Some of the other students at school were supportive. Others poked fun: One former Yorktown classmate recalled people around the school knowing the band as the “Fakin’ Jamaicans.” They were the White kids playing reggae music.
Twenty-five years later, SOJA is still playing, having added bandmates from Puerto Rico and Venezuela and grown into an eight-piece ensemble. And they’re far from playing in Arlington basements.
“Starting a reggae band was kind of our dream and the only thing we wanted to do, and then one day people started coming to the shows, and we’re not really sure what happened,” lead singer Hemphill said in Las Vegas this month — as SOJA won the Grammy for best reggae album.
Its 2021 album, “Beauty In the Silence,” had given the band its first win on music’s biggest stage.
That award, though, was met with a mixed response. SOJA had beaten out Jamaican artists Sean Paul, Spice, Jesse Royal, Etana and Gramps Morgan in the category, sparking debate in the reggae world over the band’s win and musical style. But, for those who knew SOJA during its early years in the D.C. area, the Grammy felt like validation.
The work had started early. Shortly after graduating from Yorktown High in 1998, the band made an appointment at Lion and Fox Recording Studios, a D.C. area-based studio known for recording and mixing reggae artists.
Producer and engineer Jim Fox said he recognized something immediately.
“I couldn’t let them go. I mean, the music was so awesome and great. I made them stay two days instead of the one day just because I wanted to spend more time with it,” Fox said in an interview. “It was special stuff. And that recording ended up being their first EP.”
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, the Washington region was a hotbed for reggae, the band said, offering a revolving door of Jamaican and international artists on tour, as well as other Caribbean artists stationed in the area. There was a good reggae show to see on any given weekend.
SOJA became a part of that scene itself, playing venues on U Street like State of the Union and Kaffa House. It was in those days that they met Saray Israel — who long ago earned herself the title “Food Queen of Baltimore,” for her constant presence helping to feed musicians at concerts and events.
Israel told The Post she can still recall the first time she heard SOJA play, at a venue not far from 9:30 Club, and thought: “Wow, who are these guys?”
Today, many of the venues where SOJA and other reggae artists once jammed have shut their doors or been transformed as D.C. has. The area’s music scene, a historical haven for punk, has changed, beyond just reggae — priced and digitized out by a revolution in home-recording technology and a skyrocketing cost of living.
“The Arlington scene is very difficult for a lot of musicians because of the rents here. It’s a very expensive area,” said Don Zientara, a punk producer, musician and former owner of Inner Ear Studio, the legendary recording studio in Arlington that permanently closed last year.
Zientara had recorded SOJA at Inner Ear a few years back.
“They’re just a really together band,” he said,…
Read More: SOJA, reggae Grammy winners, started playing in Arlington basements
