By Leighton Williams, Staff Reporter
Bounty Killer, another first-time nominee.
FREDDIE MCGREGOR, Capleton, Bounty Killer, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Alpha Blondy have been nominated for this year's Grammy awards, which will be presented in February. For the first in a long time, none of the artistes nominated are signed to a major North American label.
The nominees were selected in the category of Best Reggae Album Vocal or Instrumental. The list of nominees was released by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences yesterday.
Alpha Blondy's Merci is distributed by Shanachie Records; while Bounty Killer's Ghetto Dictionary: The Mystery is handled by VP Records. VP also markets Capleton's Still Blazin and Anything For You by Freddy McGregor. The other album nominated, Jamaican E.T. by Lee 'Scratch' Perry has Sanctuary and Trojan Records behind it.
However, there were some notable absences from the list of nominees, namely Shaggy and Beenie Man.
Chairman of Reggae Grammy Nominations, Roger Steffens, pointed out that "I don't think a conscious decision was taken to leave out anybody from a big label. The nominations for the Reggae Grammy are becoming harder to predict each year. It has nothing to do with sales or album quality. What's more interesting is that there are no Marley associates this year."
He added that major labels usually enrol employees in NARAS and they vote in blocks, which means they vote for the artistes signed to their labels.
According to Steffens, the nomination process begins when members of NARAS, mostly Los Angeles residents, submit their suggestions to the various committees as to which albums should be included in each category. The screening committee then goes through each consideration for nomination. There are only seven members on the committee and the submission must get a majority vote to get through to the first round.
After the decisions are made, ballots are sent out to the NARAS members and the top five vote getters become the Grammy nominees. Then comes the critical second round, when NARAS members are instructed to vote on a limited number of categories (about 10) and the top vote getter wins the Grammy.
Steffens has been an scholar of reggae music for the past 32 years and is considered by some to be an outstanding reggae archivist. He said that the line-up is interesting since there is an outstanding producer in the form of Lee Perry.
Steffens explains that it is more interesting in that there are two outstanding dancehall acts Bounty Killer and Capleton a veteran singer in the form of Freddy McGregor and one overseas-based singer, Alpha Blondy.
"It's an interesting line-up as one of the best foreign artistes representing reggae of the best reggae artistes around, and two dancehall acts on top of their game, and there is also a producer who outside of Coxsonne (Dodd) is one of reggae's longest serving producers," he said.
Past winners of the Reggae Grammy include: Black Uhuru (1984), Jimmy Cliff (1985), Steel Pulse (1986), Peter Tosh (1987), Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers (1988,1989 and 1997), Bunny Wailer (1990, 1994 and 1996), Shabba Ranks (1991 and 1992), Inner Circle (1993), Shaggy (1995), Sly and Robbie (1998), Burning Spear (1999), Beenie Man (2000), and Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley (2001).
The first Reggae Grammy was awarded to Black Uhuru in 1984 for his effort Anthem with Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley winning last year for Half-Way Tree. Shabba Ranks remains the most successful dancehall artiste with two awards to his credit while Bunny Wailer and Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers are jointly the most successful in the reggae category with three Grammys each.
