 |
Sometimes the strangest occurrences turn out to be the greatest happenings in your life. Take Birmingham-reared singer, Jaafar.
“We were in Centennial Olympic park a while back and there was a guy who looked home[less],” he remembers. “My music was playing and he said he liked it. I didn’t think much of it because of how he looked, but something told me to give him a CD. He held up the CD and prayed over it and said, “From this day forward, any time you play your music somebody is going to buy it. I kid you not, since then every time we press play somebody buys the album.”
It’s those kinds of life events that keep Jaafar inspired. On his debut album, Travel Light, featuring production by William “Slick” Brown of So Fo Real Productions, his experiences are beautifully communicated through rich, soulful production and layered, descriptive lyrics. Although independently released, the album is getting the critical-acclaim and attention that Jaafar and Slick have sought since they left their former band to establish their duo in the summer of 2008.
“I want to be able to express myself through music and help people … to realize their dreams of making good music,” Slick says of the album, which took nine months to record.
Jaafar agrees. “Travel Light is my life in 13 tracks,” he says. “My movement is the love, soul, music movement. The music that I have created is to heal broken hearts and [re]build relationships that have been broken so that love can flourish again.” –jh
