Our featured artist this week is a woman known as Jah’s Jewel who has won the Marijuana Music Award numerous times. Sahra Indio knows her way around jazz-inflected reggae. The music of the one-drop is a magnetic and mystical force for the Philadelphia native. She moved to Hawaii to sing with the Jahringa Reggae Band. Her songs have evolved into inspiring missives that contemplate the beauty and enigma of life, and they work to convey the message of universal truth and rights.

Eventually she became a solo artist and released two albums, Good’s Gonna Happen and  Change. Now, Sahra is collaborating with veteran reggae guitarist Tuff Lion. But her voice and vision are clearly her own and her work calls for global change with grace and compassion. Learn more about the artist at her website and on myspace. You can buy her music on iTunes. And today, enjoy this delicious sample: Sahra Indio and “Old Marijuana.”

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For today’s Irie Wednesday Toker Tune, we feature the great Rocker T, the true ganjaman. His website describes the artist as an old school reggae/ska master who’s been rocking the microphone for a long time.

It’s true enough that he was a big time player in the founding of the modern Eastern US reggae/ska scene. Now he’s part of the on the move Version City crew, shocking out and wowing crowds with his manic energy and positive messages.

You can find T’s music on iTunes… and by all means, check his website for info. Today, however, enjoy some irie vibes from his 2005  Reggae Sound Massive recording If Yu Luv Luv Show Ya Luv: Rocker T and “Tru Ganjaman.”

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For today’s Irie Wednesday Toker Tune, we bring you music from a multitalented British-Jamaican bloke named Anthony Codrington. If you’re into the English soundsystem scene, you’ll know Tony better as the DJ Top Cat.

Codrington hails from working-class Manchester.  As a teenager, young Tony discovered a talent for rocking the mic while visiting cousins in Jamaica.  He took his new passion home to the UK, where he started working at soundsystems including Sledge Hammer and Viking. By 1989, he was installed at Sir Coxson Sound, a British soundsystem named for legendary reggae producer Coxsone Dodd. Also known as Outernational, the system was known as a trendsetter. It was here that young Brits first heard dub, ragga, dancehall, and jungle music.  Top Cat was in the middle of it all with his mic partner Tenor Fly. The Cat found success, and enjoyed a number of ’80s ragga and dancehall hits such as “Love Me Sess.” By the 1990s, via his own Nine Lives Records, he took the jungle world by storm, releasing popular remixes of his own hits plus new songs.

Top Cat is still out there entertaining the faithful with his own twist on dancehall and ragga jungle music. They don’t call him the champion deejay for nothing: He literally wrote the book on it — you can order his book, How to MC, from his web site. And you can find his music, including duets with Tenor Fly, General Levy, and Poison Chang, on iTunes. And today, we present a classic Codrington soundclash that features a solid reggae bottom along with wicked jungle breakbeats, rudeboy swagger, and big ups for the herb. You’ll dig this: The track comes from the Azra Music compilation disc Skokian in a African Beat. It’s the champion DJ Top Cat and “Pass the Chalice for Me.”

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For today’s Irie Wednesday Toker Tune, we’re taking you down south — in fact, way down to South Africa.

Psalm 133 is the Biblical verse used in “Rastaman Chant, ” a traditional Rasta hymn made popular by Bob Marley in 1973. The psalm’s essential message is about brothers and sisters living in unity. That makes it the perfect nom de plume for Mbongeni Skosana, a South African-born Rasta roots-reggae singer/songwriter.

Skosana got his start in the mid 1990s as a keyboardist for a number of reggae groups including Angolah and the Groaners, Born Afrikan, and Tidal Wave. The year 2006 was a banner one for the talented artist: His self-owned label, Itumele Records, released David Dott’s LP Symbol, which Skosana produced. That year, he also released his first solo effort, Freedom.

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Today starts off a very special week for us here on the stash, and for NORML as we mark 4 decades of working to end prohibition.  On Wednesday we will get to hear an old audio gem from the NORML archives, so I am breaking the Roots Monday rules today and playing some music with ties to some of MY old norml files. From my very first post on the NORML blog, the first music post I ever did was for this artist dated from Feb 18th of 2008.  Highah Seekah is his name and he just happened to email me this weekend with one of his new songs, “Herbal Treatment” for us to share at NORML with this message; “Greetings! Here’s a “Herbal Treatment” for you and the world, the healing of the nations..”

He is so Irie!  He has two songs we play here on the stash rotation, “Gimmie da hemp paper” and “Light Dat Ting”.  Here are a few lines from that old post;

“Today’s music hit comes to us from a righteous Rasta man HIGHAH SEEKAH.  He’s the real Jamaican deal, growing up in Westmoreland, Jamaica, a town that also produced Peter Tosh.”

Congratulations NORML for outlasting some of our worst critics and bringing out the best in so many citizens that will not stop fighting until we achieve legalization of this “Herbal Treatment”.

Download audio file (Highah Seekah – Herbal Treatment.mp3)

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Today, my friends, we get a dose of the cure for whatever ails ya from the artist Mega Banton. The man born Garth Romie Alexander Williams is a dancehall selector from Kingston. He hit the reggae big time in the 1990s, thanks to hits including “First Position,” “Sound Boy Killing,” the controversial “Money First,” and a popular duet with the great Barrington Levy called “She’s Mine.”

And while his recording output has been minimal, he nonetheless has been a huge influence for up-and-coming dancehall DJs and artists, among them Bounty Killer. Seeing him live is where it’s at, and the good news is that he’s still out there heating up sound systems around the world.

You can find the Mega man on MySpace and his music can be found at iTunes. Today we feature a very cool cut that comes from the Jet Star Limited compilation LP Riddim Riders Volume 5. Give a listen to Mega Banton and “Herbalize.”

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Our musical gift today is a rousing bit of bubbly, bouncy Cali ska: Lumanation is an unsigned DubRock quintet of veteran musicians based in San Rafael, California. The band is a popular touring outfit that makes friends wherever it goes. So far, Lumanation has opened for headlining performers in more than a thousand theaters. The members have really earned their growing success. You can expect a full-length album coming soon.

In the meantime, one of their songs won a spot on Quickstar Productions’ Ska for Life compilation series (volume 5), which you can find on iTunes. Learn more about Lumanation from its ReverbNation page. Enjoy a taste of modern ska from Lumanation: “Big Ol’ Spliff.”

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Prophet Benjamin

Prophet Benjamin was born as Devon Samuel in Trinidad in 1978. And if what he says is true, his entire life and career have been about seeking God, doing right by his family, and uplifting the people of the world. Big dreams for the child of a single mother, one who had to struggle for his every day survival in the ghetto. But young Devon believed, telling his mom, “One day, I’m going to make it.”

In a 2006 interview with the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, he said, “I always had a love for singing and I asked the Lord God… I said God make me to work for whatever work you desire for me in your vineyard, give me the strength to fulfil your work and ..I would like to be a singer if you could make me sing words of righteousness to your people. And he has granted me both wishes.”

Inspired by the reggae artists Marlon Asher and Jah Melody, the young man made his way through the ranks of up-and-coming artisgts and became a successful singer. In the past decade plus, he’s scored numerous hits, including “Delila” and “Pretty Boy.” Many of his songs talk about his faith as a devout Bobo Shanti, and that includes sascramental use of ganja.

Today’s toker track pays homage to the sacred herb — you can find it on the 2006 Caribbean Music Group compilation release Reggae Roadblock 3, which you can find on iTunes. The song is “Field of Weed.”

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Cornel Campbell has one of the sweetest voices in reggae. His clear, heartrending falsetto can be heard on many reggae classics and in a variety of settings, including R&B, ska, rock steady, and lovers’ rock.  And we may never have heard him at all, save for legendary ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez.

In 1956, Rodriguez encountered an 11-year-old Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica. The horn man took him to producer Clement Dodd, who ran Kingston’s historic Studio One. There, young Campbell recorded his first single, “My Treasure.” Since then, Campbell’s gorgeous tenor can be heard fronting acts including the Skatalites, the Bell Stars, the Sensations, the Eternals, and the Uniques.

He also enjoyed success as a solo artist. Over the decades, Campbell scored with numerous reggae hits, among them, “Natty Dread in a Greenwich Farm,” “Boxing,” and “Them A Bad.” The hits dried up in the 1980s, but Campbell continues on — performing, making music, and lifting hearts with that sweet, sweet voice.

Check out his work on Youtube and iTunes. Campbell also got into the songwriting game, and our toker tune today is one of his compositions: from the 2010 Sanctuary Records compilation of the same name, it’s Cornel Campbell and “Hundred Pounds of Collie.”

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Today we bring you another trailblazing woman of reggae: Queen Omega doesn’t get a lot of big time press, but to those in the know, she is among the best in the business. And her music is on fire.

The Trinidad native got her start as a youngster, writing her own calypso songs and performing on television and in local talent shows. Eventually she found work as a backing vocalist for many top soca performers.

After becoming a Rastafarian, her songwriting focus turned to roots reggae. In 2000, while touring with the solomon band, Omega met the producer Mickey D. He took her to London, where she launched her solo recording career. Eleven years later, the Queen continues her music making quest.

Now working with Special Delivery Music, she delivers her conscious messages through her own brand of singjaying, and it is incendiary. Check it out via her MySpace page, catch her on one of her globetrotting tours, and buy her music from iTunes. And of course we have an Omega offering right here for NORML Show Live. Seriously — this is one of the best marijuana-themed tracks I’ve heard: From the 2004 Jet Star release Away from Babylon, Queen Omega and “Ganja Baby.”

Download audio file (Queen Omega – Ganja Baby.mp3)

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