Concert Review: J.S Ondara Sings Tales Of His Life At Rough Trade

J.S Ondara has a voice that spreads on your soul like butter does unto warm bread. Its richness sinks in to remind you the sole power of a verse and a voice. What made him such a simple, spectacular show at Rough Trade was that he is a singing poet. 

J.S Ondara is an emblem that words are powerful. You are a fan of his because you relish how he turns stories into songs, words into symbols, and melodies into messages for and on humanity. His guitar arrangements are so simple that, even when he went acapella for “Turkish Banana,” you did not miss the instrument. The night was all about his voice and how it echoed, embodied, and embedded the dreams of immigrants. Yet, what I love about J.S., is that he elaborates how and what immigrants define as a “better life.”

You do not leave your home country because you hate it. You leave it because it hates you, and no matter how much you love your home, your friends, your culture, and even your neighborhood, your life is too threatened to thrive. Coming here 6 years ago from Kenya, Ondara spoke about his journey to become a folk singer and his mother’s obsession with whether or not he is eating (lol!). The crowd laughed at his sweet humor, and the wide-eyed nature he had for a young man singing about poverty, prejudice, and the devastating realization that your dreams don’t have to come true because you are good person that works hard. 

Playing off his new PHENOMENAL ALBUM, Tales Of America, J.S. sang into microphones aligned like an old world, presidential stand. Considering his sound feels  rustic and retro like, the dirt paths of the 1940’s Midwest, Ondara has a magnificent way of making modern life in America feel like a, Steinbeck novel. From “Lebanon” to “American Dream,“ he might as well have been doing a live rendition of the Grapes of Wrath. He creates characters, through his song, that are trying to love themselves, their family, and their life in the most unlivable conditions. No one wants to be poor, overworked, and with no chance of upwards, social mobility. Yet, many of us live in those conditions, especially immigrants, and J.S. Ondara is the admiring those that dare to dream despite such predicaments. For More Information on J.S. Ondara Click Here.