The Long Way Back: Hezron, Miami R&B and the Return to Reggae

Jamaica's second city and the centre of the music's festival economy — home to Reggae Sumfest and a tourist-facing live circuit that gives artists a stage separate from Kingston's studio and dancehall world. It is also a scene in its own right, producing the 6ixx and a distinct western dancehall sound.

Jamaica's capital and the city where nearly all of this music was made. The studios, pressing plants, record shops and sound-system yards sat within a few square miles of downtown, and the geography matters: Orange Street's record trade, Waterhouse and Trench Town's yards, the Maxfield Avenue and Marcus Garvey Drive studio corridors, and the uptown venues that dancehall eventually reached are all part of one dense, walkable working map.

Independent Kingston label, production house and publisher, with an international office in Miami, founded by the producer and engineer Tad Dawkins. By the label's own account it has been working since the early 1970s, and it has kept going as a family firm, with Tad Dawkins Jr co-producing alongside his father. Its catalogue runs from veteran singers to contemporary reggae, and two albums it put out have reached the Best Reggae Album shortlist at the Grammys: Gregory Isaacs' Brand New Me in 2010 and Etana's Reggae Forever in 2019. It is the label behind both of Hezron's albums, and it releases the annual Celebrating Jamaica compilations timed to Independence.

Mutabaruka (born Allan Hope, 26 December 1952) is a Jamaican Rastafari dub poet who began performing live with his band Truth in 1977, part of the wave of Jamaican poets who emerged in the early 1970s. He later became a prominent broadcaster, hosting two of Jamaica's most popular radio programmes, "The Cutting Edge" and "Steppin' Razor," extending his platform from poetry into cultural and political commentary.

Dean Ivanhoe Fraser (born 4 August 1957, Kingston) is the saxophone voice of modern reggae — a player on thousands of sessions since the mid-1970s, and latterly one of its most influential producers and bandleaders. He took up clarinet at twelve and saxophone at fifteen, and met Ronald "Nambo" Robinson and Junior "Chico" Chin at a Jones Town youth club; the three became the foremost horn section in 1980s Jamaica. He joined Lloyd Parks' We The People Band in 1977, backing Dennis Brown on his Joe Gibbs recordings, and cut his own first album, Black Horn Man, for Gibbs in 1978, followed by Pure Horns and Double Dynamite (1979) and Revolutionary Sounds for Donovan Germain (1980). He played in the horn section behind the Roots Radics alongside Vin Gordon, Nambo Robinson, Dirty Harry Hall, Bobby Ellis and Deadly Headly Bennett. From the late 1990s he toured and recorded extensively with Luciano, and later became the producer and bandleader behind Tarrus Riley and Duane Stephenson — his production credits include Stephenson's "August Town" and Morgan Heritage's "Down by the River", with further work for Sanchez, Freddie McGregor and Bunny Rugs. Jamaica awarded him the Musgrave Medal in 1993.

North-coast parish, capital Montego Bay, and the second centre of Jamaican live music after Kingston. Reggae Sumfest, the Catherine Hall Entertainment Centre and the Dump-Up Beach shows all sit here, as does the tourist economy that shaped how the island's music was packaged for visitors.

Gregory Isaacs (Gregory Anthony Isaacs, 15 July 1951 - 25 October 2010), nicknamed the "Cool Ruler," was a Jamaican reggae singer and a defining voice of lovers rock. He co-founded the African Museum label and shop with Errol Dunkley and scored his most famous record with "Night Nurse," the title track of his 1982 album for Island Records. His smooth, plaintive delivery made him one of reggae's most emulated vocalists. He worked as an electrician and cabinet maker before recording for producer Winston Sinclair in the late 1960s and forming the trio the Concords in 1969. When that failed he went solo, and in the mid-1970s launched African Museum to hold artistic and financial control of his own work while continuing to record for GG's, Trojan, DEB, Charisma, Tad's and Jammy's. Love Is Overdue (1973) was his first successful album, followed by In Person, Cool Ruler (1978), Soon Forward (1979) and the internationally massive Night Nurse. His last album, Brand New Me, came out on African Museum in 2008. He died of lung cancer at his London home on 25 October 2010, aged 59, surrounded by his wife Linda and three of his eleven children.

Singer and songwriter who took the long way into reggae, by way of a decade singing R&B in the United States. Born Hezron Clarke in True Gully, a village between Moy Hall and Tower Hill in St James, he grew up in a family yard where money was short and food got shared across households, and in a family where his grandfather, his mother, an uncle and his brothers all sang. He was in the church choir at about seven and writing poetry at the same age, pulled toward dancehall as he got older, and had an uncle whose Mutabaruka records were part of the furniture. He left Jamaica young, spent a short time in Texas and then seven years in Miami, started a pre-law degree and abandoned it when music and family pressure made the choice for him. In the United States he sang R&B, listening to Usher and Sisqo, and passed through deals with Chatterbox and Danger Zone and dealings with Def Jam and Warner without a breakthrough. He went home instead, and reggae is where his voice finally landed. "So In Love" is the single reported to have established him at home. Since then he has recorded for Tad's Record, releasing The Life I Live in 2014 and M.O.A.M. (Man on a Mission) in August 2022, the second cut in Kingston with a band of first-call players including Dean Fraser on saxophone and Robbie Lyn on keyboards. The Recording Academy filmed him for its Press Play series in January 2023, singing the title track with an acoustic guitar.

Etana (born Shauna McKenzie, 1983) is a Jamaican reggae singer from August Town, Saint Andrew, associated with the 2000s roots-reggae revival and known for her conscious, uplifting songs. After early US years and a stint in a vocal group, she launched a solo career with the album The Strong One (2008) and hits such as "Warrior Love," followed by albums including Free Expressions (2011). Her 2014 album I Rise topped the Billboard Reggae Albums chart, and she has received Grammy nominations for Best Reggae Album.