Today Franz Job aka “The Eclectic Country Boy”, is one of the greatest and most promising Reggae artists outta Trinidad & Tobago. He composed and produced several wonderful riddims, voiced by the cream of the crop of T&T’s Reggae scene, he is also singing himself and playing instruments.
Franz is proud to be a “country boy” from Trinidad’s smaller sister island of Tobago. Growing-up on this gem of the Caribbean with its scenic beauty and seclusion on one hand and variety of musical traditions on the other hand formed him. Already at the tender age of 14, Franz Job was an accomplished rhythm guitarist in his countryside village of Charlotteville, Tobago.
Steel Pan and the song writing excellence of the Calypso and Country genres, together with high energy church sessions can be named as fundamental influences as well as his childhood heroes such as The Wailers, Israel Vibration, later on mid 90s superstars The Fugees were a great inspiration.
Five years later, after finishing an engineering course at The College of North East London, Franz with the help of fellow teenaged church goers Gemma Devonish and Lorraine Hutchinson, made his first recording ‘Juggle Down Dey’. After hearing the innovativeness and versatile musical capability of the young country boy, veteran sound man and Reggae intelligentsia Gladdy Wax became integral in mentoring the budding artist through the ins and outs of the record industry.
From there on, Franz, funded solely by monies made as a pharmacy assistant, composed and produced numerous recordings under the ‘Roots Conquest’ collective“ a group consisting of close friends founded by the hard working musician.
This is the era that truly defined the “Eclectic Country Boy” and brought him to the attention of producer extraordinaire Rollo Armstrong and various other record company hot shots.
Franz then went on to feature on the ‘Sweet As’ hip hop album by renowned UK producer P*Nut and the platinum selling Faithless album ‘Forever Faithless’.
In 2006 the Country Boyz Foundation (CBF) was founded, a UK based Entertainment Group that consists of an Independent Record Label Imprint and Music Publishing House dedicated to the uplift and worldwide promotion of Tobago recording and performing artists.
The Berlin (Germany) based Caribbean and World Bass music label Bacchanalism (sublabel of the Soca & Calypso specialist FALUMA) is now cooperating with CBF to bring the beautiful music of eclectic Tobago artist Franz Job to all major download shops. The digital release of three sweet riddims, that feature Trinidad &Tobago’s finest is just accomplished and there is more to come soon. We’ll keep you updated.