Womad

Mista Savona

Melbourne's take on reggae, dancehall and hip-hop

It can be a solitary life being a producer in the digital age, but, in this instance, mastery loves company. So Mista Savona (real name Jake Savona) has recruited a 12-piece band to take his effervescent music out on the road. Featuring a vocalist in Vida Sunshyne whose credits include work with Nitin Sawhney and Lionel Richie, a nut-tight horn section and high-emergy African dancers, it's a vibrant cacophony of authentic and raw sunshine grooves. Bearing in mind Mista Savona's homeland, the sound might seem a tad geographically dyslexic but there's no interest being paid to maps or musical boundaries here. As his third album, Melbourne Meets Kingston, proves, common ground can be found between Jamaican and Australian musicians. Featuring artists like Anthony B, Determine, Big Youth, Stevie Culture and Lisa Dainjah, the end result is both wildly energetic and enormously danceable. Combining heavy vintage roots reggae, hip-hop, dancehall and heavyweight dub, this is a sound with a healthy disrespect for apathy and rigid genre expectations.

Biog by Rob Williams