Album Notes

Nephew of the world famous poet, playwright and Hollywood screenplay writer Amiri Baraka, Juba 's clever poetic style proves that talent runs in the family. Juba's urban charged wit and sensitivity keeps your ears wide verse 4 verse.

Collaborating with some of New Jersey's finest musicians and innovative producer James A. Manno, the "Express Yourself" album fuses R&B Funk, Jazz and even some World Music into a rich form of artistic expression. In other words, Street Jazz meets Spoken Word head on for a dynamically original listening and imaginative artistic experience.

Juba and his cousin Ras Baraka, consistently host an open mic poetry night called "Verse4Verse" in Newark, New Jersey. One summer night Juba invited producer James Manno to his first "Verse4Verse" show. Inspired by the poetic experience, Manno thought about composing tailor made music to match the rhythm, tone, feeling and sub-text of each individual poem a sort of modern day "tone poem" form of expression.

When Manno approached Juba with the concept of collaborating to do an album, Juba responded by saying, "Let's try out one poem and see what happens."

Days later at Jamman Productions Recording Studio, Manno recorded Juba reading the "Nobody Dies" poem. After a few readings and playbacks, Juba picked his favorite and said, "What now?". Manno replied, "You go home and I go to work."

A week later Manno called Juba back to the studio to play him the fully produced, with music, version of "Nobody Dies". Before pushing the play button it was obvious that both parties were curious to the see the other's reaction. At about the fourth bar of the music and second phrase of the poem Juba launched out of his chair with excitement! "This is awesome James!", exclaimed Juba. And the rest, as they say, is history.