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Star-studded Jamaican music fest in Broward honors reggae’s legacy

Legendary Jamaican ska singer Eric “Monty” Morris performs at 2024 Reggae Genealogy Music Festival.
RJ Deed
Legendary Jamaican ska singer Eric “Monty” Morris performs at 2024 Reggae Genealogy Music Festival.

February marks National Reggae Month — a time to celebrate the rich anthology of Jamaican music and honor the birthdays of late icons Dennis Brown and Bob Marley.

This year, the second annual Reggae Genealogy Music festival in Plantation — produced by Island SPACE Caribbean Museum — will present Lifetime Achievement Awards to honor some of reggae’s most influential icons: Wayne Wonder, best known for his hit “No Letting Go,” Inner Circle, the group behind the hit “Sweat (A La La La La Long),” and influential producer Donovan Germain, who's worked with artists like Buju Banton and Beres Hammond.

The festival will include dancers from the Carimer Theater Company, a local performance arts group, and a retrospective music set that takes fans through various Jamaican music genres like ska, mento, Nyabinghi and rocksteady.

The star-studded lineup includes prominent Jamaican DJ and MC Walshy Fire of the famed Major Lazer trio and Black Chiney quartet, the influential Chinese-Jamaican group.

Walshy, a Miami native, told WLRN his DJ set will pay tribute to reggae’s global influence on various genres of music, from Afrobeats to Dub — and go “back in time” to the reggae classics, from the 1990s and onward “ to commemorate and to teach everybody about artists that they might not have been able to know about via an award ceremony.”

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2025 2nd annual Reggae Genealogy Music Festival | Lifetime Achievement Award honorees Inner Circle (top), Wayne Wonder (left) and Donovan Germain
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The Carol City, Miami native Walshy Fire is scheduled to perform set at the 2025 Reggae Genealogy Music Festival.

"Man, it's such a big part of our way to let other people know that we see us,” Fire said. “We don't need a Grammy to (validate) us. How do we not celebrate those people who have put in 30, 40 years of work," he said.

Known for merging different genres of music in his work, Fire, who is celebrating his 30th year in the music industry, recently released his new jazz-reggae album Be The Good People through his new music collective The Mighty Tiny & The Many Few.

The Carol City, Miami native Walshy Fire is scheduled to perform set at this year's Reggae Genealogy Music Festival
Walshy Fire
The Carol City, Miami native Walshy Fire is scheduled to perform set at this year's Reggae Genealogy Music Festival

He appreciates the uplifting music that's emphasized at the festival, Fire added, because the "frequency resonates with everyone."

”If I played a song that was emotionally positive, the lyrics, the energy, the beat, everything was positive. I got a bigger response,” said Fire, who plans to play lesser-known songs and crowd pleasers that create a sense of nostalgia.

“And I got a more impactful response and a more everlasting response. People would become natural, lifelong fans of that song because of the way it made them feel," he said.

IF YOU GO
What: The Reggae Genealogy Music Festival
When: February 2, 2025, from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Where: Northeast parking lot at Broward Mall in Plantation 8000 W Broward Blvd Unit 1202, Plantation, FL 33388
Information: More details here.

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Wilkine Brutus is the Palm Beach County Reporter for WLRN. The award-winning journalist produces stories on topics surrounding local news, culture, art, politics and current affairs. Contact Wilkine at wbrutus@wlrnnews.org
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