Who counts as reggae? The 2022 Best Reggae Album debate

Commentary

Awards are reception, not final proof

Awards such as Grammy, IRAWMA and JaRIA honours are useful reception evidence but should be interpreted alongside local archives, recordings, press and community memory.

Commentary

Koffee's historic win: a turning point or one milestone?

Koffee's 2020 Best Reggae Album win - first woman and youngest in the category - is a documented milestone; commentary splits on its meaning: some read it as a real generational and gender shift for reggae, others caution against treating a single win as structural change for women and youth in the industry.

Debate

Should dancehall and reggae share one category, or does the umbrella erase dancehall?

The Grammy Best Reggae Album category and, to critics, the UNESCO 'reggae' heritage framing both fold dancehall under a 'reggae' banner, prompting an ongoing argument in the Jamaican music press about whether dancehall deserves separate recognition. One side holds that dancehall is a distinct genre with its own economy, artists and aesthetics that gets flattened and under-rewarded when judged as 'reggae'; the other argues the shared roots and small market make a single umbrella practical and that splitting it would dilute Jamaica's collective clout. The dispute recurs each awards season and around the 2018 UNESCO inscription, which named reggae rather than dancehall.

Debate

SOJA's 2022 Best Reggae Album Grammy and the question of who owns reggae

“reggae and dancehall could have been more recognized because oftentimes other genres take from our culture and we do not get that rating that we deserve”

At the 2022 Grammys, the American band SOJA won Best Reggae Album over five Jamaican nominees, reigniting a recurring argument about cultural ownership versus reggae's status as a global genre open to all. Critics called it an instance of outside acts profiting from a Black Jamaican art form while its originators go unrewarded; defenders pointed to reggae's deliberately international reach and the Academy's genre-not-nationality criteria. Nominee Spice publicly voiced the ownership grievance. The following year the award returned to a Jamaican act, Kabaka Pyramid ('The Kalling'), which some read as a corrective.