Wadadli Came From Afar
Wadadl Experience Band recorded their first and only album, Came From Afar in 1978, but the manufacturing of the record was not complete until 1980 due to a financial commitment the sponsors were not prepared to make.
Determine to finish the Album, Wadadli started a campaign of fundraising events around the island until PC Southwell, a local businessman that operated several bookstores on the Island offered to manage the band and complete the project.
Record & Recording Label
Wadadli's business affiliation with PC Southwell turned out to be perhaps the worst thing the band ever did in its history. The contractual agreement prepared and signed by both parties were not executed as agreed by Mr. Southwell apparently, he secretly released the album in New York in 1980 without informing or getting consent from the band.
Luckily for Wadadli, the original sponsors of the album worked in the airline industry and were frequent flyers to North America and Europe. It was they who discovered the record in New York and bort a copy to the band house.
Wadadli Batles For Justice
The ensuing events led to a long drawn out and unnecessary court battle for Wadadli Experience that ended in the group's suspicion of corruption in the courts, and diminished confidence in the judicial system in the country.
The court case was a painful and depressing experience for Wadadli. Despite all their efforts to get justice, PC got away with breaching the contract, so the Band never benefited from the subsequent sales of the album in any way.
WADADLI EXPERIENCE SEE JAH
The title track "Came From Afar, " was the most popular song on the album to reach the number one position on the local radio stations, but WE See Jah is the song that defines Wadadli experience Band and set them apart from the rest.
We See Jah is an instrumental song inspired by the band's second trip to the sister Island of Barbuda in 1981 composed by Mykal Kumasi Jones and Donald Iceman Weston.
It was recorded in 1978 at Debs recording studio in Guadeloupe and released in 1980 on Wadadli Came From Afar album featuring Dunstan Kwesi Forde on Flute and Mykal Kumasi Jones on Keyboards.