SOUND REBEL DEM - DUB ROOTS CULTURE
In an epigraph to the god Ptah found at Abu Simbel, Ramses II stated about Memphis: “At Memphis I have enlarged your house, I have built it with much work, with gold and with precious stones…” There is a line in the Bible where Jeremiah prophesied, “Memphis shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant” which certainly came true.
Coincidentally and ironically, there is a city of the same name located, not in Egypt but in the heart of mid-south America. Memphis lies between Mississippi and Arkansas; a city where the monument to KKK founder, Nathan Bedford Forrest was built and the city where Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, It is a million miles from the utopian thoroughfare of Ramses II. The city is popularly known as ‘Home of the Blues’. But don’t be mislead; out of such unpromising surroundings has come inspirational roots music of awesome power. “Yes I! Sound Rebel Dem ah go nice up de KKK man corner!”
While music celebrating money, control, or the joys of love and the pain of heartache find favour among the majority, there are those who buck the trend and say ‘Rise and shine children, and give God the glory’. The music of Sound Rebel Dem, characterized by its sparse uncompromising simplicity and sheer heaviness, amidst lead vocalist and principal songwriter Azarael chanting and singing up a potent mix of 
Rastafarian inspired lyrics, is undoubtedly an exponent of reggae truth.
Sound Rebel Dem, however, does not want to be labeled as just a reggae band, but Roots Music. So many times we hear Jamaicans saying that only Jamaicans can create the true reggae sound. So Sound Rebel Dem take that and say “Well we make Roots Music, a blend of all the African music that influenced this region, like blues, jazz, and hip-hop, but decorated with a reggae feel.”
Today, Sound Rebel Dem is an 5-piece band, comprised of a drummer, percussionist, guitar, bass, & lead singer. All have a background with other roots oriented bands. Blackout (drummer), Azarael (lead vocalist), Trammell (bass), Juju (guitar), & Melvin (percussionist), came together in an upstairs duplex at Jackson and Avalon the groups’ inception came about. The real inspiration echoing from the seventies, when you know politics and spirituality was high in the music. That belief is evident from even a cursory listen to Sound Rebel Dem; every rhythm and every word radiates a hard-won commitment to ‘roots and culture’: “We see Babylon and her war on terror as a pretext to control the population, and with simple words of propaganda they instill fear in the masses.
Fear is the fundamental anxiety of our time. So I-N-I knows word, sound, power, seen? ’In the beginning was the word…’ Every word and thought has weight, shape, form, and color and Sound Rebel Dem feel a certain responsibility to pursue something positive.” Currently a local talent and capturing the ears of reggae goers and non-goers alike in the mid-south, their shows reflect a raw and rootical vibration containing a message that ghetto people-the sufferers-could identify with and rave to.
There is no easy phrase that can sum up Sound Rebel Dem. But innovators, roots men, and inarguable talents of reggae music will do for a start. Emblazened with the seal of Rastafari, rest assured that with Sound Rebel Dem you will find three key elements- heavyweight baselines, organic nyabinghi drums anchoring the groove where it belongs, and stinging criticism of Babylonian society- truly speaking as one from the KKK man corner.
