Leighton Levy

Star Writer

Reggae singer Lutan Fyah leaves the island today for a tour of several European countries. He says tours like these provide him with the experience which will help him become a better performer.

The singer, born Anthony Martin, leaves for Amsterdam where he is scheduled to perform in the coming days. The singer, who released his album Phantom War under the Greensleeves Records imprint in 2006, tells THE STAR that he is set to perform at the Summer Jam reggae festival on June 20. From there he has a few more shows on his schedule. However, some of the locations and dates are yet to be confirmed.

Those shows aside the singer, who once harboured thoughts of becoming an architect and who represented his high school St. Andrew Technical high at football, has several other shows lined up for the summer. In August, he says, there are a few festivals in the United Kingdom for which he expects to take the stage. He is also down to perform at Reggae Jam in Germany, on August 2, and Reggae Giel in Belgium, on August 7. However, before those, he performs in Italy on July 4.

full summer

Following those performances, he tells THE STAR, he might return to Jamaica before heading out to Canada for a reggae festival there. From Canada, he flies down to Suriname in South America for a performance on August 28.

His full summer slate, he said, is something he looks forward to. "It's always a good feeling to be on tour," he explains. "You gather new experiences and learn how to relate to audiences because you learn how to perform even better."

He reveals that reggae artistes like himself, Capleton, Luciano and Anthony B, are getting new opportunities from some of the unlikeliest of places. "People are starting to reach out to us from places like Chile, Brazil and Argentina, Slovenia, Poland and Israel," said the man who last year released a 30-track double disc album called Africa.

He also added that several countries from the African continent have also been reaching out to artistes like him. Those countries include Kenya, Gambia and Senegal. These countries he said have a love for Jamaican music.

Meanwhile, Lutan Fyah has been receiving positive responses for his new song Jail, which he said was released about two months ago and which already has an accompanying video. The song, he reveals, speaks about his wrongful arrest and subsequent exoneration after spending four days in jail back in 2007.