MALAGUETA MUSIC - Germany

You don't need extra luggage to listen to the latest Culture Taxi Records album: It will take you straight to the sunny Caribbean, for an encounter with Taj Weekes and his highly contagious reggae. Your luggage is in the trunk, your driver ready to take off, let's go for a ride!

Taj Weekes' high voice combined with his unusually enticing melodies provide the basis for his perfectly balanced reggae. With solid keyboards, the cunning wah-wah licks of his guitar, seductive female background singers, and his complex, yet straight-forward arrangements, it becomes obvious that we are in the company of a musician who is blessed by the West-Indian gods.

Taj Weekes grew up in St. Lucia and later moved to New York. This is where, together with his band, Adowa , he released his first album, "Hope and Doubt" in 2005, starting his live career and building a solid fan community. Today marks the release of his second album, "Deidem" ("All of us"). After losing both of his parents within the same year, Taj Weekes' lyrics dealt first and foremost with his mourning. But quite soon, he began writing about the suffering of mankind instead of dwelling in self-pity. His themes expanded to universal issues:  Right underneath the floating island melodies, his music addresses current problems ranging from the environment ("Dark Clouds"), to globalization, Hurricane Katrina, or the conflict in Darfur.

I find it difficult to emphasize one particular song. Each of the melodies grabs you rapidly and continues to linger in your mind – from the melancholic "Orphan's Cry" to the irresistible "Angry Language", from the upbeat (in spite of its somber theme of humans' inclination to violence) "Since Cain" to "Kink and Crinkle."  All eleven songs bring back the magic reggae sound of the seventies, without ever sounding old. The last song of the album, the ballad "Louisiana", with its sparse piano accompaniment, continues to resonate with you for quite a while after its last chords have faded.

REGGAE-REVIEWS.COM

 
After releasing perhaps the best reggae album of 2005, Taj Weekes returns with an early candidate for the best of '08 in DEIDEM. Although his unique vocals are the most immediately striking aspect of his work, Weekes remains one of the best lyricists in reggae today, reaching beyond typical reggae discourse to delve into abstract concepts, inner emotions, and new ways of delivering the same messages we've heard dozens of times before. To describe the cycle of global violence, for example, he traces it back to biblical times in Since Cain. In Kink and Crinkle, he relates the oppression of Rastas to the processing of hair, while Angry Language is an introspective journey into the battle to suppress one's rage, Dark Clouds laments global warming, and Propaganda War is a searing indictment of the press, proclaiming, "With no printing press, the lies we can't address. They steal away our joy and steal our happiness." Weekes' delivery is as heartfelt as his words, and his strong melodic structure ensures that listeners will stick around to appreciate the lyrics. Of course, the music from his band Adowa is a powerful complement. Aside from the Katrina-themed piano ballad Louisiana, it's chock-full of traditional '70s-style roots reggae, with a touch of folksy blues and a slinky electric guitar that creeps in every now and then. Weekes' is the sort of music I imagine Bob Marley singing if he were still alive today. It's smart, inspirational, musically vibrant, and just plain gorgeous. No reggae fan can afford not to know Taj Weekes.

UNITED REGGAE - Online Reggae Magazine, FRANCE

 
Album review by: Angus Taylor 

A new roots release straight from St. Lucia with DEIDEM, second album from soulful singer Taj Weekes and his band Adowa.

The picture postcard view of reggae from the mainstream is of a sunny, relentlessly upbeat genre, full of promises that everything will be “irie”. And like most clichés it contains more than an element of truth. But you’ll get no such assurance from the second full-length set by St. Lucian singer Taj Weekes and his group Adowa, who clearly inhabit a very different world.

There aren’t any laid-back island vibes to be found on DEIDEM, for it is no party album. From opener Angry Language (a chillingly honest account of the descent from high minded principle into rage) to Hurricane Katrina-inspired piano ballad Louisiana, this is melancholy soul-searching music, but the eerie detachment of Weekes' voice averts wounded sentimentality or depressing dirge. He has an ageless, genderless falsetto that could give depth to even the most trite lyrics, but this is matched by an originality and a poetic simplicity with words, an avoidance of stock terms and phrases and a tendency to deal in opposites, exemplified by his warning of impending apocalypse during For Today, where he tells us that, “The latter days have come, The ending has begun, Beginning’s on the way, Hold on for today”. Weekes is also a guitarist, and both clean melodic lead and percussive Tosh-style wah wah rhythm work (shared between him, Shelton Garner and Adoni Xavier) are at the forefront of many of the tracks, but never to the point of ill judged “rock reggae” fusion. Using his own band for the arrangements really pays off - yielding a unity that only the elite session players can attain.

Such is the sense of foreboding across most of this record - even the one lively ska type rhythm bears the chorus “since Cain slew Abel, misery and pain” - that the two major key compositions offer welcome relief. With its descending melody, clavinet and sweet vocal, first single Hollow Display sounds uncannily like The Royals’ ‘My Sweat Turns To Blood’, but Weekes’ stoical poignant description of relationship breakup deems it a worthy successor rather than a pale imitation, while Dark Clouds uses the changing seasons to give a critique of environmental destruction made palatable by its subtlety and artful turn of phrase.

In the interests of balance, it is worth mentioning that DEIDEM’s bleak mood and the primacy of the guitars in the mix may be too much for some people’s tastes. But, as a reggae artist, Taj Weekes has the full package – a strange haunting voice, deep and interesting lyrics, the ability to write songs (not just sing over rhythms) and an uncompromising view of what the music should entail. If you like old school roots the way it used to be but don’t like it to sound self consciously “retro”– this is your man. One of 2008’s best releases from outside Jamaica so far.

JAMMIN REGGAE ARCHIVES ON NICEUP.COM

 
Album review by: Ras Adam Simeon

Hailing from the island of St. Lucia, Taj Weekes offers a serious work tackling tough topics over haunting roots rock reggae. His band name Adowa is from a famous Ethiopian battle, a tribute his Ethiopian grandpa. The album starts off with Angry Language where he reconsiders his biblical teachings. He questions the truths we are fed in Propaganda War and the cycle of man's violence on Since Cain. Opression and judgement of dreadlocks is addressed on Kink and Crinkle. Dark Clouds, Orphans Cry and Hollow Display all touch on heavy subjects of inhumanity and broken hearts. Through the dark and heavy messages shine a few rays of hope; on We Stand he intones that "we've got to find a way" and fight against the odds to keep that Little Fire lit and burning. Taj has a very high sweet unique voice almost like a Pablo Moses. His band is very talented and has a Tosh/Lucky Dube feel. The disc's final cut is Lousiana, a slow balad about Hurricane Katrina. Despite the dense material, the disc is not depressing, rather it's serious message music and food for thought.  Jatta Records