Sunday, May 18th it’s another edition of WELL BLESSED A Conscious Reggae Party featuring The Reggae Soul Man @ginjahthereggaesoulmanPowered by @likkle_green_ting and the ONE @guid8nce 🪶 We are cele-blazing DJ Tiffany’s Pre-Birthday @ipifanysantacruz 💚💛❤️ Come enjoy the vibes! Free! All Ages!! 2pm-7pm at the @woodhousebrews in Santa Cruz, CA #santacruzreggae#rastacruzreggae #rastacruz #ayquelinda #santacruz#djguidance #likklegreenting #love #community 🚀💥🎶 Big Love to @zionfarmscalisantacruz 🫶🏽

Ginjah (Valentine Nkrumah Fraser) released The Reggae Soul Man as his sixth studio album, on the Nature Ways label, in 2021. Ginjah was born in 1978 in Hanover (western Jamaica, later moving to near Kingston), and more recently moved to California, the US.

MUSICAL EVOLUTION

His first studio session was when he was 17 years old was at the famous King Jammy’s studio (Waterhouse, Kingston). Around 2000, he was more or less “discovered” by Beres Hammond, and also connected some time to Beres’s Harmony House label, releasing his first songs for Harmony House. A few years later (around 2004) he went solo, under the name Ginjah given by Beres, related to his love for the typically Jamaican Ginger Beer. Ginjah recorded quite some songs and several albums since then, indeed showing talent for a conscious type of Reggae – known as New Roots – , and a good soulful singing voice, that draws favorable comparisons to Garnett Silk and Ras Shiloh, and a bit (in “clarity”) also to Romain Virgo, yet very much his own.

While no “lovers rock” champion like Beres Hammond, Ginjah did not eschew occasional love songs, but got especially known for his conscious tunes, Never Lost My Way, released in 2009, being one of his best known “hit” songs in international Reggae scenes.