Reggae

The Human Rights – Old School Track

It’s the long weekend and Caribana is upon us!  When I used to live down on Queens Quay, this was my favorite time of year because of the annual Island Soul festival held across the street from my building at Harbourfront Centre.  The Saturday night always featured a great reggae headliner (Tony Rebel and Barrington Levy were my favorites) and this year is no exception.  None other than Kabaka Pyramid will be the headliner this year on the WestJet Stage tomorrow night (August 1st)!  If you follow TickuTalk, you know very well that Kabaka is one of the young lions at the forefront of the Reggae Revival.

However, while browsing the rest of the lineup for Island Soul, I noticed another pleasant surprise.  A Toronto band called “The Human Rights” (formerly known as Friendlyness and the Human Rights) will be opening for Kabaka (their performance is at 7pm).  I’ve seen them perform many times in local bars such as Indian Motorcycle (R.I.P.), El Mocambo, and Thymeless.  You can check out one of their songs below:

 

I haven’t seen The Human Rights perform live in many years though, so one thing that took me by surprise was that they have a new band member who happens to be one of my favorite Canadian reggae artists.  His name is Treson, and I first heard him sing at the old Indian Motorcycle Club.  I was blown away by his soulful voice, and I remember vividly buying his CD at the club that night.  He doesn’t have a lot of his songs on YouTube, but I was able to find this acoustic performance he did for CHRY 105.5 a number of years ago. Time to go dig up that old CD 🙂

 

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