Ginger Root

Indie soul project Ginger Root serves as the outlet for singer and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Lew, whose approach twists throwback R&B, disco, and pop into unexpected shapes. The act surfaced first with Spotlight People in 2017 and reached its third album, Rikki, by 2020. In tandem with the Toaster Music series of covers, Lew channels an affinity for ’80s Japanese city pop, evident on the City Slicker EP of 2021 and the Nisemono EP of 2022. The outfit’s fourth album, the 2024 concept release SHINBANGUMI, marked its arrival on Ghostly International while heightening both rhythmic drive and playful tone.

Southern California native Cameron Lew started Ginger Root during his time as a Chapman University student in Orange County in 2017, when he was also playing in Van Stock. He later assembled those early recordings into Spotlight People. That same year he began filming the Toaster Music video series, capturing cover performances inside his car between classes.

His next full-length Ginger Root statement, Mahjong Room, came out in 2018, accompanied by Toaster Music, Vol. 2. During the same period he taped a live session for Chicago’s Audiotree Studios. Toaster Music, Vol. 3 followed in May 2020.

After pandemic-related postponements, Lew issued the third Ginger Root album, Rikki, in October 2020. Subsequent EPs pursued narrative ideas: City Slicker in 2021, framed as the score for a nonexistent ’80s Japanese film, and Nisemono in 2022, which followed Ginger Root crafting songs for an invented Japanese pop idol that year.

As Lew’s work grew steadily more assured, danceable, and eccentric, Ginger Root entered the Ghostly International roster with SHINBANGUMI. The September 2024 concept album depicts a dismissed music supervisor who founds his own media company.