Rastaboyz.com - The Voice of Reggae Dancehall (Vancouver, Canada)

December 2010

Roberto Gell

Roberto Gell is a soul rebel, a man raised in the heart of Babylon who persevered, coming to know his true identity as a Rastafari, a reggae artist, and a musician. His story is anything but conventional. Roberto Gell is Dominican-American, he spent much of his formative years in Boston, Massachusetts, he didn't play a guitar until after his 20th birthday, he made hip hop before becoming a reggae singer and musician, and he came to know Jah and his true calling in life while living in a mountain town popular with snowboarders. But being unconventional can be an asset in music, and it certainly is for Roberto Gell whose modern approach to roots reggae is sure to start turning heads. Being Dominican-American and bilingual, Roberto sings his up-tempo roots reggae songs in both English and Spanish. His music owes much to classic bands and artists such as Culture, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, and Gregory Isaacs, but it is also influenced by his appreciation and love for hip-hop and dancehall. He just went to a Wu Tang show in San Francisco. And among a list of reggae and roots artists that Gell said he enjoyed listening to were reggaeton artists like Omega and Tego Calderon, and Latino roots bands like Chico Sol and Pachamama. All these influences make Roberto Gell's music unique, and his sound hard to pinpoint.

As a young child Roberto Gell lived in the Dominican Republic. His dad was a jockey who rode racehorses, and the family moved around a lot, with time spent in California and Lousiana, before Boston became home. His parents didn't play any instruments in the home and "if anything I was probably discouraged from playing music as a child. That's why I didn't really have an instrument. It wasn't really viewed as a probable occupation." And yet two of Roberto's brothers are also involved in the music business, one works the drums, and the other makes beats and rhymes and mixes electronic music. "So in this generation of the family yeah it's big...I listened to a lot of music growing up as a child and music is big in Dominican culture."

Although Gell always listened to and appreciated reggae, the first music he made and performed was rap. Gell rapped, wrote rhymes and performed in the award-winning hip hop collective The Libra Project. "So my experience in performing and rapping kind of refreshed my interest in live music and I started fusing the two of them...But you know as far as reggae culture and hip hop nowadays it's very similar...when dancehall talks about the same thing as gangsta rap talks about, and rap talks about the same conscious things reggae talks about. Different cultures you know, but both rooted in the African Diaspora..." Roberto Gell is credited with having great on-stage energy, even when performing what could be seen as mellower roots reggae songs it's not uncommon for him to be leaping in the air, dreads flying, and interacting in a lively manner with the pumped up crowd. "And for me I like having that energy coming from vibes and I guess that would be my dancehall influence...bringing energy to the stage and trying to hype it up...Even when I performed at the Montreal Reggae Fest and I did a set of my reggae material, one of the local women who interviewed me afterwards, she's like 'the way you move on stage it kind of reminds me of hip hop.'"

Roberto Gell became deeply immersed in reggae music and Rastafari in an unlikely place, a ski-mountain in New England. "I dropped out of high school when I was a sophomore and I got more into skating and snowboarding and those type of sports. And I actually from 19-21 [Roberto is 30 now] I lived at a mountain...I lived and worked at a mountain so I could snowboard every day...You know with the ski/snowboard scene there's lots of festivals and I saw a lot of music shows and I saw a lot of reggae shows." His brother also hosted a local roots reggae radio show and booked and promoted reggae artists who'd perform in the village. "My brother hooked me up with Mighty Dread and I hung out with him a bunch...and I'd hang out with this band called the Black Rebels based out of Western Mass that was doing this thing for a long time and you know, I just got influenced by all these people that were in that scene."

Gell picked up the guitar and decided to leave pure rap behind to instead focus on making reggae music. He's mainly performed with three bands over the years, Midnight Ravers, I Trinity, and Dub Station.

And it was during this same period of time that Gell came to know I and I. "I got connected to the philosophies and liked having long hair and smoking herb and studying ancient history...Really what it was was when I was younger I wanted to have that identity...Certain pressures from society and family, and Babylon, had me expressing myself but in a different way. Once I became my own person...and I was able to express in any way I chose, I became Rasta you know?" "From like 21 I've been growing my dreads...and following a Rasta lifestyle, I'm a vegetarian...I don't cut my hair I don't shave you know, I don't do no drugs..I live clean, like the way you should when you're trying to connect yourself to His Majesty." And now living in LA, he's blessed to be able to "go to Ras Michael's yard and do nyabinghi chanting and drumming and celebrating the special occasions...of His Majesty."

The name of Gell's 5 track EP which came out last year is Midnight Ravers, just like the band he performed with. Roberto plays rhythm guitar on many of the songs. He also composed and arranged much of the music including the basslines and drums. It's a stylistically eclectic and well-produced EP that gives fans a taste of what to expect on his upcoming full length album. It's upbeat although the lyrics cover a variety of issues, and it's a smooth listen that's suited equally for listening to with headphones while going for a stroll, or for playing at a party or get-together with friends. Viviendo en Babylon is the one Spanish track, and the stand out for me is Can't Tell, the chorus of which can easily get caught in your head.

Midnight Ravers was produced by a "brethren by the name of David Sparr." Although he was better known for his work with Afro-pop bands, "he's great with music theory, he loved my music and what I'm doing so he ended up being a huge help in as far as developing the music artistically and getting it down and interpreting my ideas. He was a great ear you know...And he ended up playing keys on like half the tracks...That was pretty irie." Diamond Jones, Roberto's original keyboardist, moved to New York during the recording process.

Next up for Roberto Gell is promotional work, lining up tours, and bandmembers for those tours. Gell has a show booked in Brooklyn in early March and will probably hit New England then as well. But he gets most excited when he talks about spreading his material to new audiences, including a Northern California tour, and possibly hitting the Caribbean and Central America later in the year. "In parts of the Bay. In like reggae, it's like sometimes a lot of people don't participate because they don't really feel connected enough with the culture or whatever. The beat. Whatever. But in Northern California it's like everybody loves the music and they play it too. I like that. That's irie." He'd love to perform in the Dominican Republic, and is happy with the response he's gotten from Dominicans so far. If he took that tour he'd love to also take some time out to introduce his young son to his family there. He also hopes to tour Nicaragua and Costa Rica where he knows people.

The full length album is set to be released in the Spring. "Everything is mixed, it's getting remastered now and I just finished the album cover." "All the material is stuff I wrote like 4 or 5 years ago so you know it's cool for me to just get it out. Basically I got a whole second album of material ready to record!" We'll be watching out for it, and fans can also expect more Spanish language tracks from Roberto Gell in the future.