From homegrown beginnings to massive global impact, SOJA have steadily staked their claim as one of modern reggae’s most essential voices. After releasing 2021’s Beauty in the Silence, the eight-piece powerhouse took home a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album, placing them among the select few American acts to achieve that honor. In a thrilling new step for the band—vocalist Jacob Hemphill, guitarist/vocalist Trevor Young, drummer Ryan Berty, saxophonist Hellman Escorcia, trumpet player Rafael Rodriguez, keyboardist Patrick O’Shea, percussionist Ken Brownell, and bassist Robert Jefferson—their new LP Without Surrender brings their soul-soothing songwriting to a restlessly eclectic sound, thanks in part to features from a melting pot of visionary artists from all around the world. Arriving nearly three decades into a career that’s won them a wildly devoted international following, SOJA’s tenth studio album reveals a band whose irrepressible spirit and unabashed passion have only grown stronger over time.
Like Beauty in the Silence, Without Surrender surfaced through a remote yet wholly unified process of musical discovery. “We’ve always made records in a room together,” says Hemphill. “When we made Beauty in the Silence remotely during Covid, there was something liberating about it—no one was shaping the idea during the earliest phases of a song’s creation, apart from its creator. Without Surrender is a mix of those two approaches.” As they chased their deepest instincts to truly unpredictable ends, SOJA’s far-flung members doubled down on their commitment to pure creative alchemy and shook off all expectations for their first post-Grammy project. “Winning the Grammy was amazing, but it wasn’t really on our minds with this record,” says Young. “If we’d approached the album like we were going in for a contest, it would ruin the magic of the whole thing.”
Co-produced by Hemphill, Young, and longtime collaborators like Nikolas Marzouca (Damian Marley, Kehlani, A$AP Rocky), Without Surrender emerges as an ecstatically varied body of work whose tracklist spans from the lush country reggae of “Did I Wait Too Long” (a pedal-steel-laced heartbreaker featuring Hawaii-bred rising star Maoli) to the doo-wop-leaning reverie of “Nothing Lasts Forever” (a bittersweet love song graced with the heavenly vocals of Philippines-born singer/songwriter HIRIE). On “Highway,” SOJA kick off the album with a wistful reflection on the reward and toll of dedicating your life to a dream. “For me ‘Highway’ is about the experience of being on the road with SOJA, but everyone’s life is a road—it’s a journey, and a destination,” says Hemphill. “Being on the road takes up a lot of your time, and you miss things. But ultimately, the things you miss are the very things you’re working so hard for. So what are you supposed to do?”
Rooted in SOJA’s life-affirming lyricism, Without Surrender often speaks to the extraordinary challenge of navigating a world in pain and rising above the chaos. On “World We Livin In,” the band joins forces with Grammy-winning Jamaican luminary Kabaka Pyramid for a fiery lament on the state of the world, amplifying the track’s raw urgency with a gorgeously explosive guitar solo. “This song is about the human race going off track, and the earth correcting us,” Hemphill explains. Featuring guest vocals from Brazilian singer/songwriter Di Ferrero, “Time Won’t Wait” turns existential in its hypnotically slow-burning meditation on the need to move forward before life slips away. And on “Catching Up To You,” SOJA link up with 311 frontman Nick Hexum and share an intensely personal but celebratory portrait of finding salvation through love. “Right around when we came up with that song my wife and I were about to have a kid, and I was thinking about growing up enough to actually handle that responsibility,” says Young. “My wife’s always been the more mature one in our relationship, so I wanted to write about feeling like I’m constantly catching up to her, and how I’m finally getting to the point where I understand what’s really important in life.”
In a continuation of a tradition begun on Amid the Noise and Haste (a 2014 LP that earned SOJA their first Grammy nomination), Without Surrender lifts its title from the opening lines of Max Ehrmann’s 1927 prose poem “Desiderata”: “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.” A longtime spiritual touchstone for SOJA (first introduced to the band by way of Hemphill’s father), the poem’s message of finding tranquility in a turbulent world has taken on greater meaning as they near their 30th anniversary. “We’ve had our share of struggles and been through a lot over the years, but we’ve stayed together and feel incredibly blessed to be doing what we’re doing,” says Young. “We’re still here, and we’re still putting everything we have into making music that hopefully brings real joy into the lives of all our fans.”
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