A key figure in the emergence of reggae\/dancehall in the tri-state area, John \u201cRafael\u201d Allen was a member of the influential fusion band Monyaka and played keyboards on some of the biggest dancehall hits of the 1990s.<\/p>\n
A ska man at heart, Allen spent the last five years crafting \u2018Legends of Jamaica: A Tribute to Ska\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, a 34-song album featuring some of the biggest names in reggae reworking songs they made famous.<\/p>\n \u2018Legends of Jamaica\u2019 will be released on April 28 by Skaville Music, a company Allen operates with Watty Burnett of The Congos.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something we wanted to do for a long time. We reached out to the artists, and they were quite receptive to our plans, and we think people will appreciate it,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n The project comprises four vinyl albums but will also be available digitally. Some of the artists and songs on \u2018Legends of Jamaica\u2019<\/em><\/strong> are Bunny Wailer (\u2018This Train\u2019)<\/em><\/strong>, The Melodians (\u2018By The Rivers of Babylon\u2019)<\/em><\/strong>, Winston Francis (\u2018Mister Fix It\u2019<\/em><\/strong>), The Abyssinians (\u2018Forward on to Zion\u2019)<\/em><\/strong> and Ken Boothe (\u2018Home Home Home\u2019)<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Originally from East Kingston, Allen was inspired to become a musician after watching the legendary band, The Skatalites, rehearse in his hometown during the mid-1960s. He played in various bands after migrating to New York City during the early 1970s, the most famous being Monyaka which was once signed to A&M Records<\/p>\n In the 1990s, Allen played keyboards on numerous hit songs such as \u2018Oh Carolina\u2019<\/em><\/strong> and \u2018Boombastic\u2019<\/em><\/strong> by Shaggy, \u2018Cabin Stabbing\u2019<\/em><\/strong> by Nicodemus, Junior Cat and Super Cat and \u2018Hot This Year\u2019<\/em><\/strong> by Dirtsman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A key figure in the emergence of reggae\/dancehall in the tri-state area, John \u201cRafael\u201d Allen was a member of the influential fusion band Monyaka and played keyboards on some of the biggest dancehall hits of the 1990s. A ska man at heart, Allen spent the last five years crafting \u2018Legends of Jamaica: A Tribute to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}