The story begins in Curacao, the Dutch Caribbean. Ephrem Jonathan Ocalia was born on November 24, 1984. His father, Ephrem Ocalia Sr., sang and was his first inspiration as a child. Ephrem J started his singing try-outs as most children does, participating in local talent shows. He was soon discovered as a talented young singer by local band managers and started to sing at a very young age in local bands. While attending school he continued singing in local bands like the OK-band and got guidance by more experienced singers, although he remains a largely self-taught singer. Then, he soon quit the OK Band and became the lead singer of the local band Guess, singing mostly “ritmo kombiná”, a local popular dance music.
At the end of 2006 Ephrem J was the most credited local young artist in Curacao. He received several awards for best male vocal and local singer of the year and became the preferred entertainment singer for private birthday parties, business parties, wedding parties and the like.
Highly inspired by singers as Luther Vandross, Phillip Bailey and other American and Latin American vocalists like Ricardo Arjona and Marc Anthony, Ephrem J quit the band Guess, only to start his solo career early 2007. At that moment, Ephrem J had several lyrics for songs- written by him while day dreaming about his future- mostly ballads, Latin R&B and slow groove songs and approached Jazz musicians Gregory Colina and Gedeon Chandler, to arrange the songs musically. Ephrem felt comfort in meshing the romantic lyrics that the Latin American community listens to with lite adult contemporary R&B music arrangement. He then entered the recording studio and soon released his first album as a soloist. Both the cover song “Speransa” (hope), a ballad, and “Stimabu So”, a Kadans (genre originating from the French Antilles) reached high on the local radio charts. “This is the kind of music that some women totally swoon over because it's very romantic and sweet”, according to Kyler England from We Are Listening.
Ephrem J’s popularity grew even more among the local community as a soloist. At the end of 2007 he received several awards, one of which was the “Edgar Supriano-award” as singer of the year by the national association of musicians and artists, AMAK. In 2008 he started the year again with big impact, participating at the carnival’s Tumba Festival with one of the most popular bands Gio Fuertisimo and got recognition again, as the third finalist among more than 60 participants. His solo career got highlighted during the year when he got to sing the song “Atrobe” (Again) with the Marineband of the Royal Marines (a harmonic orchestra) consisting of 50 musicians in Willemstad. Then he kept reaping the fruits of his first album when the song Stimabu So was selected as a runner-up and finalist in the 100% Music Songwriter Contest and the World of Music Awards ( .wearelistening.org).
In December 2008 Ephrem J released his second full-length album “Latin Evolution” with several salsa songs, some ballads and the Latin version of Stimabu So, Me Enamore, once again showing his multi-talents as a singer. Issa Wilson from Latin Music Artists said about one of the songs on the album “Latin Evolution”: “The lead vocal has character and has the star quality that a lot of the great performers have.” Recently Ephrem J received the awards for Most Popular Singer of 2008 by Premio Karabela, a local youth organization and the award for Singer of the Year by Latino y Locales, a Dutch-Caribbean-Latin organization recognizing Latinos and locals efforts during the year.
