Becca Leathlean caught up with Marcus Gad to ask about his music and message to the people of Brixton, ahead of his forthcoming gig at Hootananny
Brixton, get ready! Coming to Hootananny on Saturday 26 April, and hailing from New Caledonia in the South Pacific, some 10,000 miles away, come Marcus Gad and Tribe, one of the fastest-rising reggae bands in the world.
Gad and his band bring a powerful spiritual and social message, transmitted through Gad’s intelligent, poetic lyrics sung in his hauntingly beautiful voice. Moving from mesmeric chanting to militant calls to unite for change, this is roots music of the highest order.
A child of the early-90s, Gad came to reggae because of its popularity in his country.
In common with many small tropical islands, reggae is New Caledonia’s main musical currency – played on the radio, in shops and on public transport.
His earliest influences were the Jamaican reggae greats of the 1970s, but it wasn’t long before he found more contemporary inspiration in artists from the Virgin Islands, like Vaughn Benjamin and Midnite.
Speaking to broadcaster Gideon St Helen in 2021, Gad explained: “Rastafari was already a philosophy and a way of life [for me], but listening to mainstream reggae music, I was disappointed a lot of the time, because I felt like the essence of Rastafari was commercialised. I didn’t see such depth.
“When I first heard Vaughn, I was like, finally! Oh wow, they’re still here. We still have these elders that are a hundred, a thousand percent implicated in what they are saying.”
The indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia have a rich spiritual heritage which is deeply intertwined with their natural landscape. They also view nature as a teacher, offering lessons about sustainability, respect and balance.
Unsurprisingly, nature is one of Gad’s main themes. His first album with Tribe, Chanting (2017), was recorded in 432hz, a frequency close to the earth’s resonance, and believed to promote healing. The title track is a deep reggae roots meditation, with a slowed-down beat reminiscent of Midnite.
Gad’s second album, Rhythm of Serenity (2020), is a collaboration with the Zion I Kings. Like Chanting, it contains a variety of styles and includes important songs such as Cane and Cotton (commenting on commodities valued higher than human life), Pouvoir (about preserving indigenous history and traditions) and Honoring the Soil. The title track was recorded in one take, in an intensely spiritual manner. Speaking to Gideon St Helen, Gad said: “We just sat down and held a prayer. We didn’t even have to speak about it. … It flowed like a river.”
Gad’s latest album, Ready for Battle (2023), has seen he and Tribe composing their own music again. This time the title track is an up-tempo, no-holds-barred battle cry demanding we act now to save the earth’s diversity, preserve human integrity, stop the multinationals profiteering at the expense of the environment, “stop the wicked men from destroying the whole a creation”.
Brixton Blog caught up with Gad to ask how his work is evolving
BL: With Ready for Battle your work seems to be moving slightly, from meditative towards a call to action. Do you agree?
MG: To me, the meditative state and the militant are complementary. If you come to my shows, you will see that we have tunes like Enter a Space and Chanting, which are deep, meditative, ethereal, and then we have more militant songs that are more up-tempo with a more engaged, political message. The way I see it, the first step of any revolution is meditation to get to know oneself, so that you can interact with the outer world in a more positive way. For me, these two energies cannot be separated. They are the mainstays of my music.
BL: You brought 70-year-old Ton Renald from Mauritius onstage at last year’s Rototom, and your 2024 release with him, Lavérité, is a passionate call for truth and justice in terms of a historical racial tragedy. Are you doing more work in this vein?
MG: Singing with the elders isn’t something I consciously chose to do, but it’s been on my path. It started with Ounine Pawoap who sang the song Kanaké with me. He’s the chief of the Pombei, a tiny tribe lost in the mountains in the north of the island.
The song was a big success because New Caledonia is still very racially divided. When I met Ton Renald in Mauritius it was crazy because it was the day after the government had cancelled our concert on the day of the show.
Renald is the elder brother of singer and local legend Kaya, who died in police custody 25 years ago after being arrested for smoking ganja onstage. So Renald and I decided to do a song together in a “seggae” beat, the traditional rhythm from Mauritius.
The Mauritian people made the song so big – it got millions of views – and we went back to play for 8000 people just a few months later.
From a young age, I felt like I had this calling to heal the relationship between white and black, and this will be another mainstay in my music.
This music is a tool to heal old wounds. It’s not something I necessarily sing about but it’s something that I do. Music has the power to break down barriers without words because you are into action, doing something beautiful together, and that is already a healing and a crossing into something more positive.
BL: What are you working on now?
MG: We’ve just started our European tour and we’re working on a new album. The band and I have played hundreds of shows together now, so we’ve got to know ourselves and each other on both a spiritual and musical level. We’re putting all this experience into matter and recording an album that should be the most powerful to date.
BL: In the song False Prophets, you warn of ‘wolves in sheep clothing deceiving the youth with their false things’. As we usually have a young, student crowd at Hootananny, what is your message to them?
MG: I’m delighted there’s a young audience at Hootananny. I believe it’s important that conscious reggae music reaches the youth in an era where it’s mostly materialistic and superficial messages being passed around. We’re living in a time of deep confusion and young people are exposed to a huge amount of information on social media and the internet.
A lot of it is calling on primal feelings like money and sex, and there are a lot of false truths.
My main advice to young people is to “root” and connect to nature because one thing that can never be changed is that we are part of nature, and we need nature to survive.
As I say in songs like River, many of the spiritual teachings I receive come from nature because nature is incorruptible, nature doesn’t change to please you, and by studying the way it works you can understand a lot about your daily life. Nature is a teacher you can get a direct link to, whether it be taking a walk barefoot, picking mushrooms in a forest or going on a mountain hike. Even growing some plants in your apartment. Cultivating this link is of utmost importance and can bring understanding to each and every one.
‘A 90-minute wave of bliss’
Next weekend’s gig is something you will not want to miss. To quote from Riddim magazine, reporting on the tour’s opening night in Lisbon: “From the first to the last tune, the night was filled with tight basslines and guitar grooves, on-point keys and drums, all elevated by heavy yet ethereal live dubs from the band’s mastermind sound engineer, Tamal. Extraordinary in its serenity, the positive frequencies of unity and change flowed like a 90-minute wave of bliss.”
Marcus Gad and Tribe, Joe Yorke, and Creation Rebel Sound with MC Ras Terry Gad play at Hootananny on Saturday 26 April, 9pm.
Tickets – selling fast – are here
