NEDERLAND -- Selasee Atiase was born and raised in Accra, Ghana. His upbringing was Christian, so he attended church every Sunday. On one particular Sunday, he heard someone playing guitar at the church, and something clicked for him. The melodies this musician played and the way they made Atiase feel inspired him to pick up the guitar, and by the age of twelve or thirteen, he had started performing his own compositions at church. He started studying in the School for Performing Arts at the University of Ghana, played with a local band, and continued performing and writing music however he could.
In 1998, a church group in which Atiase was involved hosted a worldwide seminar, and his band performed for those in attendance. The band was invited to perform in Minneapolis, where the members stayed for two weeks and hosted workshops in schools. Atiase returned to Ghana shortly after and graduated from the University of Ghana in 1999. He moved back and forth between Ghana and the United States until 2001. The fallout from the September 11th attacks made it harder to travel outside of the country, and Atiase ended up settling permanently.
After emigrating to the United States, he pursued a solo music career, and in 2005, under the management of Sean Cassidy and signed to Running Dreams Records, he released his debut album Run. The title track earned first place in the world music genre and second place in the people’s choice category at the International Song Writers Competition, that same song was included in the soundtrack of the EA Sports video game FIFA Soccer 06, and another song of his, “Makuma,” was included in the soundtrack for EA’s Cricket 07 (this song has not been officially released as of this writing). Selasee has since released two more albums, African Gate and Time for Peace, and the single “Count on Me” with David Hinojosa, and he is currently working on his fourth album, which will emphasize his current project Selasee and the Fafa Family.
Primarily a seven-piece group of musicians, the lineup of the Fafa Family has stayed essentially the same. The band formed through the connections that Atiase made in his career, and ultimately, they’ve found a core sound together. With such a large group, substitutions are inevitable if band members get sick or have conflicts. While Atiase enjoys hearing the audience's feedback about why shows sound different when subs are brought in, he especially loves the shows when every core member is available and gives their all. The band classifies their music as reggae and world music, with Atiase recognizing the latter term as more general. While the term “world music” has been reconsidered and questioned in recent years, Atiase feels it describes the umbrella of music that the band performs and that reggae more specifically describes the tone that the band emphasizes most. Atiase promises the upcoming fourth album will include contributions from prominent reggae musicians and emphasize the sound that his group has honed over the years.
Wylie Jones occasionally plays the keyboard for the Fafa Family. For him, music is a necessary part of his life. He says that music has always been in his blood and that he primarily inherited it from his uncle, perhaps also from the universe. He initially sang in church and took piano lessons before he chose the guitar as his primary instrument, inspired by the playing of Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. While living in Virginia, he played in the reggae band Antero, fronting with Richmond reggae veteran Joshua Dowell-Achalam, known by his artist name “Mighty Joshua.”
Antero has since parted ways, with Mighty Joshua focusing more on his solo work. After the band members parted, Jones picked up the keyboard again, playing for another group formed by his bandmate called Mighty Joshua and The Zion #5. Jones started experimenting with effects on the keyboard and ways to add more sound as a whole to perform solo shows as if there was a band around him. He moved out of Virginia to support his wife, who was about to start graduate school, and he learned how to use a loop pedal to avoid building another band from the ground up. Jones and his wife started a family, he fell in love with Colorado, and while the couple have since divorced, he still supports and helps to raise their kids.
Jones finds music the perfect medium to express his feelings – sadness and anger as well as joy and happiness. He considers music a driving force for him, primarily performing reggae music. For him, writing is not a specific habit or practice, but rather a medium of emotional expression. Those feelings drive his writing, which has focused on everything from his divorce to the brutality of conflicts such as the Iraq War.
Jones focuses on reggae because of how much joy it’s brought him and how much it can bring to others. More recently, he’s brought reggae interpretations of country and honky-tonk songs, such as those performed by Charley Crockett, into his routines. He ultimately hopes that his music and performances bring a smile to his audience’s faces and that those listeners feel the sense of community, humanity, and thankfulness he feels through reggae. Wylie released his first two singles, “Not the Right Reasons” and “$8000 A Month,” in 2023, and he is currently working on his debut album with drummer, producer, and recording engineer Marc LeBlanc.
You can see Selasee and the Fafa Family performing with Wylie Jones at The Caribou Room, located at 55 Indian Peaks Drive in Nederland, on Friday, December 13, 2024. Doors open and dinner starts at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. You can purchase tickets to the show by going to thecaribouroom.com and stream all of the releases referenced in this article wherever you get your music.
