About Oogee Wawa
With a ton of reggae, reggae-rock, reggae/hip-hop, reggae-punk (and the list of sub-genres goes on and on…) acts on the rise in the tight knit community that is Long Island’s music scene- so many musicians are hustling, scrambling, clawing, and striving to be the “Next Big Thing” on the island that’s spawned acts like Taking Back Sunday, Bayside, Glassjaw and more. Rising in the ranks and standing tall among them, however, has been Oogee Wawa: the reggae tinged, hip-hop powerhouse who in recent years have played with the likes of Slightly Stoopid, SOJA, Sublime with Rome, The Dirty Heads, The Wailers, Badfish, Ballyhoo!, Passafire, rocked the 2015 Beer Fields Craft Beer & Music Festival alongside Collie Buddz, and hit the road with a touring schedule of over 200 shows a year. Having released their second LP “More Sand Than Money” this past April, You’ll get your chance to see them with 311, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and The Green at The Great South Bay Music Festival Friday, July 17th at 5:00PM!
Before officially starting Oogee Wawa- MC Jesse Lee Roenbeck of Centereach, JP Aceto on guitar and vocals of Baiting Hollow, Chad Chadwick on bass of Selden, and Nick Loiodic on drums and vocals of Smithtown were friends just messing around playing the bar scene so many Long Island musicians know and clamor to on nights and weekends to get a little bit of that adrenaline pumping, big-or-small crowd cheering rush that comes with performing live. Forming in 2008, the band began playing consistent shows to ever-growing crowds before the release of their first LP- 2012’s “Ride Waves”, and as their momentum got going they quickly became the island’s in-demand reggae act from Long Beach to Montauk.
Garnering praise from the likes of Long Island Press, Chilled Magazine, I Am Entertainment Magazine, Arena.com, and West Coast Reggae-Rock-Acoustic hotspot ThePier.org who stated on their recent release “Oogee Wawa’s sophomore release is a good one, and they obviously have the potential to become a breakout band in the industry”, Oogee began touring Nationally and spreading their good vibes on both East and West Coasts. In an interview with the Long Island Pulse, the band has aid of themselves “We have gotten a lot of love in the rising reggae rock scene and we take a lot of pride in that. We are working very hard to build up this family of bands from all over the East Coast”.
