Tony Cummings reports on the singer/songwriter from Oxnard, California, DOMINIC BALLI

Dominic Balli

Dominic Balli

Southern California's Dominic Balli performs Christian music in a style which has led to the pigeonhole "CaliRockReggae". The singer/songwriter explained, "Art is an expression of who you are. I'm just a half Italian, quarter Greek kid from California, just somehow inside of me in that location'southward this little reggae dude only trying to go out. The most common comment I hear is, 'I don't even like reggae, only I beloved your stuff.' I love that because it means that my music has become accessible to fans that might otherwise totally shy away from annihilation even reminiscent of reggae."

Dominic's second album 'American Dream' has received ecstatic reviews with JesusFreakHideout website pronouncing it "unquestionably one of the best albums released in 2011." The singer/songwriter from Oxnard, California has fabricated spectacular progress since he emerged in 2008 with the independent album 'Public Announcement'. That album made it into iTunes Top 30 Reggae Albums chart, selling more than twenty,000 copies. Later on the success of that Balli was able to perform alongside a broad range of artists both Christian and not-Christian including Natasha Bedingfield, Jazon Mraz, Hawk Nelson, George Clinton & The P-Funk and Ziggy Marley. Dominic spoke to Cross Rhythms almost his Marley concerts. He said, "I opened for Ziggy a couple of times. He isn't really a rasta, he is more a universalist. I don't know if he would draw it like that, but he is very accepting with a ane world, i love vibe. I've opened for him at a festival and then another fourth dimension when I was the only opening artist. At that place were about 1200 people there, me and a guitarist, and the people were engaged on every single lyric. There is something to be said almost existence accurate, if you lot're telling the truth in a non-judgmental way. Jesus would tell the truth, but not in a judgmental way, he would tell them to end sinning simply not past condemning them. When I arroyo a non-believing crowd, I don't approach them like Jesus did the religious leaders, because he was very harsh to them. But I take a humble arroyo; they are people who demand staff of life, beggars looking in the same place I was earlier I came to Christ. I am just a beggar who constitute bread; information technology is giving me everlasting life and satisfying my every need."

One of the numerous stunning songs on 'American Dream' is the title track. The song came later on an epiphany that he, like millions of others, had bought into the American Dream to pursue success. He said, "I basically grew up my whole life with that kind of goal in listen: whatever I want to do is possible, and it'south all nigh me. It was all about the steady chore with the nice income, and when I got married, it'd be slap-up to buy a house and have make new cars and actually dainty clothes. It was all almost setting up my life to be comfortable, which is at the heart of the American Dream. A year and a one-half agone my wife and I bought our first firm, and for the commencement time in our marriage we didn't need anything; we weren't going month-to-month on pay cheques. And when the comfort and ease of that life style gear up in, it started to kind of rob my joy, rob my faith, rob my purpose in life. This complacency, especially spiritually, set in. Though I would've never said it, information technology was almost as if I didn't need anything else, including God. In early 2010 I realised that my life isn't all about me and my dreams and what I desire to do and my comfort and my prophylactic and my stuff. It's all almost loving and serving other people and the God who made me. When I realised that, information technology started to alter my life and my perspective, and 'American Dream' came out of that."

The version of the song on the album contains a rap from Sonny Sandoval, frontman for San Diego hard rockers P.O.D. Said Dominic, "I had to have Sonny on board. He'due south also on the music video of the vocal. Sonny did a great job. One thing though, some radio stations don't like sections of rap and he basically raps in the rail so we did a mix that doesn't have him on it."

Dominic Balli: Southern California's purveyor of CaliRockReggae

Other guests on 'American Dream' are Jamie Moore (Toby Mac, Mandisa) and Brazilian roots creative person Nengo Viera. Dominic explained how he got to know Nengo, "I went on tour with Christafari in 2008 in Brazil and I opened for them. We did 25 gigs in that location and I developed a fan base, so 9 months later I went back with my band and did seven back-to-dorsum shows. ii,000 people a night. Brazil is one of my favourite places in the world to perform. Whilst I was at that place, I was introduced to the Favelas. They are upwardly on the hills of every major urban center. They build these footling shacks. They don't have plenty water and electricity and they are run by the drug lords at the top of the hill. At that place is a lot of drugs, prostitution, people getting raped. The people who live in the Favelas aren't even recognised every bit civilians. If yous wait on a map there volition be no street names, merely green, every bit if at that place is nothing there, even though there are hundreds of thousands of people living in that location. I did some research and talked to some people who had lived there, and I was heartbroken. I wrote this song called 'Oh Favela'. Nengo is a great reggae creative person in Brazil, and he really grew up in one of the Favelas and so it was great to have him on the track. We recorded Nengo in Brazil and information technology was actually his son on the drums, and then it was smashing to have them both and record some of it in Brazil."

Not all the songs on 'American Dream' are highly-charged socio political lyrics. One, "Take My Honey", was inspired by his wife. Commented Balli, "I met my married woman when I was 17 and she was 16. We were friends for two more years before either of the states always had a thought of anything more. At the end of her senior yr of loftier school she invited me to get to her prom. That night we roughshod in love. We got married a yr and a half after and in February of 2012 we'll gloat our 10 year anniversary. 'Take My Love' is our story. I wrote information technology over the course of a calendar week-long vacation that we took this last summertime to the N Shore of Oahu, Hawaii."

Another powerful song on the project is "Twenty Seventeen". Said Dominic, "The Quondam Testament story of 2 Chronicles twenty has become 1 of my favourite passages of Scripture. Information technology's so radical how God used something as unproblematic and beautiful as praise to attain something and then huge and epic. As I was touring Europe in the summer of 2009, I decided to take a crack at retelling the age onetime story. . . CaliRockReggae style."

The well-nigh moving runway on the album is "Daisy'southward Vocal". Dominic recounted, "My daughter Selah has a best friend named Daisy Dear Merrick (granddaughter of world famous surfboard shaper, Al Merrick). In September 2009 Daisy began to mutter of tum pain. When she went to the hospital they plant a malignant tumour the size of a Nerf football game in her belly. The day I got the news I wrote this vocal. In the summer of 2010, after 7 months of chemo, Daisy was declared in remission. However, over the adjacent eight weeks a tumour the size of a grapefruit had developed once again in her belly. Daisy's future is notwithstanding uncertain but we are all choosing not to let fear and doubt rob our joy and peace merely instead to trust in the God who holds Daisy's future."CR

The opinions expressed in this commodity are not necessarily those held past Cross Rhythms. Whatever expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing only may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a subsequently date.