Reggae singer to spread spiritual message

Reggae singer Pato Banton

By Jon Dunbar

Reggae singer Pato Banton is on a mission to Korea, coming with his partner and keyboardist Antoinette Rootsdawtah to spread a message of intellectual and spiritual growth.

Born Patrick Murray, Pato’s stagename comes from the Jamaican patois for an owl’s call, “patoo,” and the DJ nickname for a heavyweight lyricist. The U.K.-born musician is known for collaborations with 2tone ska band The Beat, UB40 and even more mainstream names including Sting and Paul Schaffer.

Thursday night, he’ll perform near Hongik University at stay.round.GEE, backed by local reggae band NST & the Soul Sauce, EDM reggae artist Rude Paper, Ugandan reggae fusion sensation JoshRoy and dancer Fonike. And on Saturday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. he and JoshRoy will hold a free concert on the steps of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Gwanghwamun, downtown Seoul.

But the tour is about more than music, as Pato has numerous social meetings and discussions planned during his stay from June 15 to 20.

“What we encourage is study,” Pato said in an interview with The Korea Times. “We study philosophy, religion, science, spirituality. A lot of our fans, we encourage them to grow intellectually, philosophically, spiritually. We have a lot of study meetings wherever we go and really great discussions about the art of living.”

A meet and greet is planned for Wednesday, socialization on June 17 and a gathering with Korea’s Urantia community on June 19. The Urantia Book is a spiritual and philosophical book originating in Chicago from an unconfirmed author between 1924 and 1955, aimed at uniting religion, science and philosophy.

“Basically we wanted to go on a spiritual mission to Japan, Taiwan and Korea and we just planned it ourselves, we didn’t have any shows planned,” said Pato. “We just wanted to go to the three countries on a spiritual mission and to educate ourselves about the culture, the lifestyle and the religions of these regions personally.”

Once word spread on social media, the local reggae communities of the three countries contacted him to arrange shows.

He describes his contact with people in Japan and Taiwan so far as “amazing.”

“Even though they are very diverse, we have found that the majority of people that we’ve spoken to are stepping away from traditional religion and becoming spiritual, just having a personal relationship with God,” Pato said. “It’s amazing to see how much these people have in common.”

Korea is the last stop before returning to the U.S. where he and his wife are currently based.

“I’m hoping that whatever seeds I can plant in Korea will touch the lives of people,” he said.