Robert Browne, others to get Grammy certs this month
Robert Browne, a prolific guitarist who has recorded and toured with major acts such as Shaggy and Lauryn Hill, will be among four recipients at the Grammy Certificates Ceremony, scheduled for January 22 at Island SPACE Caribbean Museum in Plantation, South Florida.
Like the previous four ceremonies, the awardees will receive certificates sanctioned by the Recording Academy for their work on Grammy-winning or Grammy-nominated albums.
The son of respected bass guitarist Glen Browne, he is recognised for playing on five Grammy-nominated albums: Ziggy Marley and The Melody Makers’ Free Like We Want 2 Be, Burning Spear’s Free Man, Shaggy’s Out of Many One Music and Summer in Kingston, and Protoje’s
A Matter of Time.
The other honorees will be Morgan Heritage, Gramps Morgan, and Wayne Wonder.
Morgan Heritage — which won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album with Strictly Roots — will receive a certificate for their collaboration with Sting and Shaggy on 44/876. That is the lead song from the duo’s album of the same name which won the 2019 Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
Gramps, the band’s vocalist/keyboardist, will receive certificates for working on J Boog’s Wash House Ting and Evolution by The Wailers, which were nominated for Best Reggae Album in 2017 and 2025, respectively.
Wayne Wonder is being acknowledged for appearing on songs on Shaggy’s Boombastic, which won the 1996 Best Reggae Album Grammy, as well as Buju Banton’s Friends For Life, which was nominated in 2004.
Kennedy Mensah is principal of the London-based Back 2 Da Future Music Limited which initiated the Grammy Certificate Ceremony in South Florida in July 2024. Since then the organisation has staged similar events in Kingston and London.
Several unheralded stalwarts of the reggae music industry have received certificates for contributing to Grammy projects. At the previous ceremony in Kingston, last September, there were 27 recipients, including Robert Browne’s uncle, Cleveland “Clevie” Browne, who was presented with multiple awards for playing drums and producing albums and songs for artistes including Dawn Penn, Buju Banton, Shabba Ranks, Sean Paul, and Jimmy Cliff.
— Howard Campbell
