His voice cut through bands, rocked Jamaican stages and stunned schoolboys who thought only Kingston stars could command a crowd. In part three, historians and eyewitnesses recall Jackie Opel’s time in Jamaica, his brushes with ska and rocksteady royalty, and how a Bajan singer earned respect in reggae’s heartland.

Jackie Opel was not just a star, he was a mentor who saw greatness in City youths long before the country did. This episode traces how De Opels, Richard Stoute and other young talents helped forge a new Barbadian sound that would become known as spouge.

Part one of the serial documentary, The Opel Effect: The Soul of Spouge, takes us back to the Bridgetown waterfront, where a skinny “wharf boy” with a fearless dive and a grown-up voice is about to change Barbadian music. We follow Dalton Sinclair Bishop from Chapman Lane to the bright lights of Showtime ’65, through the memories of those who saw Jackie Opel rise from the harbour to become a headliner the Caribbean could not ignore.⁠

Blending rare archival audio, first-hand testimony and original sound design, this opening episode traces how environment, poverty, ambition and sheer vocal power shaped a young boy into the artist who would help give Barbados its own popular music, spouge. It is the beginning of a story about risk, reinvention and what it means to come from a small place and still take up space on the regional stage.

Written, produced and narrated by Shayla Murrell

Produced with John Downes, Amour Chandler, Lamar Nicholls and Adrian Archer

Mixed and edited by Julius Gittens

We go on the road with one of Barbados’ most beloved bands: The Troubadours.

In “On Tour with the Troubadours – The Geoffrey Jones Journey”, presenter Shayla Murrell sits down with guitarist Geoffrey Jones to trace his path from a little boy playing under a mahogany tree in Christ Church, to lead guitarist with The Troubadours, and finally to veteran musician looking back from a life in Britain. Along the way, he remembers Hurricane Janet, funeral home garage rehearsals in the early years, recording with Jackie Opel and helping to shape the Spouge beat, and the band’s later years playing tight, seamless sets in a cold London club.

Blending intimate interview, rich sound design and narrative storytelling, this episode explores how one band helped define a Barbadian sound, carried it to the wider world, and built a legacy they only truly understood decades later.

In this special episode, from in the General Assembly Hall at United Nations Headquarters, Barbados’ Poet Laureate Esther Phillips lends her voice to the 2026 International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Against the backdrop of this year’s theme, “Justice in Action: Confronting History, Advancing Dignity, Empowering Futures”, Phillips delivers two powerful poems that honour the millions of Africans uprooted, enslaved and exploited, and speak to the unfinished work of memory, repair and justice.

Woven around her performance is an historic moment at the UN: a landmark resolution introduced by Ghana, in which the General Assembly formally recognises the transatlantic slave trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity and calls for reparative measures and concrete action.

Based on the epic documentary that premiered on 9 March – the 56th anniversary of Jackie Opel’s tragic death at the age of 32 – The Opel Effect: The Soul of Spouge is a nine-part documentary podcast series that traces the life, music and legacy of Dalton “Jackie Opel” Bishop. Born in Chapman Lane in Bridgetown and inspired by American soul star Jackie Wilson, Opel rose from “wharf boy” diving for cruise ship coins to become the powerhouse singer who helped give Barbados its own indigenous popular music genre: spouge.

Drawing on archive recordings and new interviews, the series hears from promoters, musicians and scholars, including Anthony “Al” Gilkes, the late Mark Williams, the late Richard Stoute, Wendy Alleyne, Desmond Weekes, the late Trevor Marshall, Sach Moore, Norman Barrow, Cleve Scott and Ambassador David Commissiong. Listeners travel from the electric atmosphere of Showtime ’65 in Bridgetown to Kingston’s Silver Slipper club, where Jamaican audiences embraced Jackie’s voice and wove it into the story of ska, rocksteady and reggae.

The Opel Effect also follows spouge beyond Jackie’s death, through bands like Blue Rhythm Combo, De Opels, The Escorts, The Troubadours, Draytons Two and Wendy Alleyne and the Dynamics, and into today’s experiments with the Jackie Opel Residency Lab, where young Barbadian creatives remix his work for a digital age. Across its episodes, the series asks urgent questions for a new generation: what happened to spouge, what does this music mean for Barbados now, and who will claim the next chapter of Jackie Opel’s legacy?

Watch for new episodes each week, coming soon.

Written, produced and narrated by Shayla Murrell

Mixed and edited by Julius Gittens

Produced with John Downes, Amour Chandler, Lamar Nicholls and Adrian Archer

The final episode delivers a powerful warning. Professor Henry Fraser calls the decline a national tragedy that has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and social scientists. He traces the flow of money and power to oil companies and mini-marts and questions why the village shop, once a lifeline, is not part of the solution in modern times. This is a call to action to recognise, document, and protect what remains of the unique, village-based social capital before a vital part of Barbados' identity is lost entirely.

Historian and raconteur Professor Henry Fraser moves from memory to the modern reality: a landscape of closed, burnt-out, and boarded-up village shops across the island. We take a visual tour of once-thriving hubs, like Bascombe’s and John Yearwood’s Gall Hill shop, now standing as silent, empty shells or being engulfed by bush at places like Mapp Hill. This is more than just an architectural loss; it is the physical evidence of the erosion of Barbadian social capital and the silent disappearance of community networks.

In a fragile plantation economy, how did families survive between paydays? This episode reveals the corner shop’s vital role as an informal bank. Using the childhood memories of former Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave, Professor Henry Fraser explains the uniquely Barbadian system of “trusting,” where shopkeepers extended credit for weeks or months until the sugar crop season. This system of informal credit, coupled with the shopkeeper's wife enforcing good manners, was a cornerstone of community survival.

Step back in time to the childhood world of Professor Henry Fraser. He takes us to PA Clarke’s corner shop in Four Roads, St John—a place that literally sold everything, from kerosene to nuts, bolts, and essential foods. Hear the charming details about the irresistible sweet jars that taught children manners, and the formidable “madam” who ran the shop with gimlet-eyed authority, a reminder that women really run the world.