Caribshout Editorial: On Tuesday April 28th, 2026 Protoje performed at The Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte, NC. It was one of those nights where you witness a stage performance that leaves you breathless. I have seen and photographed numerous Reggae artistes performing at The Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte NC. Tuesday night was special as the Grammy Nominated musician and his band The Indiggnation, laid down a marker for how to represent Reggae and Jamaica with a scintillating almost 2 hours performance. Ripping off all his popular hits and new ones from his just released album, "The Art of Acceptance" Protoje had his fans singing and dancing along for the whole show. There was not one unsatisfied fan in the house and the feeling was the party could have gone on way longer if not for the 11:00PM County mandated "weekday curfew". Check out his new album and tour dates. His performances are a MUST SEE!!
Below is an article by Patricia Meschino in the New York Times featuring Protoje. It is interspersed with selected photos by GrahamBurke Photography (@gburkeimages) taken at the Neighborhood Theater concert.
Excerpt: The New York Times: Patricia Meschino:
Hope Gardens, a lush, pastoral oasis in Jamaica’s capital city, Kingston, was the setting for the third installment of the Lost in Time music festival — a fitting conclusion to February, observed as Reggae Month on the island. The dynamic up-and-comer Lila Iké performed, alongside Jesse Royal and Mortimer, all three 2026 Grammy nominees. To close the event, the much beloved, elusive singer Chronixx took the stage for his first local performance in nearly seven years.
But the two-day festival was largely a showcase for the star who runs it: Protoje. Since emerging as a pre-eminent figure within Jamaica’s Reggae Revival movement of the previous decade, Protoje, 44, has grown into one of the most powerful global ambassadors of the island’s signature beat.
He’s appeared on both Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert’s late-night shows, booked slots at Coachella and Glastonbury, earned a pair of Grammy nominations and performed two acclaimed NPR Tiny Desk concerts. He also secured a partnership between his independent label, In.Digg.Nation Collective, and a major, RCA, through which he’s released three albums.
At a moment when dancehall and Afrobeats-inflected music has been taking off worldwide, Protoje remains dedicated to reviving and reclaiming a particularly traditional Jamaican sound. His seventh studio album, “The Art of Acceptance,” features collaborations with reggae royalty — Damian and Stephen Marley, two artists who represent “the standard I try to match,” he said. He cited “Welcome to Jamrock” (by Damian) and “Mind Control” (by Stephen) as longtime inspirations.
During a recent interview at a Kingston hotel, Protoje was intently focused and gracious as he credited his collaborators and mentors, a golden yellow, knitted tam crowning his long dreadlocks.
“The Art of Acceptance,” due April 17, reflects a mind-set of “accepting the things you can’t change,” he said. “We started recording the album with the lyrics, ‘Rastafari teach I how to forgive, I’ve been learning how to live and let live,’” he added. “So acceptance means finding a way to positively radiate through your surroundings.”
Protoje’s roots in the music run deep. His mother is Lorna Bennett, a former singer turned lawyer who topped the Jamaican charts in 1972 with her reggae cover of Dusty Springfield’s “Breakfast in Bed.” His father, Mike Ollivierre, is a former calypso king of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Protoje was born Oje Ken Ollivierre and raised in St. Elizabeth parish, located in southwestern Jamaica. After attending St. Elizabeth’s prestigious boarding school Munro College, he briefly considered studying law before choosing a musical path. In 2005 he released his first mixtape, the heavily hip-hop influenced “Lyrical Overdose Volume 1,” and his debut album, “The 7 Year Itch,” arrived six years later, featuring his breakthrough single, “Rasta Love” (featuring Ky-Mani Marley). But it was his 2015 album, “Ancient Future,” and its anthemic hit “Who Knows” featuring Chronixx, that catapulted Protoje into Jamaican music’s major league.
Produced by Philip James, known as Winta — the sonic architect behind Samory I’s 2023 LP “Strength” and Mortimer’s 2026 album “From Within” — “Ancient Future” was lauded for its fusion of roots reggae, digital dancehall and hip-hop inspirations. The album is regarded as a cornerstone of Jamaica’s Reggae Revival, a cultural and musical movement that surfaced around 2010 and was named by the author Gavin “Dutty Bookman” Hutchinson. The Reggae Revival evoked the consciousness, social activism and spiritual values of 1970s Rastafarian roots reggae as interpreted by a younger generation.
Protoje followed “Ancient Future” with “A Matter of Time” in 2018, also produced by Winta James; they reunited for “The Art of Acceptance,” with Protoje taking on more of a role in the production. Moving away from the hybrid sound characteristic of their previous collaborations, this time they sought an unmistakable reggae identity. “I don’t know if traditional is the right word, but I wanted stronger reggae instrumentation,” Winta said. “Throughout, we were just playing what came naturally, trying to make great tunes like we heard on the school bus growing up in the ’90s by singers like Everton Blender, Luciano and Garnet Silk.”
The album tackles societal critiques, Rastafarian philosophy, personal reflections and romantic longings. “The Locusts,” with an evocative sung-spoken history lesson delivered by Pressure Busspipe, is reminiscent of a trap palette overlaid with crunchy guitars and shimmering keys; the bittersweet recollections shared on “Something I Said,” featuring a soulful refrain by Jesse Royal, are undergirded by a velvety ’70s-styled R&B groove.
Yet “The Art of Acceptance” remains strongly tethered to Jamaica’s musical foundation: exquisitely crafted one-drop rhythms, throbbing bass lines and dub reverbs that aren’t diluted for a globalized market. “Reggae’s sound has always been positive and palatable, Bob Marley’s music was palatable, but my music sounds like me because of my influences and the producer’s influences,” Protoje said. “I am making authentic reggae, elevating my music to global production standards so that someone who may not be a reggae fan would hear it and say, ‘this sounds good.’”
The lushly produced, resounding reggae rhythms on the LP summon the profound impact Jamaica’s late “riddim twins,” Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, have had in shaping Protoje’s evolution. “Sly and Robbie are my greatest influences pertaining to production and sound, the biggest producers Jamaica has ever known,” he said. “You can only hope to achieve a fraction of what they’ve done and carry on their tradition.”
Most tracks on “The Art of Acceptance” have accompanying visuals captured during Protoje’s monthlong journey through Ethiopia, the spiritual and ancestral home of Rastafari. Describing the trip as “life-changing,” Protoje said he saw the Danakil Desert, the Tigray region, Lalibela, one of the most sacred cities in Africa, and the National Palace in Addis Ababa.
“It’s the only country where I truly feel at home,” he said.
Back in Jamaica, Protoje, who founded Lost in Time with his sister, the festival director LeAnn Ollivierre, is thankful he can stage a major event — attracting more than 16,000 patrons — that spotlights his peers and flaunts the island’s homegrown rhythmic pulse. But his role as a premier reggae emissary is taking him far from the island during his eight-week Art of Acceptance Tour, which includes shows in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and South America.
“For sure, I love playing music, I love touring, I love the band, we get lots of jokes,” he said, smiling. “Maybe a tour as long as this is ridiculous, but I have my album, so I want to be active, I want to put in the work in, I don’t want to be sitting at home. I want to go out, play music, sell vinyl, sell merch, meet people.”
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