After a month of touring in South America, reggae group Soldiers of Jah Army is back in the States and starting their East Coast tour Saturday at Santa Fe Café.

The band, comprised of lead singer and guitarist Jacob Hemphill, bassist Bobby Jefferson, percussionist Ken Brownell, drummer Ryan Berty and keyboardist Patrick O’Shea, spent the month of March touring Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, often playing sold-out venues with thousands of concert-goers.

“That just blew me away,” Hemphill said about his recent trip. “Just playing in front of people I’ve never met before, and then they knew all the lyrics to our songs, and they don’t speak English!”

SOJA is internationally known for producing a roots-reggae sound defined by contemporary Rastafarian lyrics laced with messages of peace, love and political awareness.

Originally from Arlington, Va., Hemphill said he thinks SOJA would be a very different band had he and the boys not grown up in Washington metropolitan area. He said seeing Washington operate first-hand and living among so many government workers played a major role in his political lyrics.

“We go to California and their government out there is kinda working for them,” Hemphill said. “They’re smoking weed legally, they have very equal sexual rights … They kinda let people be more individual out there. So I think music from somewhere like that is going to be happier and less political.”

Hemphill, a George Mason graduate whose guitar sports an anti-Bush sticker, is not shy when it comes to his political views.

“We’re living in a time when we have the worst president that the U.S. has ever had,” he said. “It’s horrible, you know, and I don’t know, it seems like an obvious thing to write a song about it.”

Jim Fox, SOJA’s studio engineer who has been with the band since he recorded their first EP album in 1999, said one aspect of the band that originally appealed to him was how he can enjoy the sound of their music yet also gain a political perspective from the group’s lyrics.

“For me, they were top material since the moment I met them,” Fox said. “Now it’s just been one step at a time … closer to getting huge.”

Hemphill said that currently, SOJA’s next album and potential singles are at the front of his mind. He also added he expects the band to play a couple of new songs at Saturday’s show.

“I don’t actually describe any of my songs, because that would kind of tell people what they’re supposed to be, and that’s the thing about music – it’s whatever you want it to be,” Hemphill said when asked about his new songs. “You gotta see for yourself.”

When talking about where he sees himself and the band in the future, Hemphill said he would like to break into the mainstream music scene, as it would give reggae a chance to compete with hip-hop and R&B.

“When Bob Marley was alive, reggae was popular, Rastafarian[ism] was popular and was taken seriously,” Hemphill said. “So we kinda want this to be as popular like when Bob was alive – when shit was cool.”

To many fans such as sophomore business major John Rosso, SOJA is already playing the role that Bob Marley once did in the ’70s music scene.

“SOJA is like the Bob Marley of our generation,” he said.

Contact reporter Cassie Bottge at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.