Groundation

(US)

Reggae was born of a wound. It sprang from the barren soil of Jamaica, from bodies that crossed the Atlantic in chains, and from generations who learnt to survive by transforming pain into rhythm and oppression into prayer. But the music that pain produces knows no geographical boundaries, and that is precisely what The Groundation did: take that flame off the island, feed it with other fuels, and return it to the world with an intensity that Bob Marley would surely recognise as his own.

Groundation was formed in 1998 on the campus of Sonoma State University in northern California, as part of a jazz programme. Harrison Stafford, its leader and vocalist, was studying jazz when he formed the group. The son and grandson of jazz musicians, he grew up listening to Count Basie with the same ease with which he discovered the Wailers.

This convergence of worlds was neither an accident nor a pose: it was the raw material for something genuinely new. Between 1999 and 2001, Stafford taught the first accredited course on the history of reggae at a Californian public university because, for him, before playing, one had to understand. And he understood so well that he helped redefine what American reggae could be.

The name ‘Groundation’ comes from a Rastafarian ceremony celebrating the connection to the earth and one’s origins. A perfect synthesis of what the group would come to represent: music as ritual and consciousness.

In 2002, the album Hebron Gate catapulted Groundation to international fame, and France, almost immediately, became a second home for the band. Since then, they have built a discography that blends traditional roots reggae with jazz improvisation, funk rhythms, dub effects and Afro-Cuban and Latin influences, always with the social consciousness that is the hallmark of roots reggae: the struggle for justice, criticism of greed, and the call for unity. Over the years, they have collaborated with legends such as Don Carlos, The Congos, Apple Gabriel and Israel Vibration, deliberately bridging the gap between generations.

In 2025, Groundation released their 11th studio album, Candle Burning A musical journey that does not dwell on the negative, but embraces the light, the fire and the life that burns within us. The album features collaborations with Alpha Blondy, Mutabaruka, Thomas Mapfumo and Mykal Rose. A council of sages from the African and Caribbean diaspora gathered around a message of serene resistance. Recorded on analogue tape at the legendary ICP Studios in Brussels, the album preserves the raw energy and organic sound for which the band is renowned, as if resistance to the digital were itself a political act.

In 2026, the group performs at Med in Loulé with the power of the classics and the freshness of those who have never surrendered to inertia. Each concert is a sonic ritual that spans genres and generations, from the purest roots to jazz improvisation, with the emotional intensity of those who make music a cause.