While Tinga Stewart's Nuh Weh Nuh Betta Dan Yard, with its nationalistic overtones, remains one of Jamaica's most popular festival songs, the fact that there are as many Jamaicans living abroad as there are Jamaicans living in yaad (Jamaican's sentimental name for Jamaica) suggests that the realities of life may influence even the most patriotic of Jamaicans to set up shop abroad. Still, true Yaadies never forget their roots.
Though they may physically settle in a foreign land, they always maintain a strong spiritual connection to their homeland. Singer Nando Griffiths knows what it is like to live in these two worlds and this experience has provided him with the perfect platform to launch his ground-breaking debut album Yaad and Abroad on the One Jam Music label.
Yaad and Abroad is an outstanding 17-track album that has reggae and dancehall at its core but also ventures successfully into urban-pop and R&B. The album may be split into four segments: dancehall/urban-pop, lovers rock, R&B, and inspirational. This variety showcases Nando's versatility and ensures that there is something for everyone and a huge bonus for those with an eclectic taste in music. Nando appears equally at home in each genre. On the dancehall/urban pop side, his recent number one Ride All Night and his top-ten hit Look at All These Girls could easily fit into the playlists of the top club deejays across the globe.
His lovers rock tracks cement his place amongst the top contemporary reggae crooners and songs such as his current top-ten ballad My Everything and Your Love look destined to become wedding-day classics. Most top reggae artistes would be ecstatic if they had an album with the quality of the first 12 songs on Yaad and Abroad, but not Nando; he really raises the bar on his R&B tracks.
So good are his R&B offerings that listeners could be forgiven if they mistake songs such as Talk to Me, Feel Like, and In the Workplace as coming from Ne-Yo or Trey Songz. Nando then caps off the album with the inspirational Team Jamaica (Light the Torch), a powerful tribute to Jamaican athletes that was widely endorsed as the theme song for the Jamaican team to the London 2012 Olympics.
Yaad and Abroad is now available on all popular online music stores and physical distribution is being arranged through VP Records. Purchase your copy and join the growing legion of fans of this contemporary classic, then look out for Nando as he journeys to stages in yaad and abroad.
