Former Maui Radio DJ Guy Amico (from left), Marty Dread and former Q103 DJ Shaggy Jenkins are starting a new reggae radio station for world broadcast. Courtesy photo

The world has a new online reggae radio station, the Hawaii Reggae Network, co-founded by former Maui Radio DJ Guy Amico, who launched the first reggae radio show on the island back in 1983, Hawaii’s reggae ambassador Marty Dread, and former Q103 DJ Shaggy Jenkins.

“This is a dream come true,” says Amico, whose Maui DJ name is Jamin’ Jamico. “I’ve missed it all these years. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. To be able to do it again, it’s really incredible.”

“It’s super exciting,” adds Dread. “I’m super excited to have a format to share my knowledge of the music with people.”

Found on the web broadcasting 24 hours a day, the Hawaii Reggae Network is backed by Chris Osgood, who spent years behind the scenes of Maui radio and has extensive Mainland connections.

Launched on Bob Marley’s 80th birthday on Feb. 6, Monday through Friday Amico, Dread and Jenkins share DJ duties, with Saturdays and Sundays automated for now.

Managing radio stations for years, Osgood re-connected with Amico on the Mainland and began first talking about creating a reggae podcast.

“We were talking, and he’s like, I really miss radio, I wish we could document the history of reggae in Hawaii, because there’s a lot of misinformation,” Osgood recalls. “So I’m like, want to do a podcast? I’ll call Shaggy and you call Marty, and let’s put this together with the four of us. We started doing weekly Zooms, and two and a half months in, Guy goes, ‘I would really like to do an online radio station.’ And Shaggy says, ‘I already wrote the code for that. I can get us up on air in 72 hours.’ All of our jaws kind of dropped. And from there, we started really seriously talking about it.”

A DJ with Q103 for 17 years, Jenkins has played reggae on Maui radio stations since the early 2000s. “When it comes to actually like doing the software, doing the website, anything technical, the app development and all of that, that’s usually where my wheelhouse is,” he says.

The arc of reggae’s popularity in Hawaii began with Bob Marley’s legendary 1979 concerts at the Lahaina Civic Center and the Waikiki Shell.

“The birth of reggae in Hawaii was Bob Marley’s tour in ’79, and I moved to Maui in 1981,” says Amico. “The Melody Makers, Peter Tosh, Israel Vibration, Steel Pulse, all came to Maui for the first time, and we were there in the very beginning of reggae in the state of Hawaii. What is remarkable is Hawaii is the only state in the country that has radio stations playing reggae 24/7.”

Amico was the first DJ to play reggae on Maui at KAOI-FM. “I was trying to turn rock and roll people on to reggae, people who didn’t know reggae,” he recalls. “After Peter Tosh came to Maui in 1983, the station program manager realized there was a market for it and launched the first show. It was just an hour on Sunday nights, then two hours, then it went to five hours, and then we moved to Saturdays from 7 to midnight.”

Marty Dread had initially come on board to help answer the phones at the radio station. “I invited him to co-host the show, and we did that together for about 10 years until I moved from Maui in 1993,” says Amico. “After I left, Marty hosted the show until eventually he was approached to go 24/7. When he left the show, Shaggy came on board and Shaggy hosted it ever since.”

“Guy started it and then I helped grow it,” says Dread. “People like Shaggy have grown it even further. It’s a nice evolution if you look at it from the historical standpoint. The service it’s really done is to the artists, because a lot of these artists that tour Hawaii never would see this as somewhere they could go unless people here knew their music. Everyone tours here because they have hits here, and the reason they have hits here is because I stuck with it.”

Amico recalls many leading reggae musicians being surprised at their popularity in Hawaii. “Black Uhuru, Steel Pulse and Third World, they were shocked at the response they got here. They felt like they were treated like stars, like they were rock stars.”

Each of the three DJs on the Hawaii Reggae Network has a distinct focus.

“What I’m trying to do is do a mix of Hawaiian reggae, Cali roots, and Jamaican” says Amico. “Marty’s show is a little deeper Jamaican roots, some world reggae and Hawaiian. Shaggy programs mostly modern reggae, like the Cali roots and Hawaii sound.”

“I’m really about the newer artists because I came along with a generation where Iration was coming up and Rebelution and all of these acts,” adds Jenkins. “When they were first starting, they got their first airplay on Q103 under me.”

Available at hawaiireggaenetwork.com, the reggae show also has an Apple app.

“We’re on the Apple store and the sound, the audio clarity, is phenomenal,” says Osgood. “We should have the Android app done in the next two weeks. We’re trying to run it somewhat like a traditional radio station, where the guys choose the music, basically to reflect their personalities and their styles.”

Through his connections, Osgood has been talking with radio folks in New York and Los Angeles about possible syndication. “Our long-term goal is to syndicate this thing around the state of Hawaii, around the West Coast, and Las Vegas, places with strong Polynesian populations that have reggae fans.”

As a positive prescription to help alleviate some of the anxiety over recent national events, Amico says, “part of our motivation is what we’re dealing with today in this country. We wanted to be a positive response to a negative situation.”