While he listens to all types of music, Jahmark Tafari has never hidden his strong bias toward roots-reggae. That is the sound he and his band, The Soulshakers, have played for almost 40 years.
They dish out another serving of Rasta-based songs on Vigilance, their sixth album, which was released in July by Banana Boat Records. Its lead single is City of Angels, a salute to Los Angeles where Jahmark And The Soulshakers have called home for 30 years.
“There are serious issues which need to be addressed in this time and Soulshakers music, although it can be light-hearted at times, at the core it is about representing our culture and uplifting the nation with love, unity, and positivity. It’s about producing quality, authentic and heartfelt roots, rock, reggae music without any watered-down
apology,” Jahmark Tafari stated. “This is what people around the world have come to expect from conscious reggae artists, especially Jamaican reggae artists, and they have not been getting it for quite a while now for the most part, so you find that traditional roots-reggae audiences have started looking elsewhere for this type of music, if you get my drift.”
‘Looking elsewhere’ may refer to American bands like SOJA which won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in April. And Stick Figure, whose new album Wisdom removed Bob Marley and The Wailers’ Legend from number one on the Billboard Reggae Albums Chart this week, after 140 weeks.
Those bands have established themselves through lengthy tours of the United States, playing colleges, small clubs and festivals. The Soulshakers perform mainly in Southern California, though two years ago they enjoyed some commercial success with Happiness, lead song from their 2018 album of the same name.
A remix of Happiness was popular on college radio and gave the band added impetus to record their next album.
“It seemed like it was the perfect song to be on planet Earth for what was taking
place during this particular time. People became deeply endeared to the song in a way that they probably would never have if the Earth situation were even slightly different,” said Jahmark Tafari. “It’s about resonance and still to this day, legions of people continue to become endeared to it. Because of this one song we find that more and more people are beginning to check out our extensive back catalog of songs, because we didn’t come to this rodeo just yesterday.”
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