by Emma Mae Regan
Photo Courtesy of Brendan McCurdy
On Nov. 2, 2018, reggae artist Taj Weekes and his band Adowa visited Hamilton College to give a talk to students at the Days-Massolo Center. The event was co-sponsored by the Sigma Phi Educational Foundation. Later that afternoon, Weekes met with Hamilton musicians before performing at the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, New York.
Weekes wears many hats: on paper he is a reggae artist, social activist, and humanitarian; he is also a firm believer in love, unity, and acceptance, an advocate for marginalized people, and a brave voice in the music industry.
Born and raised on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, music played a major role in Weekes’ childhood.
“[St. Lucia] is a very musical island, so there was always music everywhere; the music I played on the radio, the music I had listened to before me, it was just a variety. We have no formal radio stations in St. Lucia, so on one radio station everything happens: Van Morrison, Hendrix, everybody was right there,” said Weekes.
As a child, Weekes spent his evenings both singing with his siblings and listening to his father singing. When Weekes was 13, he became a DJ at a local radio station.
“I would go in [to the station] every afternoon. I would go through the albums to pull out and read all the lyrics,” he said.
Weekes and his brothers eventually had their own band that played at different state shows. However, Weekes was bothered that his brothers messed up the lyrics during shows, so they eventually gave him that responsibility.
“I would find the lyrics, even if I had to get a tape recorder and play it back until I had wrote all the lyrics down,” said Weekes.
He believes that this care for getting the lyrics right made him realize how much he cares about the messages and words in his music.
“I realized the lyrics always mattered. Even now, when I’m practicing the guitar and then a lyric comes out, I put the guitar down and I write everything because I already had the melody. My experiences and my focus, [which is] more on lyrics than music, is kind of what guided me and got me down the path where I’m on now. I’m more concerned with what is said and how it’s said so there’s a unified message rather than a divisive message,” said Weekes.
The message that Weekes hopes to promote with all of his music is that “you should love your neighbor as yourself.”
Speaking on his most recent album, To All My Relations (2018), Weekes says, “There’s a song called ‘You and I’, and it says ‘You and I have no war / Except the one that we’ve been given / And between you and I animosity is driven / The world Outside your window isn’t fixed / And you and I are caught here in the mix.’ There’s always that kind of message on every album because that is the only message, that one world is enough for us.”
Weekes began his relationship with Adowa through the Future of Reggae event. Before he was with the band, Weekes sang at different restaurants, which is where he heard of the event. However, to attend Future of Reggae, Weekes had to rent a band to perform with him. After their show, a group of band members from Weekes’ rented band, in addition to members from the bands of the performances before and after Weekes’ show, met in the basement of Sotheby’s in New York and exchanged numbers for future performances. This moment led to the creation of Adowa.
“The beautiful thing about the band is that most of the guys are from different Caribbean islands, so everybody brings a different influence from their native island. We kind of just milled [those influences] together and did something else, creating our own brand of reggae,” said Weekes.
Weekes writes his music “anywhere and everywhere,” records music with Adowa in Brooklyn, and created and owns the record label Jatta. Weekes created Jatta because he did not want others to dictate his content and did not want to be told what he could or could not sing about.
“We wrote an anti-homophobic, LGBTQ+ supportive song called ‘Here I Stand’ and we got a lot of flack for it, so I think if we didn’t have our own label, we couldn’t have put it out,” said Weekes.
When the group travels to perform, Weekes believes that the experience is always the people.
“I tell people traveling is the enemy of ignorance because when you travel, you meet other people. You see their cultures and eat with them and you hear them speak so whatever animosity you may have had as propaganda before is kind of lessened. You realize that people are the same way wherever you go,” he said.
He has also worked on a few projects through Jatta. These include two documentaries on diabetes and child abuse in St. Lucia, three children’s books on sustainability, and an album named “Comeunity” featuring artists from different Caribbean islands. All of these projects are expected to be released next year.
He also started They Often Cry Outreach (TOCO), a nonprofit that supports underprivileged children in the Caribbean through sports, health, and outreach programs. Some of the nonprofit’s projects include bringing diabetes tests to St. Lucia, creating a domestic abuse program with counselors for women, bringing gifts to children of poor families at Christmas, and helping children find a new path through academics, arts, and sports at American and European schools. UNICEF named Weekes a UNICEF Champion for Children of St. Lucia for his work with TOCO.
“We started the organization because need is great and I only need so many things in my life. If I have too many, I can give some away. [TOCO has] blossomed beyond my giving to other people joining the organization. I hope the humanitarian efforts can help some people out. I hope [TOCO] sheds some light on some things that people are not aware of and gives them a new direction,” he said.
Weekes and Adowa released their sixth album To All My Relations three weeks ago. Weekes began writing the album during his time at Standing Rock. His experience inspired the title of the album because everyone who prayed at Standing Rock dedicated their prayers to all their relations. Weekes believes that title allows the album to be inclusive of everyone. The album debuted at number four on the iTunes reggae charts and number one on Amazon. Weekes says the album promises good vibes and is available across many mainstream music streaming platforms.