The three friends — Jacob Hemphill, Bobby Lee and Ryan Berty — decided they’d form their own band and namedand it was the kind of thing you’d expect from teens in the ’90s: practicing in their parents’ garages and basements, recording themselves on digital audio tape or minidisc. They’d listen back, critique their own sound and jam again.
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.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.Meet the reggae band with global cred made up of white guys ...
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
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)
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