Wajatta is the musical duo of comedian/musician Reggie Watts and electronic music artist/DJ/producer John Tejada. Pronounced wa-HA-ta — it’s a mash-up of the artists’ last names. Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder record label released their second album “Don’t Let Get You Down” in 2020 – electronic dance music with its roots in Detroit techno, Chicago house, ‘70s funk and New York hip hop” but new EP “Do You Even Care Anymore?” released on 3rd December 2021 encompasses the next evolution of their sound. “It has developed into something a bit deeper,” says John. “While our process and Reggie’s vocal improvisation work is still the same when we record, there’s just something new that we settled into this time. The music and the lyrics got a bit deeper.” Reggie performed here at the Joshua Tree Music Festival in May 2004 with his super funk n’ roller band Maktub, and can currently be seen nightly on US TV as the bandleader for CBS’s The Late Late Show With James Corden. He first burst into American audience’s lives as the co-host of IFC’s groundbreaking variety series Comedy Bang! Bang! As a solo performer, he’s honed a unique style that blurs the lines between music and comedy, as is evident in his 9-minute TED Talk in 2012, as well as multiple comedy specials for both Comedy Central and Netflix, and at the invitation of Jack White, the record “Reggie Watts Live at Third Man Records”. Reggie relies heavily on improvisation — most notably, the multi-layered music tracks he builds on the fly, looping his beat-boxed rhythms and soulful vocals into spontaneous musical inventions that are funky, hypnotic and often hilarious. John Tejada has been at the vanguard of West Coast techno since 1994, releasing a succession of acclaimed albums, singles and EPs for such prestigious labels as Kompakt, Poker Flat, Cocoon, Plug Research and his own long-running imprint, Palette Recordings (est. 1996).
