What do reggae music, AIDS awareness, soccer balls, and 5,000 “gently used shoes” headed for Haiti, have in common?

Answer: Taj Weekes, the reggae singer known for his philanthropy.

When Weekes left his St. Lucian island home to pursue music, he brought a captivating, high-ranging voice, an instinct for textured vocal soundscapes, and his love for roots reggae. Part of the “roots” tradition maintains that however light and upbeat the music, reggae should carry a serious message, what Weekes refers to as “the poor man’s cry.”

“Though you may forget your troubles and dance,” Weeks says, his musical speaking voice laced with hoarseness, “the message still lingers at the end of the day.” It’s the sort of speaking voice you’d expect from a man whose singing and lyrics sound like Bob Marley meets White Lion. And like much roots reggae, Weekes’ lyrics are often inspired by his Rastafarian ideals.

“We’re spiritual beings on a human voyage,” Weekes pronounces, “so we need to tap into that spirituality all the time.” Recently, a radio interviewer asked Weekes if he and his band were financially successful. He tossed back, “I only need one car to drive, and I don’t need any bling.”

Through his philanthropic organization TOCO ( They Often Cry Outreach) Weekes has delivered everything from medical supplies to soccer balls among the Caribbean poor, and he has raised awareness of violence against women and AIDS prevention. In the process, he’s also begun producing socially conscious documentaries. Weekes keeps the many wings of his operations together through synergy and planning (and good management at his multimedia label, Jatta). He shot his documentary, exposing St. Lucia’s diabetes crisis, while delivering 2,700 blood glucose testers to the island. Referring to internecine battles around coal mining and mountaintop removal, Weekes hints at his next film project saying, “I have my eye out on Appalachia.”

Meanwhile songs like “Orphans Cry” from the Deidem album with its bouncy beat, catchy melody and hard lyrics, are coming on strong: “Their suffering is not your reality/ But to turn a blind eye is pure brutality/On the outskirts of our lives, the orphans cry.” His focus on children led Weekes to deliver 500 soccer balls and 600 uniforms to children in St. Lucia.

“I just feel that children have a right to play. It just seems that lately in the world, children are doing everything else but play. Child labor and child soldiers…” Except for a “couple of love songs to please everyone,” as Weekes puts it, his upcoming album, A Waterlogged Soul Kitchen, named for Hurricane Katrina, goes heavy on message. Due in October, its acoustic approach, involving instrumentation like violin and cello, is a testament to Weekes’ creative openness.

Cello helps Weekes serve up the bitter lyrics in “Born of Rape,” referencing the wars in Africa. “You kind of have to really manipulate where you put the cello in that song because you don’t want people crying,” Weekes observes. “This is not a funeral.”

Judging from an earlier Katrina inspired song, the piano-driven “Louisiana,” Weekes knows how to blend and temper his wistful voice with acoustic instrumentation and poignant melody, while still marking the ironies of life. Over baleful rivulets of piano the lyric announces, “There’s a rainbow in the sky over Louisiana.”

This summer’s touring season includes a gig for Weekes and his band Adowa on Tuesday, July 20, at One Pel ham East in Newport. 90.3 FM reggae host Eric Horton will spin dance hall hits in between sets. Weekes and Adowa and TOCO are on a mission to collect 5,000 pairs of “new and gently used shoes” and deliver them to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in January. So far, the tour has yielded 3,200 shoes and some surprises for Weekes.

“We played a venue someplace in the midwest and at the end of the night the people took their shoes off and walked home barefoot, left their shoes with us — that was kind of very powerful.”

One world, one love. Roots reggae singer Taj Weekes and his band of Caribbean musicians are collecting shoes for Haiti’s poor and completing a documentary about the diabetes epidemic in St. Lucia.