KALI & DUB INC.

BIOGRAPHY! Hayes Kali Thurton; singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has been an ambassador for Canadian reggae music since 1976. Growing up in Trinidad, Kali and his family moved to Toronto n 1972. A student in sciences at University of Toronto at the time, Kali found himself absorbing the culture of Rasta. With the likes of Reggae greats Leroy Sibbles, Johnny Osborne, Ernie Smith, Jackie Mitto and Carline Davis on the scene, Kali was able to learn the ropes in this distinguished environment. After some years in Toronto gigging and touring, kali packed up and moved to Montreal . In 1980, he joined a young group of rastas called Selah. Although only together for 3 years, the band shared the stage with numerous international acts like UB40, Steel Pulse, Gregory Isaac, Black Uhuru, the Clash, and more luminaries of the time. Kali then launched Dub Trio, a three piece group which expanded to Dub U 5, a twelve piece multi-cultural outfit that lasted for 5 years and further established Kali on the Montreal scene. Kali's fourth and longest running band is Kali and Dub. Started in 1986, Kali and Dub has proved to be a comfort zone for Kali. The band released two vinyl; EP-Uncensored Reggae, and LP- Human Rights. In 1996 the band released their first CD- Rise Up which was subsequently nominated for a Juno award. Along with wins as Best Live Reggae Band at The Toronto Reggae awards, Best World Beat Band at the Montreal Independent Music Award in two years running, Kali solidified his name as a leading local and national musician. Kali and Dub has shared the stage with acts like The Wailers, Burning Spear, Aswad, Ziggy Marley, Black Uhuru, The Meditations, and the Mighty Sparrow among many others. The band's second CD Weapons of Mass Construction continued in the reggae tradition of roots and culture, dancehall and calypso. Holding true to his philosophy and integrity, Kali's music continues to grow even today. With the planned release of a new CD this summer, Kali's music is more socially relevant and stronger than ever today. The maturity gained through years of consistent recording and performing is unmistakeable. A positive message, a great voice and a riveting live performance is what Kali has bringing to reggae and Canadian music for nearly three decades.

MEDIA QUOTES
â€œThe group Kali and Dub was formed by the musician Hayes â€œKaliâ€ Thurton in the city of Montreal more ago than 20 years. With a powerful conscious message and rates of reggae, Kali and Dub has touched to international star side great like U2 and Ziggy Marley.â€
El grupo Kali and Dub fue formado por el mÃºsico Hayes â€œKaliâ€ Thurton, en la ciudad de Montreal hace mÃ¡s de 20 aÃ±os. Con un mensaje consciente y ritmos de reggae potente, Kali and Dub ha tocado a lado de grandes estrellas internacionales como U2 y Ziggy Marley.â€
CANADÃ EN LAS AMÃ‰RICAS, LEONORA CHAPMAN Radio Canada International(CBC) 23/02/2007

"Hayes Kali Thurton, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has been an ambassador for canadian reggae music since 1976. A positive message, a great voice and a riveting live performance is what Kali has bringing to reggae and Canadian music for nearly three decades."
HOUR Weekly mtl. -February 2004

"Kali's diverse artistic tendencies take on nearly the entire reggae map with roots and rockers tracks nudged next to soul reggae."
Brent Hagerman, Exclaim! -February 2004

"It all comes together on Weapons of Mass Construction. Kali shows impressive versatility over the course of the albums 18 tracks his raw textured voice has the character of a veteran singer, and the giddiness of a young pup."
Tcha Dunlevy, Montreal Gazette -June 26, 2004

"Hayes Kali Thurton will likely be around for along while yet."
Hour - February 6, 2004

"Stomp All-Stars bring the roots of ska to the youth:....This years new element was a surprise visit from Hayes Kali Thurton, of the esteemed Montreal reggae band Kali and Dub. Kali spiced up the stage and provided some expert chatting (a traditional style of rapping performed by reggae MCs) on a few old classics."
-Thursday, January 22nd, 2004 | Volume 93, Number 29 By Aaron Lakoff, The McGill Daily

"Over the last generation, few songwriters, arrangers, singers and guitarist have held the Canadian reggae flame as high as Hayes Kali Thurton."
Festival International de Jazz de Montreal 22e edition, -June 2001

"En pionnier du reggae canadien, Hayes Â«KaliÂ» Thurton compose, arrange, chante, joue de la guitare et dirige des formations du genre depuis une gÃ©nÃ©ration. Sa musique laisse transparaÃ®tre beaucoup de Â«rootsÂ» mais intÃ¨gre Ã©galement du dancehall, une touche de jazz et quelques calypsos de Trinidad, le pays d'origine de Kali. Son disque Rise up a obtenu les meilleures critiques en 1997. Un cinquiÃ¨me disque est en cours. Le retour d'un persÃ©vÃ©rant !"
VOIR Weekly mtl. -February 2004

"His presence unified the band in away the concert first two all-stars were unable to do."
Li Robbins, World Music Review The globe and Mail,- August 17, 1998

"The uniting threads are traditional reggae themes of struggle, unity and human rights."
Norman Provencher, The Ottawa Citizen, -April 18, 1996

"Perhaps the countrys most innovative reggae artist, to boot."
Nick Krewen, The Record, Kitchener, Ont

"The quintet shifted back and forth between reggae, dub and ska styles with impressive ease."
Christopher Jones Now, Toronto,- November 1996

"His compositions blend elements of reggae, calypso, funk and jazz to create the bands unique sound."
Spice Vol 1

RECENT PERFOMANCES

DISCOGRAPHY

OTHER ARTIST WITH WHOM KALI RECORDED!

Reggae Music in Canada, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia Historica

Reggae. Caribbean/black music genre. Its introduction, in Jamaica, is dated to the song 'Do the Reggay' (1968) by Toots (Hibbert) and the Maytals, but its pre-history lies in a fusion of the indigenous calypso form 'mento' with US R&B, jump blues and shuffles, emerging first (ca 1957) as the upbeat, largely instrumental, horn-dominated 'ska' and then (ca 1966) in the slower, subtler songs of 'rock steady'. The keyboard player and composer Jackie Mittoo was one of many important figures in the evolution of ska through rock steady to reggae. The etymology of 'reggae' is apocryphal - perhaps a verbalization of the music's trademark rhythmic guitar scratch ('reggae-reggae'), or a derivation of 'streggae' (patois for 'rudeness'), 'regular,' or 'raggamuffin' (the last a reference to the downtrodden youth of Kingston).

Recordings 1968-72 by Desmond Dekker & The Aces ('Israelites'), Jimmy Cliff, Bob (Andy) & Marcia (Griffiths), Greyhound, and Dave and Ansel Collins carried reggae's bouyant rhythms (with their singular emphasis on the third beat of 4/4 metre), prominent bass pulse, and melodic and soulful vocals beyond the Caribbean. These recordings in turn set the stage for The Wailers, whose LP Catch a Fire (1972) launched the international career of the singer Bob Marley (1945-1981), the first pop 'super star' to emerge from the Third World. Marley's 'Jah music,' which spoke for the dispossessed, honored African culture and upheld the political and theological tenets of his Rastafarian faith, has had both great popularity and inestimable influence throughout the world.

Canada's reception to and acculturation of reggae followed the same pattern as that of the United Kingdom and the USA, where Jamaicans also settled in the late 1950s and early 1950s. At first they imported music from Jamaica for entertainment and recreation and then began to promote and record their own music in competition with - and eventually for the appreciation of - the established Jamaican culture. Pioneers in the 1960s included Toronto's first ska and rock steady groups, the Rivals, the Sheiks, the Cougars, and the Cavaliers, who took their place alongside Byron Lee and the Dragonaires and other visiting bands. Favored venues at this time in Toronto, which would become the centre of reggae in Canada and indeed one of its hotbeds in North America, included the WIF (West Indian Federation) Club, Club Jamaica, Tiger's Den, and the Blue Angel. The first artist to record reggae in Canada was Jackie Mittoo, followed by Stranger Cole, Tony Eden, Audley Williams, the Webber Sisters, Leroy Brown, and Joe Issacs.

In 1976 Toronto's Ishan People made the first of two albums for GRT. In the next 15 years, however, few would be the reggae artists - Messenjah, Sattalites, Leroy Sibbles - to record for a major Canadian label. Sibbles, who sang rock steady with the Heptones in Jamaica during the mid-1960s, moved to Toronto in 1973 and has made albums for Micron, Boot, A & M (the reggae-rock Evidence, with the participation of Bruce Cockburn, whose own 'Wondering Where the Lions Are' showed a reggae influence), and Attic. With the world-wide demand during the late 1970s for reggae, recording activity in Canada also increased; Nana McLean, One Love (featuring the guitarist Tony Campbell), Ital Groove, Winston Hewitt, and Earth, Roots and Water, were among the performers heard at this time.

During a period of intense political and social turbulence 1972-82 in Jamaica, a number of then-current and future stars took up self-imposed exile in Toronto and elsewhere in southern Ontario, bringing a measure of visibility and creative vitality to the domestic reggae scene. Among them: the singer and songwriter Ernie Smith (whose Roots Revival would evolve by 1980 into the integrated group Bloodfire), Carlene Davis, Ken Boothe, Willie Williams, Fabienne Miranda, Joe Cooper, and the comedic singer Lovindeer (who wrote songs for Ishan People). The 'roots rocker' Johnny Osbourne sang for Ishan People under the name Bumpy Jones before returning on the band's demise in 1980 to Jamaica. The record producer Prince Jammy(Lloyd James), whose 'sleng teng' computerized 'riddim' launched the 'DJ-style' (or 'dancehall') reggae variant (toasting or 'talkover,' to sparse rhythm tracks) in 1985, lived in relative obscurity in Toronto during the 1970s.

Through the 1980s domestic reggae flourished in Vancouver (Mango Dub, Chester Miller, and Ras Lee), Montreal (Kali & Dub) and Toronto (R. Zee Jackson, Lazo, Noel Ellis, Truth & Rights, Mojah, Adrian Miller, 20th Century Rebels, and Jimmy Reid). Messenjah, recognized as Canada's leading roots-reggae band, was formed in Kitchener, Ont, in 1981. Jamaica's major artists toured to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal; in Toronto a club circuit that has included the Soul Palace, Karib Tavern, Pirate's Cove, BamBoo, the Silver Dollar, and the Real Jerk Pit has served local reggae performers.

One hallmark of Canadian reggae has been the melodicism of, and relative absence of confrontation in, its songs, which is considered a legacy of the country&..39;s conservatism and placid social ambience. Another is the rise of integrated bands, most prominently Chalawa (led 1977-82 by the producer John Forbes), Bloodfire 1980-4, the Sattalites (formed in 1981 by the flugelhorn player Jo Jo Bennett and the singer Fergus Hambleton), and Boncongonistas, One, Fujahtive, Revelation, and Sunforce, all active in the early 1990s.

Reflecting the continuing evolution of reggae internationally, several dub poets - poets inspired by the example of Britain's Linton Kwesi Johnson to read their verses to the rhythms of electronically-altered, instrumental 'dub' tracks - emerged in the mid-1980s from the literati of Toronto's black community, including Lillian Allen, Clifton Joseph, and Devon Haughton. The dominant influence of hip hop (rap) on black music in 1990 and 1991 encouraged Carla Marshall, Devon Martin, Special Ice, and others in Toronto, to work in the 'raggamuffin&..39; or 'ragga' style. Meanwhile, ska was seen to make a comeback in the early 1990s as played by such young, white groups as the Scatterbrains in Ottawa and Skaface and the eclectic King Apparatus in Toronto, whose efforts, however, evoked less the Jamaican original than the British revival ca 1980.

Two other musicians, the guitarist and record producer Carl Harvey and the singer Glen Ricketts (also known as Glen Ricks), members in the 1970s of the Toronto funk band Crack of Dawn, have moved easily between reggae and R&B. Harvey has toured with Jackie Mittoo and Toots Hibbert and produced recordings by Messenjah, the R&B singer Kim Richardson, and the Toronto pop trio Sway ('Hands Up,' a hit in 1988). Ricketts has recorded soul and reggae albums in Jamaica, England, and Canada.

Canada's performers have been honored by the annual Canadian Reggae Music Awards, established by Winston Hewitt in Toronto in 1985, and by a Juno Award for best reggae/calypso recording, introduced the same year. The latter has been won by Lillian Allen (1986, 1989), Leroy Sibbles (Mean While, 1987), and the Sattalites ('Too Late to Turn Back Now,' 1990). Reggae in Canada, however, largely remained in thrall in the early 1990s to Jamaica's dominant figures and had not yet drawn successfully on its own experience in exile - as had reggae in Britain, for example - to fashion a music that would enjoy broad mainstream acceptance.

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