Alborosie says the loss of his US visa has not diminished his commitment to carrying reggae’s message across the globe.
“We still struggling at the embassy, them take weh we visa, them take weh all my American visa too,” Alborosie told World Music Views. “Me go and get turn back because them seh we perform in Venezuela, we go Cuba, so them take weh me visa. So now we reapplying and everything because we are revolutionary but I am gonna sort it out.”
The Italian born reggae veteran, who has lived in Jamaica since 1999 had his last US appearance on May 4, 2024, at Los Angeles’ 1720 venue as part of his For the Culture tour alongside F.Y.A.H. and J-Wadi.
Despite the setback, Alborosie remains optimistic that he will return to the American market soon.
“They don’t disclose, the system don’t like it but I am going back,” he said. “Them nuh like it, we fighting the system, we getting it back and we good to go now. No bad feelings. The world is the world and we get a nice lawyer and United States of America we gonna blaze up the fire.”
The visa dispute comes as Alborosie continues to position himself as one of reggae’s most outspoken defenders of the genre’s revolutionary tradition. Rather than viewing music through a commercial lens, he views his career as a cultural and spiritual mission.
“I don’t really call it industry,” he said. “I just basically deal with the message and the music and the mission. It’s more like a mission to me.”
For Alborosie, reggae’s purpose extends beyond entertainment. At a moment marked by geopolitical conflict, political division and social unrest, he argues that the music’s message of resistance and consciousness is more relevant than ever.
“Today is the right time to spread the message,” he said. “Look at the world — violence, wars, politicians declaring war, genocides. Now is the time for reggae.”
That mission has kept him in near-constant motion. Asked why he is always on tour, he joked: “I have to pay the bills then, you know, a lot of bills.”
But Alborosie’s touring business is not built on the usual pop-market logic. He says there is no strategy, no formula and no reinvention planned for changing tastes. “I don’t believe in strategies,” he said. “I believe that music, you make a song and then the song goes out and resonates with people.”
Born in Italy, Alborosie first connected with reggae through Bob Marley. “They played a Bob Marley song, like ‘Jamming,’ and for some reason that song was always connecting to my spirit,” he recalled.
By the early 1990s, he had found success in Italy with Reggae National Tickets, signing with major labels and reaching the mainstream. But the business quickly lost its appeal. “The Italian system and the labels, the industry kind of pissed me off,” he said. “And I decided to just go to Jamaica. To study reggae, to be reggae. Live reggae, sleep reggae.”
He moved permanently to Jamaica in 1999. “I came to Jamaica to study reggae and to follow the way of the teachers,” he said.
Today, Alborosie is not only a vocalist but a producer, engineer and multi-instrumentalist. “I play several instruments. I make records myself. I’m a mixing engineer. I’m a mastering engineer. I’m a studio technician.”
That self-sufficiency has helped sustain a catalogue that continues to perform years after release. His 2008 album Soul Pirate has surpassed 300 million streams on Spotify, led by “Kingston Town”, with over 100 million on both Spotify and YouTube, a song he says captured his early impressions of Jamaica’s capital.
“I used to drive around and look at the city and look at things going around,” he said. “Then I’d go back to Portland and record my impressions, like taking a picture.”
The late Lee “Scratch” Perry, he recalled, predicted the song’s future. “This is going to be the biggest song,” Perry told him. “For the next 15 years, this song will destroy the world.”
Alborosie said he doubted the prediction at first. “I thought he was exaggerating,” he said. “But the man was right.”
His definition of the genre leaves little room for neutrality. “Reggae is Rasta. Rasta is reggae,” he said. “You don’t have to be dread to be Rasta, but you must be conscious to be reggae.”
He added: “When you deal with reggae, you must add the revolution into it.”
Asked about artists who avoid firebrand politics, Alborosie was careful not to attack individuals. “I always keep myself out of the mix-up,” he said. But his own position was firm: “If you deal with reggae, you must bun the fire.”
As reggae competes in an era dominated by social media, streaming metrics and short-form attention, Alborosie remains sceptical of the platforms shaping the market. “The social media is not spiritual,” he said. “This is a time where people look at the surface.”
For him, the answer is not to chase trends. “I’m not going to be a trap artist tomorrow. I’m not going to be a reggaeton artist tomorrow. I am a Rasta artist.”
The message, he says, remains unchanged: “We sing about Jah. We sing about freedom. Equal rights and justice.”
With dates planned across South America, Europe, the United States and Hawaii on November, Alborosie says he is still carrying the same mission that brought him from Italy to Jamaica more than two decades ago.
“The world right now needs reggae,” he said. “Needs the message. The revolution. The fire.”
