Blue King Brown’s Nattali Rize debuts at #2 on US reggae chart

Nattali Rize, singer with Australian band Blue King Brown, has debuted at #2 on the US Billboard Reggae Chart with her debut solo album Rebel Frequency.

Rize, who officially changed her name two years ago from Natalie Pa’apa’a, released Rebel Frequency globally on the band’s Roots Level (through Sydney-based MGM) on March 24.

She relocated to Kingston, Jamaica, in 2014 with Blue King Brown co-founder Carlo “OneRebel” Santone.

In Kingston she struck a close relationship with reggae royalty, the Marley family. She recorded some of the album at the family’s Toff Gong Studios, and Julian Marley is one of the guests on the record.

Rize and Santone further recorded in the West Indies and Byron Bay in pop-up studios.

Santone handled production duties, along with Jamaica’s Notis Heavyweightrockaz and UK-based Lotek. Rize is backed up on the album by Unga Barunga (drums), Jason Welsh (bass), Phillip ‘Winta’ James (keyboards), Stephen ‘Reverend’ Maxwell (keyboards), Lamont ‘Monty’ Savory (guitars) and Tammi T Moncrieffe (backing vocals).

The video for lead single One People is close to 300,000 views on YouTube.

The album’s US success comes in the wake of strong demand for her in America and Europe on the festival and club circuits.

After a six-week tour through these territories, she was offered five more weeks. She had to rush back to honour commitments at WOMADelaide and New Zealand, before returning for those northern hemisphere dates.

She’s currently in Europe, playing Poland this weekend before dates in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, France), Belgium and Switzerland.

Rize’s appeal lies not only in her music but alsoher message – reflected in the album’s Rebel Frequency title – that the world needs more than just social change but a “full systemic overhaul”. Her mindset is one of building mental and spiritual freedom, as well as standing up and resisting oppression by the state and neoliberal agendas.

“We’re here to deliver a different frequency to what is being transmitted by the current world system and culture of consumerism and mental slavery,” she says.

“Our words, melodies, rhythms, and intentions are to empower and inspire full freedom – that frequency is a rebel in this paradigm.”