SOJA

with HIRIE and LIKKLE JORDEE

Jacob Hemphill (lead vocals, guitar) - Bobby Lee (bass, vocals) - Ryan Berty (drums) - Kenny Bongos (percussion) - Patrick O’Shea (keyboards) - Hellman Escorcia (saxophone) - Rafael Rodriguez (trumpet) - Trevor Young (lead guitar, vocals)

For more than two decades, SOJA have elated audiences across the globe with their fresh yet timeless take on roots reggae, a sound born from their shared passion for making music that transports and inspires. On Beauty in the Silence—their first new album in four years—The Grammy Award-Winning band deepens that communal spirit by collaborating with artists from all corners of the reggae world, including the likes of UB40, Slightly Stoopid, Stick Figure, and Rebelution. Fueled by the sheer force of their connection and chemistry, Beauty in the Silence ultimately makes for a much-needed antidote to fractured times, infusing so much warmth and wisdom and unstoppable joy into each and every track.

Like 2014’s acclaimed Amid the Noise and Haste (a Grammy nominee for Best Reggae Album), the title to Beauty in the Silence references the opening lines of Max Ehrmann’s beloved poem “Desiderata”: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” “My dad had that poem memorized, and before I’d go out on tour he’d sort of whisper it in my ear,” says SOJA frontman Jacob Hemphill. “To me it’s a reminder of what we lose when we get caught up in the distractions all around us. You get so used to life being loud and fast and goal-oriented, but then you go out in nature and hear the silence and realize, ‘Damn, I got tricked.’ Life doesn’t have to be all go, go, go. The real key to life is in being still.”

In keeping with the notion of slowing down, SOJA deliberately took their time in creating Beauty in the Silence. As they explored new sonic terrain—recording in such iconic spots as Miami’s Circle House Studios and Dave Matthews Band’s Haunted Hollow, and teaming up with producers like Niko Marzouca, Mariano Aponte, and Johnny Cosmic—the band eventually phased into working remotely as stay-at-home orders set in across the country. In that process, lead guitarist Trevor Young (formerly SOJA’s guitar tech) took on a much greater role in the band’s creative direction, co-producing alongside Jacob and carefully shaping the album’s hypnotic sound. “I really love that this record is a mix of all of us together in a room and all of us far apart,” Jacob says. “It’s something that I’d love to keep doing in the future: let’s get together, let’s get the vibe and the groove, and then let’s go off into our own worlds and discover what’s there.”

Instantly setting the album’s mood of soulful celebration, Beauty in the Silence opens on “Press Rewind” (ft. Collie Buddz and J Boog), a track that first took form late one night on Buddz’s tour bus. “We were on tour together, and after the show Collie was going through beats on his phone,” Jacob says of the Bermudian reggae artist. “He played me that one and I came up with the opening lyrics right away, and it turned into a song where everybody tells their story of how they fell in love with music—in my part I’m talking about me and Bobby and Byrd watching DVDs of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and realizing that’s what we wanted to do with our lives.” Capped off by a fiery verse from Hawaii-based reggae singer J Boog, the result is a gloriously radiant tribute to how music enlightens and sustains us. “The details are different for each of us, but the story remains the same: we fell in love with music, and we couldn’t ever break up,” Jacob says.

In its delicate exploration of love in all its forms, Beauty in the Silence also offers up intensely personal tracks like “The Day You Came” (ft. Rebelution and UB40), a bittersweet breakup song that perfectly captures the confusion of heartache. “All my love songs are a conglomerate of experiences I’ve had; it’s never about just one person,” Jacob points out. “But one thing I always make sure to do is write from the perspective of the woman I was in the relationship with, because to me that’s the way to tell a story that’s bigger than what happened between these two people.” In a particularly meaningful turn for Jacob, “The Day You Came” finds UB40’s Ali Campbell lending his soothing vocals to the final verse. “Me and my dad used to sing ‘Impossible Love’ by UB40 all the time—we’d sing together at his piano, we’d sing it when we were driving somewhere,” says Jacob. “Before I even knew Bob Marley, UB40 were my entry point into loving reggae.”

As Beauty in the Silence unfolds, SOJA reveals the intangible magic that comes from letting their creative instincts run free. On “Break It Down,” for instance, the band shares a stark yet sublimely detailed track that Trevor and Jacob scratched out in a New Caledonia hotel room. “We’d just gotten to this beautiful island and all the other guys were going down to the beach, but Jake and I said, ‘Nah, we’re just gonna sit in this room and make some songs,’” Trevor recalls. Driven by a soul-stirring performance from SOJA saxophonist Hellman Escorcia and trumpet player Rafael Rodriguez, “Something To Believe In” (ft. Stick Figure) emerged from an instrumental that Stick Figure frontman Scott Woodruff recorded in the studio he’d set up in his Sprinter van. “It’s a song about those times in life when you feel like you’re walking through darkness and it’s so hard to find the light to lead you out,” says Jacob. “We actually wrote it months before the pandemic started, but it feels like it could’ve come from that moment.” And on “Jump” (ft. Slightly Stoopid), SOJA reimagine a sweetly empowering song penned by their tour manager, Eric Swanson. “When I was a kid someone asked me, ‘Would you accept everlasting life on the condition that you could never speak to another human again?’ And my answer was no,” says Jacob. “‘Jump’ is a song about how the real basis of the human experience is connection, and I love that it’s SOJA and Eric and Stoopid all coming together as people who’ve known each other a very long time.”

One of the final tracks on Beauty in the Silence, “Reason To Live” (ft. Nanpa Básico and Dirty Heads) bears a certain spellbinding quality that Jacob partly credits to Dirty Heads’ mind-bending creativity. “Those guys are like mad scientists; they’ve got music that sounds like hip-hop and reggae and pop all at once, and at the root of it are these lyrics that hit you so hard,” he says. With its shimmering groove and shapeshifting textures, “Reason To Live” features a Spanish-sung verse from Colombian hip-hop artist Nanpa Básico, adding even more urgency to the song’s message of open-hearted perseverance. “You might be going through life with all these plans and thoughts of how it’s all going to work out, and then something happens and you realize that what you were so focused on was actually hurting you,” says Jacob. “The truth is that the future isn’t in your hands, and your reason to live might come from a place that you weren’t expecting at all.”

Elsewhere on Beauty in the Silence, SOJA join forces with everyone from up-and-comers like Filipino-American reggae singer Eli Mac (“A true original, and one of the most creative people I know,” according to Jacob) to longtime friends and tourmates like the Hawaiian band Common Kings (“They’re a huge inspiration when you’re on the road—every single night, they hit the stage like a fireball”). And while each artist brings their own distinct sensibilities to the mix, all of the guest musicians are deeply aligned with SOJA’s mission of uplifting the masses. “My hero’s always been Bob Marley, and that’s mainly because he had this way of letting people find their purpose in the music,” says Jacob. “It didn’t matter if you were white or black or a girl or a boy or rich or poor, you felt like he was talking directly to you. So that’s what we were trying to do with this record: make it as real as possible and tell the whole story of our experience, not just the shiny parts. That’s how you create something that really connects, and that hopefully leaves this place at least a little better after you’re gone.”

HIRIE

One woman can truly do it all and make the world a better place as she goes. Hawaiian-raised reggae pop star HIRIE (born Patricia Jetton), boldly paves the way for women across all industries: she performs musical stages around the world, all the while preaching positivity, enlisting an open ear to those in need and remaining a loving wife and mother, to boot. HIRIE is the humble superstar who, even after a landslide of accreditation, still takes the time to thank and honor her loyal supporters, whether that be a special photo opportunity at a show, an online chat or a spur-of-the-moment meet-and-greet at her merchandise table.

On top of mental health freedom-fighting, HIRIE further exudes a feministic attitude. From enlisting women stylists to women in the press to having talented women performing beside her onstage, a female-first agenda is prevalent in the world of HIRIE and heavily-executed. An epitome of this is found within the single “Woman Comes First”, featuring similar-minded Australian reggae rebel Nattali Rize. The track — off HIRIE’s 2016 Wandering Soul, an album rocketing to #1 on the Billboard Reggae Charts —hails back to the biblical days; even then, in days of “Adam and Eve”, women came first. Other empowered offerings off the pop star’s sophomore release include the songs “Queen” and “Melody Of A Broken Heart”, in between satiable fan favorites, like “Boom Fire”, “You Won’t Be Alone” and “Don’t Take My Ganja”.Yet, before HIRIE turned into a Wandering Soul, she first had to take roots. Living in San Diego and bouncing between open mic nights, HIRIE witnessed the start of her determined hard work paying off in the serendipitous meeting of multi-instrumentalist and producer E.N Young (then of Tribal Seeds), who agreed to produce her first album. The self-titled debut has since garnered over 6.7 million streams on Spotify after escalating to #4 on the Reggae iTunes Charts. Not too shabby for a first-timer! Doubling down on her success three years later with Wandering Soul (which rendered her an esteemed San Diego Music Award for ‘Best World Album’ in 2017), HIRIE now celebrates her third full-length album Dreamer, with over 4.2 million Spotify streams since its 2019 release. Her most daringly authentic to date, Dreamer exposes the good, the bad and the large grey void of adulthood. “This album is about raw honesty,” she discloses. “I feel like I was braver with exploring my emotional state and how that swings back and forth — allowing myself to be brutally honest.” Introspective, forthright and unapologetic, songs like “I’m Messed Up” and “Message in a Bottle” resonate with all those who hear it. Unlike other pop stars posing on an unattainable and unrealistic pedestal, HIRIE is more tangible and relatable than ever — that’s the HIRIE difference. Not HIRIE, who uses her bubble gum melodies to evoke empathy, push for change and set self limitations. She embodies a new era of pop celebrity that, we can only hope, continues through her example. Of course, album number three is more than just anthems of self-awareness, offering upbeat party songs, like the ultra-catchy “Put It Down” with Chali 2na and “I Like The Way You Roll”, featuring Slightly Stoopid. You would think the overall result is an emotional rollercoaster of an album, but really, its differing tempo and timbre just adds to HIRIE’s exceptional musical prowess. “A lot of times it was like, ‘Let’s write something fast.’ ‘Let’s write something you can dance to.’ ‘This theme, let’s go for this.’ Everything you hear is a slice of me and my multiple personalities,” laughs HIRIE. Shortly after Dreamer’s release, HIRIE (like the rest of the world) was ushered into quarantine. Instead of wallowing in her unexpected circumstances, HIRIE used the forced downtime as a blessing, exploring her talents for tattooing, recording new singles and even relocating her family back to her home island of Oahu. By the summer of 2020, HIRIE had followed up on her 2019 post-album single “She Go” with a sizzling new track “Bonfire”, allowing listeners cooped up indoors a long overdue breath of fresh air. In 2021, HIRIE continued to pump out new music, including throwing props back to where you came from in "Respect", a collaborative single with rising reggae artist DENM, “Feel The Sunshine” with Hawaiian heavyweight Kolohe Kai and a fresh take on Shwayze’s 2007 hit with Cisco Adler, “Corona and Lime”. HIRIE also hit the road Summer and Fall of 2021 in support of reggae rock royalty Sublime With Rome and Dirty Heads. With her trusty band of players behind her and her doggy best friend Goji at her side, HIRIE is now barrelling into 2022 with a return back to the recording studio for her fourth full-length project. What's first on the release list? A cosmic collaboration entitled "Youniverse" with Arise Roots frontman Karim Israel, emphasizing the notion of infinite energy as humanity's master design. Next, in a series leading up to HIRIE’s highly-anticipated album reveal, is a team with Jamaica’s Spragga Benz for the sultry single “I Miss You” (out now), as well as a pairing on Matisyahu’s buzzworthy “Blacklist” — along-awaited track out July 22nd, 2022.

LIKKLE JORDEE

Likkle Jordee, born Jordan Ramirez from Mililani, Hawai’i, is a multi-genre musical artist with roots in reggae. 

After losing his mother to lupus at a young age, Likkle Jordee struggled to find a purpose and began to rebel in school. He would skip class to play ʻukulele in the hallways and even lock himself in his room to wail out to the songs of Bob Marley, Ooklah the Moc, Dennis Brown, and Rootikal Riddim. His passion for music ignited at 13 years old after his step-mother gifted him a microphone, which he still owns today. He discovered his voice and through music he began to find purpose and navigate through the pain of losing his mother. 

After studying reggae and its history, he grew an appreciation and deep love for the music and began to craft his own unique style. In 2014, he met Tuli Ranks, an underground Reggae Artist from Compton, CA on the music platform Soundcloud, where they formed the group, Digikal Youth. A few years later, Jordee got his first break with Eli-Mac as a feature on her 2017 single titled "Nighttime Session''. Two years and three singles later, he released his first EP ‘Brand New’ produced by award-winning producer, Lapana Ieriko aka Pana. 

Likkle Jordee has had the honor of sharing the stage with some of Hawai'i and California’s biggest household names such as: SOJA, Rebelution, Jboog, Collie Budz, Josh Tatofi, Yaadcore, The Green, Eli-Mac, Through the Roots, and more. In 2020 he won ‘Breakout Artist of the Year’ at the Island Music Awards and was nominated in three different categories the following year. His mission is to inspire others to unlock their full potential through the power of music.