After thrilling fans with the final two sold-out shows at the UBS Arena in New York City to close out his Long Walk to Freedom Tour, reggae superstar Buju Banton has announced “The Overcomer Tour.”
The North American Tour in association with AG Touring, Gargamel Music and XO Management will be promoted across 15 cities in the United States and Canada, starting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Amerant Bank Arena (formerly BB&T Center), which holds 20,000 people, on August 23, 2024 and ending in Brooklyn, New York, at the Barclays Center on November 17, 2024.
The final “Long Walk To Freedom” concerts held at the UBS Arena on Saturday and Sunday were the biggest solo headlining show bay a reggae act in history in New York City with 19,000 people attending each show.
On Saturday Banton was joined by Gramps Morgan and Nadine Sutherland and on Sunday Fat Joe and Remy Ma made guest appearances.
The Overcome Tour will be the first solo headlining Arena tour by a reggae artist in the US in 20,000 capacity avenues.
Buju is known for his catalog of classic reggae albums and fans as well as music insiders has speculated other the Gargamel can supply a new album on par with his classic ‘Til Shiloh (1995) in light of his return to music’s biggest market.
Easy Star Records CEO Michael Goldwasser told WMV, “I’m happy for Buju to be able to return to the U.S. and it will be a thrill for his fans once he starts performing here again.”
Banton’s last two albums, released after his stint in prison on cocaine charges, received lukewarm receptions. Upside Down 2020 sold 50,000 units since its release, according to Luminate, and Born For Greatness missed the Billboard Reggae chart, marking his first album to miss the chart since its inception in 1994.
“For anyone who sees him as a criminal, he did his sentence as ordered by the court, and now he should be free to go where he wants. But what I’m really waiting for is to see if Mr. Myrie can climb back to the musical heights he reached with ‘Til Shiloh. I think a lot of people will be satisfied with whatever music he makes now, just based on his legendary status, but I personally want to hear another classic album with a producer who will push Buju to create a timeless piece of art, whether that happens in JA, the U.S., or elsewhere in the world,” Goldwasser said.
Several music fans online thought the recent Apple Music top 100 albums list should have included “‘Til Shiloh” as one of the greatest albums of all time.
Despite selling out arenas, ‘Til Shiloh is Buju’s only Gold certified album in the U.S. and the album was released for its 25th anniversary in 2020 with a 2XLP version. The album surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify, Banton’s highest streaming album on the platform.
Buju tells Billboard that he will be releasing a new album soon with 100% hardcore reggae-dancehall music.
“100% dancehall, hardcore roots reggae, something fi yuh skank on, fi di gyal dem bruk wild!” he says.
Reflecting on the state of reggae music, Banton says, “the music needs help and that’s not a secret,” and he plans to “reignite the passion of reggae music and let [people] know it hasn’t died.”
He adds, “I tried some R&Reggae with Victoria Monét and it was rather successful,” he reflects. “I like that mix of R&B and reggae,” making reference to the song Party Girls from Monét’s Grammy winning debut album Jaguar II {RCA Records}
See Buju Banton “The Overcomer Tour” 2024 Dates below:
- Aug 23- Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Amerant Bank Arena
- Aug 25- Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena
- Aug 27- Washington, DC – Capital One Arena
- Aug 30 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
- Sep 1- Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center
- Sep 6- Hartford, CT – XL Center
- Sep 8- Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena
- Sep 12- Houston, TX – Toyota Center
- Sep 13- Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
- Sep 15- Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center
- Sep 18 – Inglewood, CA – Intuit Dome
- Sep 23 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center
- Sep 29 – Chicago, IL – All State Arena
- Oct 13 – Scotia Bank Arena, Toronto Canada
- Nov 17 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
