Juno Award winner Lyndon John X reflects on rural living, Juno back-and-forth
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
When Lyndon John X (LJX) was looking for a spacious place to put down some new roots with his growing family, there was no specific reason that brought them to Brussels. “My wife just found a house up here in Brussels,” the Juno Award-winning reggae musician explained. “We came up, and we saw the house, and the school was down the street for my children, and we just said ‘let’s try it out.’ And that was it.”
The family’s been ‘trying it out’ for a few years now, and LJX, for one, has found a lot to appreciate about life in Huron County. “I kind of like it,” he said. “It’s a lot slower, and a lot quieter. I don’t like the hustle and bustle too much anymore.” While the family lived in the mid-sized city of Cambridge before making the big move to Brussels, life as a working musician meant LJX has also spent a fair bit of time criss-crossing the hectic terrain of Toronto. “Driving downtown is kind of crazy, you know what I mean? When I’d have to go to rehearsal sometimes I would just be hoping it’s like, in the west end so I didn’t have to drive all the way to Cherry Beach. It’s been cool living here. I like how quiet it is.”
In addition to the quietude, LJX has found that living in a rural environment has allowed him to forge a deeper connection with the natural world. “When I first moved here, I found that you can really see the difference in the change of the seasons. Right now, fall is very, very pronounced... the trees, and the colours, and all that. In the summer, you see different sunsets in the sky. You’re a lot closer to nature out here, I find… Bartliff’s Bakery is great too, but that’s in Clinton.”
At a very young age, LJX showed a keen interest in music of all kinds. “Listening to different styles of music, in my own experience, has helped me to branch out musically. Sometimes when you create a song, you think of something that Kenny Rogers did on his album, you know what I mean? It’s also a different lifestyle. People listen to different music, they do different things. You get to understand people more. Music is that language everybody kind of connects with. I hear some people say they don’t like country music, but I say give country music a chance. That stuff can really get into you if you listen to the lyrics. Like, man, I can really relate to that song.”
His childhood interest was always encouraged by his parents, who were both musical in their own way. “My dad was always wanting to put us into music, into musical aspects…. When we were old enough, he put us in music lessons,” he explained. “When we grew up, we used to always hear the music my dad played. He had a large record collection, and we were always in it. The music he had is what we kind of learned off of. It was all the music my dad collected over the years - that’s what he brought to us.”
The next step after working his way through his father’s record collection was starting one of his very own. “One of my dad’s friends brought me two of my very first Bob Marley records. So he introduced me to Bob Marley when I was really young, and I’ve been into him from that time to now.”
His mother passed along a different sort of musical legacy to the young artist. “My mom, she was a good singer. She could sing really well. She was more into gospel music and stuff, but when it came about, she used to love her reggae, you know what I mean?”
He has also been inspired by the music and culture of his parents’ home country of Grenada. One of his cousins, Ajamu, has even been awarded the title of “Calypso Monarch of Grenada” on more than one occasion. “Grenada is a great island to visit. It’s very small, and it’s very vibrant. I love that place. I’ve been down there a couple times. It’s just nice to connect - to see the origins of where your people come out. When I went down there just recently, I met another reggae artist, but we kind of lost contact, and I was hoping that would be my way to kind of start making rhythms and stuff with people down there.”
LJX has always been struck by the powerful messages that artists transmit through musical traditions like Soca and Calypso. “People like The Mighty Sparrow. And my cousin, Ajamu. And Lord Kitchener, and those people. You understand what they were talking about - they weren’t just talking about love, or girls, or whatever. They were talking about the situation. What was really going on around the island - even around the world. A lot of these things I picked up, you know, from listening to these people. And the same thing goes for Jamaican artists - that’s what they were really doing. Using reggae to communicate to those people who couldn’t read, and things like that.”
His path into the world of reggae began with the music of legendary artists like U-Roy, I-Roy, and U Brown. “It was that sound that attracted me. And I started to listen to more and more reggae. And I started listening to a group called Culture, and they had a song called ‘Zion Gate’. I used to love listening to that when I was like four or five years old, man. So that was the first, initial thing.”
Seeking to further his musical knowledge led LJX to some truly influential artists. “I listened to a man called Burning Spear. The African Teacher, they call him. And there’s this one group, from England, actually. They’re of Jamaican heritage but England is where they come from. They’re called Steel Pulse. They’re probably my biggest influence. They’re awesome. And there’s this group called Aswad - Aswad is the Arabic word for black. I wouldn’t say they’re rivals, but they’re from England as well.”
Among his more recent musical discoveries are a few artists that he highly recommends. “I like listening to a guy named Lutan Fyah. I like Chronixx. I like Protoje, and Kabaka Pyramid. Other than that, I like listening to blues. Christone - The Kingfish, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him before, but he’s a blues guitarist. Sometimes I throw on some Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix. I listen to Johnny Winter - ‘cause they’re guitarists. And I love playing guitar. I also love listening to jazz music. Like Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass - those are two of my favourites. I used to listen to a lot of hip hop, but not so much anymore. I used to listen to a lot of Dr. Dre - I think his music production is really good. I think Nas is a very, very, prolific MC. And so and so - it just keeps going. I listen to a lot of music. And hold on, I gotta throw in my Canadian brothers, The Tragically Hip! The Tragically Hip for sure. I used to love that group - and I still do. When I first heard it, it sounded like Gord Downie was on fire. Like he was suffering. His voice is so passionate.”
In 2020, LJX’s 2019 album, The Warning Track, won the Juno Award for Reggae Recording of the Year, which caught the artist completely by surprise. “I was downstairs, just chilling out, watching some television, and I just heard an uproar from upstairs - ‘Dad, dad, you won the Juno!’ I didn’t realize it was that day!”
A few years later, LJX was also unaware when the Junos made the controversial decision to eliminate the Reggae Recording of the Year category for the 2025 awards. Amid public outcry, the category was reinstated. “I heard about it late - like the next day, they said they were putting it back in. But I didn’t really think about it too much - the mission is to make the music and create as much quality reggae music as you can. A Juno comes and goes, but we still have to keep on moving, you know? Reggae is a powerful thing - the main thing is that, as musicians, we always think of reggae as a mission, not a competition.”