Nuff Respect - About Us

Nuff Respect: About Us

Nuff Respect, a dynamic five-piece reggae band based in Rochester, N.Y., demonstrates through their performances that reggae music is "feel good music." The band's high-energy performances capture the audience as they play through a wide variety of reggae music, bringing new meaning to the term "Roots, Rock, Reggae." As one of the members stated, "Reggae is the foundation of our music, and all else rides on top of it."

Nuff Respect formed in March 2002, ten years after Paul and Gary first met at Band Slam, a band competition hosted by Paul, his sister, former MTV VJ Downtown Julie Brown, and Lou Gramm, front man for the legendary rock group Foreigner. Paul and Gary managed to stay in contact throughout the years as they pursued their individual musical interests. Then in February 2002, Gary asked Paul if he was interested in playing in a new reggae band. A week later, they were rehearsing with a full band. Here’s how it all came together.

Gary met Tim in 1989 when he auditioned for JahMel and the Rhythm Factory, of which Tim was already a member. They performed together for a few years with Jah Mel until they both went on to pursue other musical endeavors. Coincidentally, during this time, Tim met Paul at a Cub Scouts meeting (their sons were both members), and they ended up performing together in a band called Mulada. Meanwhile, Gary had started another reggae band called Jahmekya, where he met Nick. The two later performed together in another reggae band called The Reggae Outkasters.

By 2002, both the Reggae Outkasters and Mulada had broken up, leaving four reggae-hungry musicians in search of a bass player. Well, Calvaughn was not too hard to find since Eric Little, former percussionist, singer and trumpet player for JahMekya, the Reggae Outkasters and MBF5, called Gary and told him that he had a bassist in mind. Calvaughn, who was in the midst of starting up a new band of his own, decided to give this new reggae band a try. Within the first 17 minutes of rehearsal, we knew that we were sitting on something special. We had the right members, and it was just too easy. The band started heavy rehearsals at the end of March.

So, what do we call the band? We needed a name quickly because we already had shows lined up. One Saturday afternoon in April, Paul and Gary met to decide on a name, and after two hours of tossing ideas back and forth, Nuff Respect was born.