Grammy Kid Koffee
In February, 19-year-old singer Koffee won Best Reggae Album, making her the first woman to take home an award and the youngest reggae trophy recipient in history.
Koffee, whose real name is Mikayla Simpson, took home the Grammy for her debut album, Rapture.
In a brief acceptance speech, Koffee thanked her fellow nominees for “the input they made in the Reggae industry”, and ended by saying “… this one is for all of us, this one is for Reggae, this one is for Jamaica”.
That very month, RCA announced that it signed Koffee in the U.S., the next step in a process meant to introduce her music to audiences outside of traditional regions of reggae.
Bounty VERZUZ Beenie
Throughout quarantine, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s VERZUZ battle series has kept us entertained. None more so than that of dancehall legends Bounty Killer and Beenie Man. This Verzuz battle showcased two of its most respected lyricists ever to hold a microphone.
One of the funnier moments during the battle happened when law enforcement apparently made an attempt to shut everything down. Leading to Beenie’s now popular line, “Do you want to be that guy?”
“This is how we represent the culture … At the end of the day, it’s a musical sport,” Bounty Killer said at the end of the two-hour livestream as he and Beenie Man sang Bob Marley’s “One Love.”
Almost half a million viewers tuned in, according to CNN, including several international stars such as Rihanna, Diddy, DJ Khaled, Erykah Badu and Missy Elliott.
VIRTUAL REGGAE SUMFEST
For the first time in its 27 year history, reggae and dancehall’s top acts took the Reggae Sumfest stage, not in front of a live audience, but via livestream on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Fans were treated to performances by Frisco Kid, Chaka Demus and Pliers and Tanto Metro and Devonte, Ishawna, Agent Sasco, Maxi Priest and Koffee, among others.
Though the coronavirus had put a damper on the festivities, executive producer Joe Bogdanovich, chairman and CEO of Downsound Entertainment, said the festival set a new record for streaming — 3,134,000 views.
HALT OF CARNIVAL IN JAMAICA
If there was ever a time to be chipping down the road with a drink in hand and feting your troubles away, 2020 was that year.
But like most events, amid the threat of COVID-19, Carnival in Jamaica has been cancelled.
The road parade was first postponed to October 25, 2020, due to the threat of COVID-19. However, as the cases increased, the decision was made to forego hosting the event entirely in 2020.
Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett announced the April 11, 2021 staging of the event.
Revellers scrambled to figure out how refunds would work for costumes, however, the bands countered that the money paid had already been spent on the manufacturing of costumes.
RIP TOOTS
NEW ORLEANS, LA – OCTOBER 27: Frederick “Toots” Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals performs during the 2012 Voodoo Experience at City Park on October 27, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Douglas Mason/Getty Images)
Jamaican reggae pioneer Frederick Nathaniel ‘Toots’ Hibbert died on September 11, at the age of 77.
Toots, who is credited with popularising reggae music and even naming the genre – his 1968 single “Do the Reggay” is the first song to use the term, died at the University Hospital of the West Indies two weeks after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Toots’ October 15 burial at the Dovecot Memorial Gardens had to be abandoned as the family could not produce an order authorising the internment.
One month later, Toots was interred at the National Heroes Park in Kingston.
