Jah Kings’ Washington finds `true home’…trip to Ghana inspires new album, new life

It all started at a potluck in winter 2006 at the Leaf and Bean Too coffee shop in Holland, where Alexander Washington, head of the oft-locally appearing reggae group Jah Kings, was performing and at which he met a young man from Ghana.

The young man, Emmanuel Konuah Quarshi, was studying for a master’s degree at Western Theological Seminary at Hope College.

“He immediately took to me and said you need to come and visit me on campus, because your true home is Ghana,” the 44-year-old Washington said.

Quarshi offered to host Washington in Ghana, should he ever visit. Washington eventually did visit the West African country, spending early February to mid-April there.

Washington was so inspired and so impressed with his three-month-long visit that he is planning to release his next and sixth CD — titled “Afrikan Diaspora”  in Ghana this coming winter.

While there, he picked up a new name - “Kofi” - which is an Akan name used for children born on Friday, the day of the week on which Washington was born. Washington is currently moving his family to Springfield, Mo., and then plans to pursue dual citizenship in Ghana, where he plans to spend his winters.

But before his next trans-Atlantic trip, you can find Washington and the Jah Kings performing at 10 p.m. Wednesday (doors open at 9 a.m.), at Kraftbrau Brewery, 402 E. Kalamazoo Ave., in Kalamazoo.

He plans to appear with drummer Preston Moore, bass guitarist Simba Jahi and guitarist Jason Perkins.

Attendees will get a taste of what Washington has been inspired to do over the past few months, plus some of his old music, he said.

“I’m really excited about it because I have so much music that the people, they remind me of. ‘Hey, what about this song?’ and `What about that song?” Washington said.

Washington expects to perform some of his singles, including “Afrikan Diaspora”; “Walking the Streets of Accra”, an uplifting song about the sights and people, the beauty and hospitality and the poverty he saw while walking along the streets of Ghana; “Reality,” a cut about the war in Iraq; and “Slavery,” a haunting song influenced by his visits to “slave castles”,  dungeons at Fort James, Fort Usher and Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.

Of his repertoire, he says he believes this new CD is his best. He compared it to having children when you’re younger, then having children when you’re much older.