THERE has never been such a huge commercial market for Polish reggae, but that may soon change, at least if the band Star Guard Muffin has a say.

The group of youngsters aged 17 to 21 have developed quite a following in their native Poland. Led by vocalist Kamil Bednarek, who nabbed second place in a local televised talent competition and quite a cult following. The band was in Jamaica recently to record at the famed Tuff Gong studios in Kingston.

Polish producer and tour manager Maken said that reggae could make a foothold in Poland through the efforts of this young group. Speaking of lead singer Bednarek, Maken noted that his popularity comes from TV, and the profile of his audience is very young people aged from 14 to 17, and mostly girls. Some of his songs are dancehall, and some are roots reggae. It’s in between, and he has attracted thousands of new young people to reggae in recent times.

And Maken should know. He has been working on various reggae projects in Poland for more than 20 years. He is also a reggae journalist working for Polish national radio Channel 4 with a two-hour reggae show once per week.

Added he, “and of course, due to his (Bednarek) success, he earned some money and decided to spend this money in a constructive way to get a good lesson of how to do reggae and they decided to come to Jamaica to do a recording session.”

Bednarek and his Star Guard Muffin, is the second reggae outfit from Poland to visit Jamaica to work on their music project at the famed Tuff Gong Studio. The first was the group Rastasize that came three years ago. Apart from the Marcus Garvey Drive-based historic recording facility, another constant is the involvement of Maken.

Maken explained. “Sometimes I work as producer. I was here three years ago with Rastasize. It was the first project I was involved in… and that was my first visit to Jamaica and my first work in Jamaica. And now I came again. Similar concept but a completely different artiste,” Maken noted.

“This is quite a big sensation in Polish reggae music, because they are a very young band. They started three years ago playing together, they are one of the youngest Polish reggae performers. The whole band came. The band consists of a bass player, guitarist, singer, keyboardist and drummer,” he added.

The band’s success story seems to lie in Bednarek, a very talented singer with a very good voice. His second place win seems to have made him an overnight sensation.

Maken explained, “In two weeks he was like a superstar in Poland. His Myspace page was the number one visited site in the world in terms of the number of visits. More than Eminem or any other big artiste.”

“This was last November. All because of the show. He was very highly acclaimed and now he got all young people in Poland listening to him. Since then they are continuously performing. They play like five shows per week and all shows are sold-out within a few hours. They reach two or three thousand people at the shows which is incredible for reggae (in Poland). There has never been such a huge commercial success in Polish reggae ever, and Polish reggae exist from 1980.”

Although he does not have the command of the English language like his tour manager, Bednarek did manage to express himself. “We are very happy to be here to record five songs. We play for three years and Jamaica is the most important lesson for us because this is the source of the music. We are here and we listen and listen and learned. So I hope in the future we can record all of the CD. It’s our dream.”

Following a performance at the Wyndham Hotel’s Jonkonoo Lounge in New Kingston, he mused, “it was amazing. In Poland, everyone knows who I am. But here nobody knows. It was a very amazing experience. The feeling inside of me… we played and the people like it. The main target of our shows is Poland and may be in the future we can do more in Jamaica. Got a lot of shows in Poland, 150 this year,” Bednarek stated.