Originating in upstate New York—an improbable birthplace for genuine reggae—the enigmatic roots-and-dub outfit 10 Ft. Ganja Plant emerged as a splinter collective from the well-established eight-piece John Brown's Body, itself based in Ithaca. The band built a reputation on the Northeast live circuit across the 2000s through unannounced, minimally promoted performances that favored an open-ended, jam-band looseness. Their first recording, the independently issued Presents, arrived in 2000 and leaned more heavily into instrumental, dub-oriented territory than the parent group’s output. ROIR, already known for its catalog of classic reggae and dub, brought the collective aboard in 2001 and issued Hillside Airstrip. Three further ROIR albums followed—Midnight Landing in 2003, Bass Chalice in 2005, and Bushrock in 2009—each nodding to classic seventies roots through the tight harmonies associated with the Meditations and the thick, low-end sonics of Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark period.
