Artist description JAH ROOTS is not a band in the traditional sense of the word. Completely in the reggae tradition, the band has skilled themselves to create original RIDDIMS. A riddim is a basic construction of a reggae song. It consists of mainly of a bassline and a few themes. The rest of the instruments can vary per performance. Riddims can serve as material to sing over, or to make DUBS from it. Many reggae tracks are centred on a certain riddim, and each artist gives his own interpretation of it. JAH ROOTS is specialized in creating riddims. New, original riddims. They have been playing together for over a decade (in this formation). The reason why Jah Roots creates riddims rather then songs written out from start to stop is because the main objective of the tracks is to make DUB tracks of them. This particular art of re-mixing reggae music, especially when done live, requires a lot of improvisation from both the musicians as well as the Dub mixer. A typical Jah Roots session, which takes place on a weekly basis, consists of the following: After setting up the most necessary equipment, the band starts to play. Sometimes an arrangement, sometimes a bassline or even a drum roll, and a riddim comes into existence. Imro and Erik lay down a heavy foundation of drum and bass, while Sure Dread is touching his keys as if there were two players hitting the black and white buttons and Messian Dread sings and mixes everything live. The music you can hear on this page comes from sessions that the band has had in the last two months of 2001 and the early months in 2002. During these sessions, Jah Roots was co-produced by Jah Sun. The music on this page also contains the work of Steve, a good brethren who has played guitar and other things with Jah Roots for many years too, but he moved to a different place and is now unable to play regularly. But for these sessions he has travelled many miles.

Music Style Roots Reggae with a lot of Dub!

Musical Influences Roots Radics, Fatman Riddim Section, We The People Band, Taxi Gang, Revolutionairies

Similar Artists Messian Dread, Sure Dread, Roots Radics, Scientist, The Wailers, Roots Radics, Fatman Riddim Section, We The People Band, Taxi Gang, Revolutionairies

Artist History Messian Dread founded Jah Roots as Messiah Calling around 1986, 1987. Initially he was the drummer, as he invited others to join, under which Imro Fedor. Later on, the two swapped their place, and Imro became the drummer while Messian Dread turned singer. At first, the five original members of the band couldn't really play. But they had at least two things in common: a love for Reggae Music and a desire to play it. And so they played for months and months in an appartment somewhere in Fryslân. This appartment was used by two other bands too, a Hardcore Punk band called "No Death" and a New Wave band called "EliJah". And that was not the only thing, as people gathered every wednesday to see one of the three bands and reason about Jah, the Creator. This youthman collective was organized under the name "Fools", but unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. In fact, Jah Roots is the only activity still left of this all. But in 1987, many activities were held, many concerts given and organized too, even though the band couldn't really play that well then. Around 1988, a dreadlocked brethren from French Guyane, and living about 150 miles from the place where the Jah Roots members lived, heard a tape from the band and decided to help them out. The tape made it clear, that the band didn't really know that much about chords, for example. Imagine the sound, the band hopes you'lll never hear it. The group owes a lot to the brethren BERTRAND, who founded in Belgium the band ZION DESTINY. Later, in 1989, Sure Dread joined the band at age 14 and this was a truly welcome addition, because he is a natural talent with a strong love for Reggae Music. Around the same time, a brethren originally from the UK joined the group to play guitar and bass and to sing songs, too. Steve has also painted the front cover for the Messian Dread CD MESSENJAH DUB and has written many songs for the band. When he moved out of Drachten to live somewhere else, his participations in Jah Roots is now limited to guitar play during recording sessions and the band found a welcome replacement in Erik, who is the bassist until this day. During the first 5 years of it's existance, the band had many members, but after that a hard-core of members were formed and they are still the driving forces of the band. As said, throughout the last part of the 1980's and the early 1990's, the band has performed much, as a regular reggaeband and mainly for small audiences. During the last 5 years of the 20th century Jah Roots lived mainly in the studio and practice rooms where they developed a very personal sound deeply rooted within Reggae Music and also not crossing their borders. No big pretentious compositions, but stricktly riddims from the heart. Now, around June 2002, the band is together in it's present form for over a decade with Erik on bass, Imro on drums and percussion, Sure Dread on keyboards and Messian Dread on percussion as well as the vocals, and Dub mixing. Jah Roots has truly come a long way, but they are all auto-didacts (self learners) with -in the meantime- a long time experience in music.

Group Members ***************************************************************************** MESSIAN DREAD: Vocals, Percussion, Dub Mixing, Graphics ***************************************************************************** SURE DREAD: Keyboards ***************************************************************************** IMRO FEDOR: Drums and Percussion ***************************************************************************** ERIK: Bass ***************************************************************************** STEVE: Guitar, Graphics *****************************************************************************

Instruments Drums, Bass, Keyboards, Guitar, Melodica, Percussion Instruments, Vocals, Mixing Board

Albums IN THE BEGINNING (Cassette Demo, 1993)

Location Drachten, Fryslân - Netherlands

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