Dancehall star was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for the murder of an associate
The Jamaican musician Vybz Kartel’s conviction for the murder of an associate more than a decade ago has been quashed, with a London court ruling that attempts to bribe the trial jury meant the conviction was unsafe.
The dancehall star, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, is one of Jamaica’s most popular artists and has collaborated with performers such as Jay-Z and Rihanna.
Continue reading...Influential musician also co-produced group’s albums and mentored many Jamaican artists
Aston “Family Man” Barrett, bassist for Bob Marley and the Wailers, has died aged 77.
The news was confirmed on Saturday by Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister for culture, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “I share with you my deep regret at the passing of Aston Francis Barrett, popularly known as ‘Family Man’ or ‘Fams’ … He died at the University of Miami Hospital in Florida in the United States early this morning.”
Continue reading...Bristol-born vocalist celebrated for political lyricism and highly expressive style was influential both with the Pop Group and a long solo career
Mark Stewart, who was celebrated for his dizzying and politicised blend of post-punk, dub and funk as frontman of the Pop Group and in a solo career, has died aged 62.
News of his death was confirmed by his label Mute, who wrote: “In honour of this original, fearless, sensitive, artistic and funny man, think for yourself and question everything. The world was changed because of Mark Stewart, it will never be the same without him.” No cause of death has been given.
Continue reading...The musician sued the former president and his administration over the use of his song Electric Avenue in an ad in 2020
Reggae singer Eddy Grant may succeed where the attorney general of New York state and other powerful figures have struggled – by forcing Donald Trump to answer questions under oath in a legal proceeding.
Grant sued the former president and his campaign over the use of the song Electric Avenue in an ad in 2020.
Continue reading...Honoured by her newly independent country, Rihanna has always proudly worn her Bajan heritage – broadening her sound from her Caribbean roots, while staying true to them
Rihanna’s designation as a national hero of Barbados, to coincide with the country’s transition to an independent republic, could not be more apt. Not only has she been an official ambassador for culture and youth in the country since 2018, the singer remains the country’s most famous citizen and indeed advocate. She has never softened her Bajan accent, and her music, while tapping into pop, R&B and dance music, has remained rich with her Caribbean heritage.
In her investiture ceremony, the country’s prime minister Mia Mottley addressed the pop singer, fashion icon and hugely successful entrepreneur as “ambassador Robyn Rihanna Fenty: may you continue to shine like a diamond” – a reference to 2012’s global hit Diamonds – “and bring honour to your nation, by your words, by your actions, and to do credit wherever you shall go. God bless you, my dear.”
Continue reading...Can the fastest man on the planet become a chart-topping reggae star?
Hang on,” I can’t help thinking as I wait for Usain Bolt – the Usain Bolt, Fastest Man In The World Usain Bolt – to magically appear on the laptop screen in my kitchen. Bolt has released a reggae album with his childhood friend and manager Nugent “NJ” Walker, and I’ve been granted an interview. Except… has there been some terrible mix-up? Am I interviewing some other Usain Bolt, some lesser-known reggae artist who just happens to share his name? Why on earth would a man widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time, a three-time world record holder, be releasing a reggae record?
But, nope, there he is, beaming at me from a nondescript kitchen somewhere in the world. (He’s actually in the UK, ready to play for the World XI against an England XI at Soccer Aid at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium; days later, a clip will circulate of the long-retired Liverpool and England footballer Jamie Carragher beating him in a foot-race for a through ball.) He’s got the Bolt brand logo – a black bolt of lightning inside a yellow B – on the left breast of his black T-Shirt. There’s no mistaking it.
Continue reading...From Bob Marley to the Congos, Junior Murvin and his own outstanding work on the mic, we celebrate the work of a man who seemed to dissolve time
When I moved to Kingston, Jamaica, in 2003 for a job, it was in the month that Lee “Scratch” Perry won the best reggae album Grammy for Jamaican ET, a record that, in true Scratch style, contained everything including the kitchen sink. I remember tuning in to a call-in radio programme during which Jamaicans were wondering who this guy was. It was not entirely surprising – Perry, though arguably the most influential Jamaican artist (and therefore arguably one of the most influential artists ever), is most renowned for his work as producer rather than frontman.
In truth, Perry – who has died aged 85 – was astoundingly skilled and prolific in both roles, and so it would be laughable to attempt any comprehensive “best of” or representative listing of Perry’s work (though you could turn to this good primer by David Katz, author of the exhaustive and essential 2000 biography People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee “Scratch” Perry). The music he created seems to expand – perhaps explode – all notions of what music can be, so it is more prudent to pick some standouts that demonstrate his breadth and depth than a definitive greatest hits.
Continue reading...By deeply connecting with the people and idyllic landscape of his island, Perry channelled a stream of ideas into mindblowing music
“Until reggae it was all Kingston … Kingston, Kingston, Kingston! Ska? … Rocksteady? … they were Kingston things with the same Kingston men doing the same Kingston things.”
Lee “Scratch” Perry – who has died aged 85 – was talking me through perhaps the most significant gear change in the earlier years of Jamaican music – and was understandably animated, even by his own hyperactive standards.
Continue reading...Lee “Scratch” Perry, who has died aged 85, was one of Jamaica’s finest and most unpredictable record producers, as well as a much recorded singer. But perhaps his greatest global legacy was the profound effect he had on the king of reggae, Bob Marley.
As a singer in the Wailers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, Marley had experienced a modest degree of success in Jamaica before he came into Perry’s charismatic orbit in 1970. Hooking up with Perry changed the way Marley saw things, pulling him away from the measured harmonies of a trio towards something more heartfelt.
Continue reading...Producer and performer who worked with Bob Marley and pioneered both dub and roots reggae styles dies in hospital in Jamaica
• Obituary: one of Jamaica’s finest and most unpredictable musicians
Lee “Scratch” Perry, whose pioneering work with roots reggae and dub opened up profound new depths in Jamaican music, has died aged 85.
Jamaican media reported the news that he died in hospital in Lucea, northern Jamaica. No cause of death has yet been given. Andrew Holness, the country’s prime minister, sent “deep condolences” to Perry’s family.
Continue reading...With the 10th anniversary of her death this week, rediscover the best of Winehouse’s discography, where heartbreak and anger are mixed up with wit and joy
After all its emotional strife, the Back to Black album concludes with a jokey paean to weed. You could construct an argument that Addicted is Winehouse once more tapping into a venerable jazz tradition – it’s easy to imagine Fats Waller singing about someone snaffling his stash in the 30s – but perhaps it’s better to just enjoy its mordant wit.
Continue reading...From Don Henley to Drake, we rate the hottest sounds of the season
For a fleeting moment Brooklyn’s the Drums were the skinny jean-sporting indie band du jour. This is their crowning moment, all pogoing bass, petal-soft whistle riffs and a lyric about waking up on a sunny morning and running to the beach. “Oh mama I don’t care about nothing” feels like a very summer 2021 mantra, too.
Continue reading...Ahead of two new albums this spring, the dancehall superstar recalls the poignancy of his first love, and how water polo took his mind off his imprisoned father
When I turned 13 my father had just gone to prison, so without a father figure I looked for heroes in music and sports. Both my parents had been champion swimmers and when I was four or five they would throw me in the water when other kids didn’t want to swim. From the age of 13 to 21 I represented Jamaica in water polo, which my father had played. We trained a lot: 5,000 metres a day, 7,000 to 9,000 metres on Thursdays. It consumed my life but in a good way. It took my mind off my father being in prison.
Continue reading...Reggae artist and three-time Grammy winner found worldwide fame alongside Bob Marley in the early 1970s
Bunny Wailer, the co-founder and last living member of Jamaican reggae group the Wailers, who took Bob Marley to global stardom, has died aged 73.
His manager Maxine Stowe confirmed his death to the Jamaica Observer. Wailer had been frequently hospitalised since suffering a stroke in July 2020.
Continue reading...Streaming services expect rise in searches for the 70s pop-reggae genre, a staple of the blues parties that shaped UK music
One of the most memorable moments in Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock – the latest film in his five-part anthology series Small Axe – comes when a room full of young revellers sing Janet Kay’s classic Silly Games with their eyes closed, lost in the music, as they imitate her signature falsetto.
A staple of the lovers rock genre, which emerged in the 70s and was a blend of pop, reggae and disco, Kay’s song is the centre piece of McQueen’s film, which is itself an ode to the house parties, or “blues”, that his auntie attended as a young woman.
Continue reading...The director on the reggae-fuelled house parties he witnessed as a child - lovingly recreated in his new film, Lovers Rock – and how their raw energy shaped his taste in music
Reggae music is the beating heart of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, which traces Black British experience from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. In the 1970s, when the characteristically defiant Bob Marley song that gives the series its title was released, McQueen’s aunt, Molly, used to regularly sneak out of her family house in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, on weekend nights to go to “blues parties” – all-nighters usually held in someone’s house.
Back then, the blues party was a staple of West Indian immigrant life in England, a makeshift club-cum-shebeen, usually held in someone’s front room or basement, where, as the night progressed, the sweet smell of ganja merged with the lingering aromas of West Indian home cooking. As an escape from her strict, religious upbringing, Molly would dance until dawn to roots reggae, sweet-sounding “lovers rock” and floor-shaking dub instrumentals.
Continue reading...The late singer was at the heart of an extraordinary collision of music, culture and politics
I can still remember the first time I heard Pressure Drop. The little drum intro. The bass riff. The rhythm guitars. And then the voice of Toots Hibbert, a voice both soulful and raw, comforting but just a little menacing too.
It was a song to bring joy, to get a roomful of Doc Martens bouncing. It was also a song about revenge and karma. That was the way with Hibbert – the melding of the blissful and the rough, the soothing and the sharp.
Continue reading...‘My lucky charms are my songs’, the reggae icon told Miranda Sawyer as he promoted his final album, Got to Be Tough
Toots Hibbert brought out his most recent album, Got to Be Tough, in August. What now stands as his final album is a positive listen, with lyrics about overcoming obstacles and needing more love in your heart, and his voice is as soulful as ever. He produced the album himself and it features Ziggy Marley, Sly Dunbar, Cyril Neville and Zak Starkey. He was busy: during lockdown, he was a finalist in the recent Jamaica festival song competition (a big deal on the island), with the upbeat Rise Up Jamaicans. Toots was massively successful in Jamaica: with the Maytals, he had 31 No 1s there, more than any other artist.
I spoke to Toots over the phone (no visuals, sadly). He was in his studio, drinking orange juice and water. Sometimes he chatted to people in the background. Ebullient and charismatic, he laughed a lot during our chat. He was never less than charming, but I noticed he had a knack of avoiding tricky questions by talking in broad terms rather than detail.
Continue reading...Frontman of Toots and the Maytals helped make reggae globally famous
Toots Hibbert, whose glorious songcraft as frontman of Toots and the Maytals helped make reggae globally famous, has died aged 77.
A statement from his family on Saturday read: “It is with the heaviest of hearts to announce that Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert passed away peacefully tonight, surrounded by his family at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.
Continue reading...Producer who worked with artists such as Shabba Ranks, Garnett Silk and Morgan Heritage was a maverick of the dancehall era
Renowned Jamaican record producer Robert “Bobby Digital” Dixon died in a Kingston hospital on 21 May, aged 59. The cause of death was kidney disease.
One of the most respected producers of the dancehall era, Dixon transformed contemporary reggae several times over, enjoying tremendous international success with Shabba Ranks, Garnett Silk, Sizzla Kalonji and Morgan Heritage. He is also considered as an architect of the reggaeton genre that swept Latin America in the early 1990s, since some of its earliest hits sampled his work with Ranks.
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