Mike Love to bring Hawaiian Reggae to Fort Lauderdale

Hawaiian Reggae artiste, Mike Love, will bring his unique brand of acoustic, roots offerings to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, this Sunday.

Mike Love was born on the island of O’ahu in Hawai’i and grew up in Kalama Valley. He grew to love Reggae music due to the influence of his older relatives.

Over time the infectious beat grew on him and he evolved into a Reggae artiste who is still growing in stature. Mike Love has shared stages with a number of Reggae Acts including Groundation, Steel Pulse, Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson and others.

Reggae music, whose energy comes from the influence of the African drum was parlayed into what we now call the one-drop beat of reggae music. This sound got its beginnings from the people that were closest to the earth, the original Rastafarians, whose energies were in natural harmony with movement and sound; this energy gave us the original sound called Mento. Mento then progressed to Ska, unto Rockers and finally Rub-a-Dub and what we know today as Reggae. Reggae’s indigenous sound, also known as the heart-beat of Jamaica, which is deeply rooted in the soul of Jamaican culture, has taken its influence worldwide and sprouted many offshoots of this melodic one-drop beat to the ends of the earth and back. So profound is reggae’s influence, that the genre is seeing homage to its roots in the form of varying cultural interpretations as far as Asia, Italy, Germany, Israel to name a few and as close as Chile and even Hawaii.

The Hawaiian reggae group “Ooklah the Moc” was one of the first bands to bring the Hawaiian reggae-sound to the world stage. This March another of Hawaii’s sons brings his brand of Hawaiian acoustic reggae to the mainland as part of his worldwide ‘The Beginning of Days’ tour.