Photo: Rod Patrick Risbrook

RECOMMENDED

This Guyana born, Chicago-based singer-songwriter is an artist of many facets. Though his music is heavily inspired by neo-soul, he also draws inspiration from the sounds from his native country and the Caribbean. For instance, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” and the activist “The Gay Warrior” song have a reggae-like flavor, while “I Like That” could be described as an American soul tune with a Latin vibe.

His approach toward music focuses on the music first: “Usually I start with a track, and then I develop the melody and the words that belong to the song,” he explained in a telephone interview. “If it feels sad, happy, encouraging or like a love song, I feel like songs are alive. I think I’m more in tune with this stage of music—I’m listening more to what the music tells me instead of trying to force things.”

Nhojj is also very vocal in his activism on gay rights and bullying. He believes that acceptance toward alternative lifestyles (he is openly gay) is a slow process, but that is how things are sometimes. Read the rest of this entry »

Since their first Pink Floyd tribute “The Dub Side of the Moon” was launched in 2003, The Easy Star All-Stars have regularly put out other albums honoring Radiohead ( 2006’s “Radiodread”) and The Beatles (2009’s “Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band”) in addition to discs with their own original material.

This time around, they have come together to take on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” one of the biggest-selling pop albums of all time in the United States. It is not an easy task, considering how ingrained many of the songs are in fans’ memories—it is little wonder that so few artists have recorded covers of tunes like “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” over the years. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Beginning his singing career before most guys start shaving on a daily basis isn’t the most notable aspect of Barrington Levy’s time in music. By the time he was sixteen, the singer had released at least five albums—and that’s not including singles and one-off dub plates. Part of Levy’s early success was the result of working with producer Junjo Lawes, engineer Scientist and the backing group Roots Radics Band. But all these remarkable musicians in one room wouldn’t have mattered much if Levy’s voice weren’t one of the most unique in Jamaican music. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

It seems that every year a new compilation gets sewn together displaying a unique slice of Lee Perry’s career—and somehow, each is entertaining. There are apparently so many different mixes and unreleased tracks in Perry’s history—even though his Kingston studio burned down and took tapes with it—that the deluge of albums isn’t set to slow. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Upstate New York’s given the world a number of acts that defy place and time–Ithaca’s John Brown’s Body, for one. Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad isn’t as prolific, but has been a substantial voice in the hippified reggae scene over the last half-decade. The Rochester-based band’s first offering, “Slow Down,” was an anemic attempt to wrestle a bit of personality from a genre that has very little to do with the collective GPGDS experience in America. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Caroline Tompkins

RECOMMENDED

There are places with a deeper connection to Jamaican music than Cincinnati, Ohio. The city, with its downtown area spilling over into Kentucky, feels like the gateway to the South. Doormen at shows can sport significant accents and there’re bound to be more than a handful of folks who eat nothing other than fried foods. Of course, Cincy counts Bootsy Collins as one of its best exports and Mood issued some of the most engaging hip-hop of the Rawkus era, pulling in Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek as accomplices. The Pinstripes, though, sit outside of that history. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Glancing at the two-day line-up for Martyrs’ Sousaphenia Festival, it doesn’t appear that more than a band or two is actually going to include a sousaphone amid its ranks. Chicago’s The Drastics haven’t made it a practice in the past, but that hasn’t affected their ability to consistently issue instrumental tracks marked by the influence of Jamaican studio geniuses as well as American soul music. First releasing a long-player in 2005 on Jump Up Records, “Premonition,” the ensemble showed up toward the end of the label’s busiest period and sounded like little in the imprint’s catalog. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

During Moon Ska Records’ final few years, Chris Murray remained one of the few acts issuing music through the New York-based imprint who retained a unique musical identity. Amid the ska-cum-rock-oriented fare, Murray’s work was anachronistic—predating all the lo-fi nonsense the music press caught onto a few years back. But by the early aughties, the L.A.-based singer and songwriter had so well defined his sound that not having a label signed up to issue his work on a regular basis wasn’t really a problem. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Landing a deal with Virgin Records for its first long-playing album, the 1976 “Right Time,” was obviously a boon to the Mighty Diamonds and their career. But just as fortuitous as that initial record deal was, so was landing Ernest and Joseph Hoo Kim behind the boards for the vocal trio’s sessions. Along for the endeavor was ex-Skatalite Tommy McCook and a cast of players heard on work from the Marley oeuvre as well as “The Harder They Come.” But the Diamonds were then, as now, an entity unto themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Musical quality is ensured when the rhythm section from Hepcat joins your group. At least, it’s been true for The Aggrolites, a SoCal quintet dedicated to vintage-sounding Jamaican music, swinging from rock steady derivations to latter-day Peter Tosh-styled rock-inflected compositions. Beginning life as a pick-up band serving at the pleasure of a variety of touring luminaries, Jesse Wagner and company founded the proper recording ensemble back in 2003 with an ode to skinhead dance music entitled “Dirty Reggae,” the name, perhaps, referring to the band’s penchant for American soul as much as Jamaican sounds. Read the rest of this entry »