TYPICAL of the grass-roots artiste, singer EVER-G has been a one-man show for most of his 25-year career.

He gets some marketing for his latest album, The Truth, scheduled to be released in April through a distribution deal with VPAL, a subsidiary of VP Records.

The 14-song set is the 58-year-old artiste’s seventh album, but little is known of him in Jamaica. He has a regional following in the United States, in areas like Virginia where he lived for many years, and California.

Being an independent artiste has its disadvantages, EVER-G points out. One of them is a lack of budget to promote his music.

“I have done all my recordings in the US. I’m not signed to a major record label so getting my music heard in Jamaica has been extremely difficult,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

For over 25 years, Hanover-born EVER-G (real name Everett Streete) lived in Hampton, Virginia. He recorded a number of well-received songs and albums inspired by the roots-reggae sound he grew up listening to in the 1970s.

Over the years, most of his shows have been in the Virginia/Maryland/Washington DC radius, as well as California and Canada.

Recording albums, a rarity among the contemporary Jamaican artiste, is still attractive to EVER-G.

“It is good to do singles but I am more interested in a body of work which will explore and deal with many and varied topics or issues,” he said. “An album embodies that body of work.”

EVER-G’s first album, World Peace, was released in 1999. His previous, Unleashed, came out last year.

— Howard Campbell