Oliver Hartley, aka Lion, and Thierry Cuvillier, aka Taili, are Taipei-based expats best known as the driving force behind Black Reign International Sound, a collective of reggae and dancehall DJs.
But for their latest event, the pair won’t be loading CDs or queuing up MP3s on a laptop — they’ll be playing the music themselves. Lion will be behind the drumkit and Taili on bass for their new reggae band Roots Rebellion, which plays tomorrow night in Taipei at Pipe.
Lion, a native of Jamaica, describes roots reggae as “like education, it’s going to school. It’s to uplift and to help people make it through life.”
Photo Courtesy of Roots Rebellion/Thomas König
As for the “rebellion” part of the name, Lion said, “The music we play is not a popular music, but it’s slowly gathering a following ...[We’re] using roots music to rebel.”
Having a band is something that Taili had wanted to do since Black Reign began in 2003 (they originally called themselves O-Brothaz Sound System), according to Lion, a self-taught drummer.
He and Taili began brushing up on their skills a year ago in a studio after meeting American expat guitarist Emilio Jose Del Pozo, also a reggae fanatic. The three realized they had a perfect fit, and recruited other Caribbean expat musicians from around Taiwan to join the band.
Athenee Elrington of Belize plays keyboards, and the lead voice is Sherwyne Pereira of Trinidad, a charismatic singer who also leads the popular Taichung band Wailin’ Soul.
The band also has a local touch in singer Sunny Smalls (real name Yeh Hsing-chen, 葉倖甄), a Tainan native who often performs at Black Reign’s dancehall parties. She shares the vocal duties with Pereira and sings in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Chinese and English.
Although it’s taken a while to find the right people to start a band, Lyon says it’s been worth the wait. He added that Roots Rebellion received a warm reception earlier this month at one of its first full-length gigs at the Brickyard in Kaohsiung.
The band performs all original songs, many of which were written during studio jam sessions with Pereira, an experienced performer who has toured Asia and the Caribbean. According to Lion, their partnership as songwriters just clicked. “We learned from him, he learned from us.”
“Reggae is something that really takes vibes, you know. So even a lot of trained musicians can’t play reggae. The important thing for us has always been the vibes,” Lion said.
While Taiwan’s scene remains relatively small, Lion hails its diversity and uniqueness, pointing to the popularity of fellow reggae and ska groups like High Tide and Skaraoke.
“It’s nice that the scene is coming up, and everybody has something different to offer,” he said.
Roots Rebellion’s show tomorrow night will be followed by sets from Black Reign International Sound’s guest DJs from Japan, Open Crew, Selectah Taro and Katzu.
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