Zhayna, Reggae’s Warrior Princess, Emerges On ‘Roots And Culture’ Tour Of Europe

Emerging neo-fusion singer Zhayna has developed a bit of a reputation for her constant movement onstage. A diminutive figure, Zhayna projects the threat that she can derail anything. She was in imperious form as she pulled out all the stops during a spicy set at the Melkweg club in Amsterdam that delighted a mix of Surinamese, Dutch and Jamaican reggae fans.

The fans on the ‘Roots and Culture’ tour have been impressed by Zhayna’s energy and fitness level. They cheered her sprinting movements on the heavy metal rock segments on ‘Runaway’ as she used up every inch of the stage.

They stood mesmerised in a trance-like as she evoked an atmosphere of foreboding with an aggressive warrior-step on ‘Coming For You’. She moved in a liquid motion, almost gliding across the stage, menace oozing in every footstep as she belted out an emphatic: ‘you’ll get what you deserve, your time to serve we will come, it ah come!”.

On the melancholy ‘Before Daylight’, she adopted a finger-pointing, wide-hipped warner-woman stance as she warned ‘wolves will eat you alive’ as she slow-shuffled across the stage. She confirms that life itself is a survival of the fittest scenario where ‘you try to stay alive/before daylight/before daylight/these streets are lonely and vampires walk at night’.

Even the names of her songs suggest movement, or a pilgrimage of sorts with titles such as ‘Go’ where she warns ‘what are you waiting for? You better go!”, before she sexes up her performance with the sensual ‘Trip’ where her lips promise a delirious species of ecstasy during a journey which will take you “to a higher state of mind’.

She infuses her impressive R & B stylings with a strong singjay style that she colours by employing the latest dancehall moves such as a stylish Touch Yu Head, a dainty Sling Shot or a modified Stir Fry.

Zhayna is a seasoned and confident performer, and she elicits maximum audience participation during her sets, especially on songs such as the ‘Outside’ where she often has the crowd accompanying her on the song by singing the hook: we outside, we alright’ .

She also has a habit of teasing male audience members, accusing them of ‘Living Dangerously’ on her interpolation of the Bounty Killer-Barrington Levy hit of the same name.

She has delivered outstanding sets at the Club Maaya in Berlin, and the Junkyard in Dortmund in Germany. She has wowed audiences in The Netherlands at the De Oosterport in Groningen, the Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, and the Melkweg in Amsterdam, the cultural capital of the country.

The Roots and Culture tour moves on to smaller cities such as Deventer, and Bergen op Zoom in The Netherlands before pulling into Leuven in Belgium on March 9th.