Tuesday, July 5, 2022

You Got Bluegrass in My Reggae! No, You Got Reggae in My Bluegrass!

What has two thumbs and didn't even make it TWO WEEKS
with 'posting new remixes'? THIS GUY.

• • •

I made a bluegrass/reggae crossover record.

What started out as a one-off goofy project for 4/20/20 eventually blossomed into a full half-hour of old bluegrass tunes recast as reggae, along with three original dub tunes to create Red, Gold, Green & Bluegrass with musical partner-in-crime Joe Dep. We released it July 1 on Bandcamp. ($7, get your copy today!)

I can trace the deepest roots of this project back to a cassette tape of Puerto Rican reggae. That's what was playing — specifically, a band called Gomba Jahbari — when I walked into one of my now-best-friend's dorm rooms, and it was immediately captivating. Partly because it was Spanish-language reggae, which I'd never heard before, but also because they were using a synthesizer that I always referred to as "the Wubbly." It's just a certain way of filtering and tweaking a square-wave synth that gives it this nice, fat, round sound that works great in a reggae context. Gomba Jahbari uses it a lot, as well as my other favorite PR reggae group, Cultura Profética. 

With the banjo originating in Africa, and its use in the Caribbean dating back to the 1700s — and its general percussive nature — Joe and I figured there was no reason it wouldn't fit right in with a reggae soundscape. And I think it does, very well. It works as a sort of melodic substitute for the hand percussion common in rocksteady reggae.

Anyway, it turned into a real labor of love, we had a great time putting it together, and hope that you might think it's worth checking out.



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