Mackaruffin marks milestone
THIRTY years is a long time to spend away from home, but singer/musician Mackaruffin has no regrets about settling in Japan.
The diminutive artiste marks three decades living in The Land of The Rising Sun with a series of shows with YelloKings, a band of Japanese musicians.
He told the Jamaica Observer that the first show is scheduled for March 26 in Yokohama. Other dates are confirmed for Tokyo, Nagoya and Nagano.
“This is living proof of di work I’ve been doing in Japan, continuing to build di cultures of di two countries,” he said.
Mackaruffin (given name David McAnuff) will use the shows to promote his EP, Why I Came to Japan, which was released last August by Universal Japan. It contains four versions (English, Japanese, dub and karaoke) of the title song.
Why I Came to Japan was inspired by a popular television show of the same name that has aired in Japan since 2012. It has airport interviews with people either visiting or planning to settle in that country.
Mackaruffin moved to Japan in 1986 after playing shows there with the Black Kush band, for which he was drummer. He has witnessed a transformation of its reggae landscape, from the music’s zenith in the 1980s and 1990s to a current lull.
“More Japanese playing reggae right now. On di major shows yuh have pure Japanese; is not like in di days of Reggae Sunsplash an’ JapanSplash,” he said.
The Reggae Sunsplash and JapanSplash events were held in major Japanese cities during the 1980s and featured reggae’s biggest stars including Dennis Brown, Freddie McGregor, Maxi Priest and Sugar Minott.
Mackaruffin, who also heads the 10-piece Macka Roots band, said the traffic of major dancehall/reggae acts performing in Japan has eased considerably. In recent months, Beenie Man, Ken Boothe and Stranger Cole have done shows there.