Jamaican singer and songwriter Protoje filmed part of the video for “1000 Lashes” inside the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa, built on the site where Ethiopian forces defeated invading Italian troops in 1896 and kept the country free of colonial rule.

Born in Saint Elizabeth and twice nominated for the Best Reggae Album Grammy for A Matter of Time and Third Time’s the Charm, the artist confronts the moral cost of global inequality before turning that inquiry onto his own life. Writing from a position of relative privilege, he weighs his own domestic comfort through the line “I’ve got my blessings and I’m feeling no pain,” before reflecting on generational injustice, exploitation, and child labour once his front door closes.

Guest vocalist Stephen Marley sings the chorus, “All the children are ours,” right after Protoje admits his own peace. The next verse lists what that peace costs elsewhere: backs lashed a thousand times, communities broken apart, opportunities stolen, wrongdoing shielded by immunity, and children working mines and sent into conflict. SAMO directed the video across two sites bound up in that history: the museum in Addis Ababa, and the steps of 56 Hope Road in Kingston, the Marley family home turned museum.

He plays Ruhr Reggae Summer in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Uprising Festival in Bratislava across the same weekend at the end of August, followed by dates across the United States through September and the Welcome to Jamrock Reggae Cruise in November.

You can get your copy of The Art of Acceptance HERE and check out Protoje’s upcoming tour dates