SOJA
Jacob Hemphill, Bobby Lee and Ryan Berty were 14 and attending Yorktown High School in 1996 when they discovered Bob Marley. They were enthralled. From there, the three teens began growing dreadlocks and devouring every reggae record they could get their hands on. “He was singing about changing the world,” says Hemphill, who split his time between his father’s house in Westover and his mother’s near Tuckahoe Park. “Jamaican culture became our thing. It was all-consuming for us.”
Courtesy Photo
Eventually, they formed a band and settled on the name Soldiers of Jah Army—a reference to the Rastafarian name for God. The name was later shortened to SOJA, while the band expanded to eight members. Soon, garage concerts gave way to gigs at the State Theatre in Falls Church, Whitlow’s on Wilson in Arlington and points farther south in Virginia and North Carolina.
In 1999, SOJA had the good fortune to meet Jim Fox, the engineer-producer behind D.C.’s Lion and Fox Recording Studios, who had overseen sessions by reggae superstars such as Inner Circle, Steel Pulse and Eek-A-Mouse. The band couldn’t afford his standard fee, but Fox liked their sound—which blends roots-reggae with elements of hip-hop and alt-rock—and agreed to record what would become 2000’s self-titled debut EP. It turned out to be a good fit. Almost two decades later, Fox is still their engineer.
A series of critically acclaimed albums followed, and in 2012, the band signed with Dave Matthews’ ATO Records to release its fourth full-length album, Strength to Survive, which rose to No. 1 on Billboard’s Reggae Album charts. The similarly chart-topping follow-up album, Amid the Noise and Haste, earned the group a 2015 Grammy nomination for “Best Reggae Album.” It includes guest spots by singer-songwriter Michael Franti and D.C. go-go singer Alfred The MC— as well as Damian Marley, the youngest son of Bob Marley.
“That was a dream come true,” Hemphill says of the collaboration with Marley. “The first time I met him, I did not play it cool. I was like, ‘Dude, you’re my hero.’ ”
This spring, the band set up a rehearsal studio in Hemphill’s Falls Church garage and began laying down ideas for its next album. “We wrote our first two records in garages, so we’re getting back to our roots,” says the front man. Keep an ear out for it in 2016.
—Nevin Martell