KINGSTON, Jamaica — BINGHI’s latest single is called “I Am Blessed”. The title might suggest an uncomplicated expression of gratitude. The story behind it is rather less straightforward.
The Swiss reggae musician, born in Sri Lanka and now based in Jamaica, wrote the song during what he describes as a particularly difficult period. Its optimism was not the product of an easy moment, but an attempt to endure one.
“‘I Am Blessed’ came from my heart, very, very deep,” he says. “I wrote it to encourage myself going through a rough time.”
Released on September 11, the track is the first single from Heart of Love, BINGHI’s forthcoming album. An accompanying video has also been released.
The record marks something of an introduction. BINGHI has lived in Jamaica for roughly two and a half years, but the route that brought him to the home of reggae has been unusually circuitous: from Sri Lanka to Switzerland, through Europe, Asia and Africa, and eventually to Kingston.
Born Patrice Cyril Lingam Amrein, he was adopted as a young child by a European family and raised in Switzerland. He describes the household as loving and supportive. Yet growing up far from his birthplace also left questions of identity and belonging that would follow him into adulthood.
Music offered an early source of continuity.
His parents, having noticed an aptitude for it, enrolled him in music school at about the age of three. He later undertook formal conservatory training, completing it in 2011, before expanding into composition, production and audio engineering.
By his teenage years he was writing and recording his own music. He subsequently established Jah Love Production.
If the technical foundations of his career were laid in Switzerland, much of its character was formed elsewhere.
BINGHI travelled widely in Europe and returned to India and Sri Lanka. Africa became particularly important. His journeys took him from Senegal in the west to Madagascar in the east, with Ghana emerging as a significant point of musical exchange.
In 2015 he travelled to Ghana to film the video for “Red”, a track produced by Augusta Massive. Other projects followed, including “Pray”, later released through Jamaica-based Goldmind Production, as well as production work with Ghanaian artiste Kojo Kombolo.
“My journey is not just a journey through the globe, but through the passage of time,” he says.
It is a grand description, but one that captures an important feature of BINGHI’s career. Geography, for him, has not merely provided a succession of backdrops. Each place has contributed something to an evolving musical and personal identity.
A Swiss musician in reggae’s homeland
Reggae is among Jamaica’s most successful cultural exports, which has created generations of musicians abroad who feel a strong connection to an island they may never have visited. For an overseas reggae artiste, however, moving to Jamaica means exchanging an imagined relationship with the culture for a much more immediate one.
BINGHI has spent the past two and a half years doing precisely that.
He says he has immersed himself in the roots-reggae community and the spiritual traditions surrounding the music, developing relationships with Jamaican musicians while learning from the culture that had influenced him from afar.
Through his encounters with Rastafari and people at the Tabernacle, he began to be called “Binghi”, a reference to Nyabinghi, one of Rastafari’s traditions. The name persisted and eventually became his musical identity.
His time in Jamaica has also put him in the company of established roots figures, among them Ishmael McAnuff, Cedric Myton, Kiddus I, Winston McAnuff and Rashaun “Kush” McAnuff.
The song was written when BINGHI was struggling to maintain his sense of direction. Instead of writing around the difficulty, he turned it into the organising principle of the record: gratitude as an act of persistence.
He also recalls spending time reasoning with Jacob Abunah of Bobo Hill during this period, an encounter he says provided further encouragement.
“I know it’s all about the time, so still I try and the future shall be bright,” he sings, before arriving at the refrain: “I’m blessed, I am blessed.”
Jamaican expertise, international perspective
For all the internationalism of BINGHI’s story, “I Am Blessed” has a notably Jamaican musical pedigree.
The recording features saxophonist Dean Fraser, one of reggae’s most accomplished instrumentalists; keyboard player Franklyn “Bubbler” Waul; bassist Delroy “Worm Bass” Nevin; and veteran engineer Errol Brown.
It is an experienced cast for an artiste seeking to establish himself more firmly in Jamaica.
The collaboration also points to the more interesting question surrounding BINGHI’s project: what does an artiste raised thousands of miles from Jamaica add to a genre so closely tied to the island’s history, religion and social experience?
“I got a lot of inspiration from the people, and so I want to give back to the people,” he says.
Reggae travelled from Jamaica and became part of BINGHI’s life in Switzerland. Decades later, the musician has followed the music back to its source.
“I Am Blessed” was released on September 11 and is available on major streaming platforms.
