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Chillton Jah James, also known by his stage name Jah James and formerly called CJ Rasta, is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer from West Africa. At a very young age, he became interested in music and knew he wanted to pursue a career in it after watching musicians and family members from his village play traditional African musical instruments.
His first attempt at playing a musical instrument was the self-made pawpaw (papaya) pipes he used to play and march alongside his school's marching band whenever they were playing in the community. He became increasingly interested in the guitar and began teaching himself to play whenever he could sneak a chance to practice on his brother's guitar. When he was in the sixth grade, and with his parents' permission, he decided to follow his brother's footsteps and join the marching band as a snare drummer. Mr. Dorley Ashcraft, the music instructor, was so impressed with his ability to mentor other musicians and the fact he could pick up and play almost any musical instrument by ear, started giving him private lessons about rhythm, chords, etc.
During that year's annual school closing program, Jah James earned the lead bass player position when he was asked to audition a few minutes before the band was scheduled to perform, and the bass player was a no-show. The following year he returned to school as the lead/youngest bassist in his school's history. By the end of the school year, he was named the leader of the marching band.
In 1992, Jah James's life was changed forever; rebel forces had been active in parts of West Africa since June of 1989, and the violence had finally reached his hometown. He woke up one morning to the sound of machine guns; the first of several warring rebel groups had set up camp in his hometown. With his father too sick to travel, at first, it seemed safe to stay home if they avoided the rebels. But when another more violent rebel group seized control of the area, Jah James and his family were forced to flee for their lives. They traveled by foot for three days until they reached the main highway that would take them to the border of a neighboring country, Côte d'Ivoire.
However, while being screened at the checkpoint at a place called Wialla, one of the rebels approached Jah James and yelled, "You! Step aside! All the able-bodied men will be going back to fight with us." When he refused, Jah James, along with other members of the group he was traveling with that were in his age group, were severely beaten, tortured, and at one point placed on a firing squad in front of a 1-barrel anti-aircraft gun, while their friends and loved ones begged for their lives. The mental and physical torture continued for a while until the rebels decided to put Jah James and their other captives under arrest. Badly hurt and bleeding, he was tied up and thrown in the back of a pickup truck and taken away to the rebel camp, where his horrible experience continued for several days while his loved ones managed to scrape together enough money to pay the rebel leader to let Jah James go and allow them to cross the border into Côte d'Ivoire. Jah James entered Côte d'Ivoire through the border town of Danane as a refugee. It had been almost a year since the first group of rebels had invaded his hometown. He was reunited with family and friends who were also lucky enough to escape the violence alive and started the process of rebuilding his life.
He enrolled in school and returned to playing music for churches, the refugee band Balawala International, and various local recording artists. This led to him meeting and touring with one of Africa's biggest reggae stars, the legendary Tiken Fakoly Jah, using the stage name Chillton De Merchant James.
In 1996, retired professional footballer George Oppong Weah and Mr. Kekura Kamara took Chillton and other musicians to the World Rhythm Festival in Milan, Italy, where he shared the stage with the late Lucky Dube, Alpha Blondy, Maxi Priest, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. For a while, Chillton seemed to have his life and career back on track. He had established himself in the Ivorian music industry and was in high demand for studio sessions and live performances as a guitarist, keyboard player, and drummer. But rebel groups were still very active in West Africa, and in 2004, Jah was forced to resettle in Trondheim, Norway.
In Norway, Chillton built a home studio and started writing and recording new material for his first solo project as a recording artist. He also continued performing live when he joined a band called The Afrocadabra, a mixture of African and Norwegian musicians headed by Ernst Wiggo Sandbakk, an instructor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, jazz music teacher, and the general manager for the jazz festival in Trondheim. In 2007, he formed The Chillton Reggae Band. One of the members, Conor Patrick, another artist/producer who owned a professional recording studio, allowed Chillton to work in his studio. Along with other friends, he put the finishing touches on his first CD, "Mr. Officer."
With the release of his first CD and after years of touring, Chillton's popularity was growing in Africa, Europe, and the United States. He received an invitation from ACANA, an organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to help develop immigrant talent that migrated to the United States due to continued rebel fighting in West Africa. During his visit to the United States, he received two citations honoring him for his good work in the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. He was also highly influenced by the American music scene. He experimented with different forms of American music, including R&B, Hip Hop, and Rock, trying to develop a new sound. During this experimental phase of his career, he decided to change his stage name to C.J Rasta to reflect his new approach to music. In 2017, he returned to Norway and released a new single, "African Woman," featuring Idd Aziz. The song has received great reviews and has been doing extremely well on social media and online distribution platforms.
His first attempt at playing a musical instrument was the self-made pawpaw (papaya) pipes he used to play and march alongside his school's marching band whenever they were playing in the community. He became increasingly interested in the guitar and began teaching himself to play whenever he could sneak a chance to practice on his brother's guitar. When he was in the sixth grade, and with his parents' permission, he decided to follow his brother's footsteps and join the marching band as a snare drummer. Mr. Dorley Ashcraft, the music instructor, was so impressed with his ability to mentor other musicians and the fact he could pick up and play almost any musical instrument by ear, started giving him private lessons about rhythm, chords, etc.
During that year's annual school closing program, Jah James earned the lead bass player position when he was asked to audition a few minutes before the band was scheduled to perform, and the bass player was a no-show. The following year he returned to school as the lead/youngest bassist in his school's history. By the end of the school year, he was named the leader of the marching band.
In 1992, Jah James's life was changed forever; rebel forces had been active in parts of West Africa since June of 1989, and the violence had finally reached his hometown. He woke up one morning to the sound of machine guns; the first of several warring rebel groups had set up camp in his hometown. With his father too sick to travel, at first, it seemed safe to stay home if they avoided the rebels. But when another more violent rebel group seized control of the area, Jah James and his family were forced to flee for their lives. They traveled by foot for three days until they reached the main highway that would take them to the border of a neighboring country, Côte d'Ivoire.
However, while being screened at the checkpoint at a place called Wialla, one of the rebels approached Jah James and yelled, "You! Step aside! All the able-bodied men will be going back to fight with us." When he refused, Jah James, along with other members of the group he was traveling with that were in his age group, were severely beaten, tortured, and at one point placed on a firing squad in front of a 1-barrel anti-aircraft gun, while their friends and loved ones begged for their lives. The mental and physical torture continued for a while until the rebels decided to put Jah James and their other captives under arrest. Badly hurt and bleeding, he was tied up and thrown in the back of a pickup truck and taken away to the rebel camp, where his horrible experience continued for several days while his loved ones managed to scrape together enough money to pay the rebel leader to let Jah James go and allow them to cross the border into Côte d'Ivoire. Jah James entered Côte d'Ivoire through the border town of Danane as a refugee. It had been almost a year since the first group of rebels had invaded his hometown. He was reunited with family and friends who were also lucky enough to escape the violence alive and started the process of rebuilding his life.
He enrolled in school and returned to playing music for churches, the refugee band Balawala International, and various local recording artists. This led to him meeting and touring with one of Africa's biggest reggae stars, the legendary Tiken Fakoly Jah, using the stage name Chillton De Merchant James.
In 1996, retired professional footballer George Oppong Weah and Mr. Kekura Kamara took Chillton and other musicians to the World Rhythm Festival in Milan, Italy, where he shared the stage with the late Lucky Dube, Alpha Blondy, Maxi Priest, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. For a while, Chillton seemed to have his life and career back on track. He had established himself in the Ivorian music industry and was in high demand for studio sessions and live performances as a guitarist, keyboard player, and drummer. But rebel groups were still very active in West Africa, and in 2004, Jah was forced to resettle in Trondheim, Norway.
In Norway, Chillton built a home studio and started writing and recording new material for his first solo project as a recording artist. He also continued performing live when he joined a band called The Afrocadabra, a mixture of African and Norwegian musicians headed by Ernst Wiggo Sandbakk, an instructor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, jazz music teacher, and the general manager for the jazz festival in Trondheim. In 2007, he formed The Chillton Reggae Band. One of the members, Conor Patrick, another artist/producer who owned a professional recording studio, allowed Chillton to work in his studio. Along with other friends, he put the finishing touches on his first CD, "Mr. Officer."
With the release of his first CD and after years of touring, Chillton's popularity was growing in Africa, Europe, and the United States. He received an invitation from ACANA, an organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to help develop immigrant talent that migrated to the United States due to continued rebel fighting in West Africa. During his visit to the United States, he received two citations honoring him for his good work in the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. He was also highly influenced by the American music scene. He experimented with different forms of American music, including R&B, Hip Hop, and Rock, trying to develop a new sound. During this experimental phase of his career, he decided to change his stage name to C.J Rasta to reflect his new approach to music. In 2017, he returned to Norway and released a new single, "African Woman," featuring Idd Aziz. The song has received great reviews and has been doing extremely well on social media and online distribution platforms.
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