Music producer and singer Leon Smillie aka Bachelor is committed to keeping his father, Jah Hammed\u2019s musical legacy alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father was a peaceful and loving man; he was respected by everyone who knew him. Influenced by his Rastafarian faith, he was a beacon of hope for everyone in the community of Brownsville. During the 80s, and 90s this community was one of the toughest places to live, in Brooklyn; even today many people are still fearful of living there.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the late 1960s, Jah Hammed given name Cleveland Smillie relocated from St. Thomas to live in Brooklyn, New York.\u00a0 He was a member of the Outer Limits Band comprising Roland Alphonso, Cleon Douglas, Mikey Ranglin, Noel Alphonso, David Malcolm, Oneil Nanco, Chilla Clarke and Leroy Hussen.<\/p>\n
After 10 years with Outer Limits, he went solo and scored a hit in 1977 with a single titled \u2018Ordinary Natty\u2019<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0Some of his other songs are \u2018Finding My Way\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Here I Come\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018The Ghetto\u2019<\/em><\/strong> and \u2018Still Waters\u2019<\/em><\/strong>. He passed away in New York in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cI am determined to keep my father\u2019s legacy alive because he dedicated his life to taking care of his family and making a positive impact on the world by making uplifting reggae music. Since his passing, I\u2019ve released several singles for him. I also plan to release more of his unreleased songs as well as some of the ones I\u2019ve remixed and remastered.\u201d<\/p>\n Bachelor says despite having a Doctorate in Business Administration and a corporate job he was inspired to get into the music business by his father.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was a child, my father would take me to his rehearsals and recording sessions. This experience inspired me to get into music despite having a corporate job. At first, I wanted to play the drums, but my father introduced me to Roland Alphonso of the Skatalites who told me, \u201cYour voice is an Instrument,\u201d after that, I began singing, however, it took me a little while to release my first official recording.\u201d<\/p>\n The hardworking producer\/singer is currently promoting a new single for Jah Hammed titled \u2018Boom Boom\u2019<\/em><\/strong> which was produced the Moving On rhythm.\u00a0 The project features songs from Lutan Fyah, Turbulence and Bachelor was released on the Total Satisfaction imprint in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Music producer and singer Leon Smillie aka Bachelor is committed to keeping his father, Jah Hammed\u2019s musical legacy alive. \u201cMy father was a peaceful and loving man; he was respected by everyone who knew him. Influenced by his Rastafarian faith, he was a beacon of hope for everyone in the community of Brownsville. During the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9180","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\/9180","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9181,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions\/9181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}