With July 26 being his birthday, Wayne Wonder has other reasons to celebrate other than his age. The singer recently completed a nine-city tour of Japan and is about to embark on a brief trek of the United Kingdom.

Wonder also has two new songs on the market — the self-produced Tun Up, and Slow It Down, which is produced by Natural Bond Entertainment.

Known for dancehall jammers such as Saddest Day of My Life, Joyride, Keep Them Coming and No Letting Go, Wonder notes that he is a proven hitmaker whose songs do the talking for him.

“While they are searching for words to say, I’ve got works to do,” he joked.

The wiry artiste is scheduled to launch his UK mini tour on July 27 at the Hastings Outdoor Festival in southern England. He is one of the acts on the August 3-4 Reggae Land festival in Milton Keynes, which also features Burning Spear, Aswad, UB40, Maxi Priest, Shabba Ranks, Popcaan, Koffee, Luciano and Queen Ifrica.

In all, Wonder will do five shows in the UK, the last being on August 20.

Wonder, who first performed in Japan 33 years ago, described his latest trip to that country as “amazing”. He did shows in the capital Tokyo, as well as Kagoshima, Osaka, Nagoya and Hiroshima which are traditionally strong markets for dancehall-reggae.

Osaka, he disclosed, was the most successful in terms of attendance. He estimates there were over 8,000 fans in the venue.

“Once you build a fan base, there will always bring a market,” he said.

Howard Campbell