Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Paynter.
Hi Scott, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started to hear and listen keenly to music as a very young child. My Mom played guitar in the church band, and they would even have rehearsals and holiday jams in our living room. My parents and four older brothers were all serious music lovers, so I grew up with every influence imaginable. When I was 10, my Dad took me to see Johnny Cash at the Valley Forge Music Fair, a theater in the round. I was forever hooked when the spotlight revealed the Man in Black saying, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash!”
I played guitar in a punk band with my friends from high school. We were called “Infection” and we were very good. People still buy and trade our original recordings to this day.
Then my brother Tim saw Bob Marley in high school, and so from then in, my entire family got turned on to Reggae music and Jamaican culture.
When I got to Loyola College of Baltimore in 1989, I brought three milk crates of Reggae vinyl records with me. I was a Reggae Evangelist and wore down people’s resistance to the strange, foreign music.
By graduation in 1993, Jah Works was born. We started in our junior year when the core members spend the year abroad in Leuven, Belgium. Playing on the streets and train platforms of major European cities, we were fearless by the time we started playing in Baltimore.
33 years later, after touring the US and the World extensively, Jah Works is still writing, recording and performing original Reggae music for people from all walks of life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No journey is without its pitfalls and detours. Friendships go through a lot, and Jah Works was not immune to this. Everyone had their own private battles. Mine was addiction. Others faced illness, divorce, you name it. Life is a long road. For all of us. But it’s with great pride and gratitude that I can declare: Our bonds as brothers in the music have never been stronger than they are today.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve been writing music since I was fifteen. I’ve also brought music into the classroom, first as an assistant Kindergarten teacher for seven years, then as a Teaching Artist with Young Audiences of Maryland, now known as Arts For Learning. After seven years with Maryland’s premiere Arts Integration organization, I felt a calling to give back to the city that had given so much to me.
Since 2018, I’ve been working with Baltimore City Public Schools as a Student Wholeness Specialist. My work is laser-focused on delivering an introduction to and a mastery of Social Emotional Learning skills and Restorative Practice lessons to students from PreK through eighth grade.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Justice matters to me. Children matter to me. My Baltimore City scholars matter to me. Black Lives matter to me. My family matters to me. My Jah Works brothers matter to me. Love matters to me. Everyday.
