On his beautiful new album DEIDEM, released on his own independent label, Jatta Records, Weekes sings assuredly and soulfully for the voiceless and the oppressed, taking his music to a new level of commitment and universal appeal.
Born and raised on the island of St. Lucia, Weekes grew up the youngest of ten children in a family where music was always present. The radio was a source of untold treasures, playing everything from rock, country, R&B, soul, jazz and more, and Weekes grew up blissfully unaware of category or genre - to him, great music was (and is) great music no matter what the style. By age five, Taj was singing in church and by eleven he was composing his own calypso music. His older brother's immersion in Rastafari provided Taj with a spiritual awakening and a context for his burgeoning worldview.
For those that have been disadvantaged, abandoned or just alienated by a power structure that values profit over people and fear over hope, Taj Weekes and his new album DEIDEM speaks for them in its refusal to forget those left out of the new "global economy" and in his continued belief in what is possible through authentic music and real communication.
