ENTITY · PERSON (ARTIST, SELECTOR, PRODUCER…)
Sizzla Kalonji
Well supported
Miguel Orlando Collins, born in St Mary on 17 April 1976 to devout Rastafarian parents, apprenticed on the Caveman Hi-Fi sound system and began recording in 1995. Bobby Digital Dixon cut singles with him; Philip "Fatis" Burrell's Xterminator label released the debut Burning Up the same year and gave him the setting the breakthrough came from.
Praise Ye Jah (1996) and Black Woman & Child (1997) made him, with Luciano and Capleton, the voice of the late-1990s culture wave that pulled dancehall back toward Rastafari after a decade of slackness. He follows the Bobo Ashanti order, and the sheer volume is part of the record — 56 solo albums by 2018, released partly through his own Kalonji label.
Anti-LGBT lyrics in some of his recordings have led to a UK entry ban in 2004, a cancelled German visa in 2008 and repeated European cancellations since.
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