pro) as well as iPhone and Android (Redlaser).

Listen, um, responsibly.