Roe Summerz finds ‘freedom’ after detainment

For most people, summer is a season but for Roe Summerz, it’s a state of mind – and lately, the forecast is looking pretty good.

The fast-rising Jamaican reggae singer is enjoying the biggest breakthrough of his career with Free From Evil, an uplifting anthem produced by Adaba Entertainment.

“Free From Evil kicked open the gates for me internationally,” he said. “Once [it] connected in Jamaica, everything changed. It gave the other songs a second life. I’m getting dub requests from all over, which is crazy and honestly hard to believe.”

The breakthrough seems fitting for an artiste who literally built optimism into his name.

“I was making island music, so Island Boy was appropriate,” he explained of his first moniker. “But I needed the perfect name to bring everything together, and that was summer. I just added the ‘z’ to make it look cool. Every summer is Roe Summerz – it never stops.”

Behind the feel-good philosophy, however, lies a darker story. Raised in the peaceful hills of Irish Town, St Andrew, he later lived in a troubled inner-city community where violence, poverty and family conflict were everyday realities.

“The song is really me venting about my living conditions,” he said. “It was a beautiful place, but there was so much negativity – violence, family conflict and hardship being passed from one generation to the next.” Then came an experience he couldn’t shake. Following a murder in the community, security forces imposed a curfew and detained numerous men during an operation.

“One day I heard a loud noise while I was sleeping,” he recalled. “A police officer was standing over me telling me to get dressed and come outside.”

He said he and dozens of residents were loaded onto a military truck and taken to a police station for questioning.

“We were treated like criminals,” he said. “I just remember thinking I wanted to be free from all the evil and negativity.” Back in the studio, the hook arrived almost instinctively.

“I made the beat, and the chorus just came to me – ‘Be free, free, free from evil.’ When it came out, I got chills. After that, everything flowed,” he said.

Roe Summerz is no newcomer to the music business. A self-taught musician, he has contributed production work to projects involving Protoje, Agent Sasco, Beenie Man and Vybz Kartel. His own catalogue has also been quietly travelling, with singles such as Keep Blazing and Good Days performing well.