Congratulations to 19-year old Koffee. She did it again. Jamaica’s hottest new artist has gone to the moon! For a special moment on January 26th, the 62nd Grammy Awards at LA’s Staples Centre was glowing black, green and gold when it was announced that Koffee aka Mikayla Simpson, had won the ‘Best Reggae Album‘ category for her ‘Rapture‘ EP (Columbia Records 2018). The EP featured last year’s top single,’Toast‘, a positive and uplifting song celebrating giving thanks for the blessings in life. The video currently sports close to 99 million views on YouTube. At 19 years young, Koffee, born February 16th 2000, is the first and youngest female to win the category.

To be honest, it was a bit of fresh air for me see a changing of the guards in the Grammy judgement. Surely, there would be an uproar if the award for ‘Best Reggae Album‘ went to anyone else. The good news is that despite a history of partisan judgement where the same ‘elite’ group of artists are always favored for nominations and winnings at the Grammys, they gave the award to the ‘right’ artist this time.

Koffee deserves the award, she is that ‘rare’ jewel – a talented lyricist and gifted songwriter, well managed, and both her image and her music is clean and radio friendly. The fact that she is so young should be no surprise, the entire reggae-dancehall scene, as we knew it, is currently undergoing an overhaul where a younger audience that is dictating what is ‘good’, is spearheading their fellow new generation artists to greater heights of popularity even if elders and critics disagree with their newer styled hip-hop, hip-pop, and trap-hop sound currently trending. Strip away Koffee’s vocals, and many similar newer uprising artists like her, and what kind of music is one really listening to?

The embarrassing truth is that 2019 was not a good year for Jamaica’s conscious artists. Missing on the year end’s top reggae charts and countdowns were the usual great singing tunes by Jamaica’s traditionally dominant artists the likes of Sizzla, Capleton, Luciano, Morgan Heritage – almost the entire collective failed. If one takes a look at the following artists and their albums which were nominated, it’s fair to say that these albums, despite being nominated, didn’t make a dent in our dancehall industry in 2019.

“As I Am” Julian Marley
“The Final Battle: Sly & Robbie vs Roots Radics” by Sly & Robbie and Roots Radics
“Mass Manipulation” by Steel Pulse
“More Work To Be Done” – Third World

I don’t know who purchased or listened to these albums, my dee-jay friends and radio colleagues were not playing them or excited about these works in 2019. Are any of the above mentioned works in your music playlists or collection, and if so, where are the memorable hit singles?  I don’t mean to hate, I just can’t wait for our reggae music industry to crawl out of it’s infancy find the magic to create more artists like Koffee. No disrespect to Koffee, but the Grammys must have more reggae to chose from next year.

In the mean time, we say good luck to Koffee in the 2020 year.  We can hardly wait to see what’s to come, and we wish her good luck in her drive and destiny to continue to take Jamaican reggae music to a global level.  Promoters beware, winning the Grammy might be good for Koffee, but for those who want to book her to perform in concert, expect her price to be a little higher than it was before.

Next for Koffee is a  performance at the upcoming 2020 Super Bowl weekend festivities, then who knows what’s to come, because of her popularity, opportunities will keep coming her way and she is likely to keep doing things no reggae artist, male or female, has done before.

Ron Nelson

https://reggaemania.com/song-10-tops2019/

https://reggaemania.com/top-international-female-2019/

https://reggaemania.com/top-upcoming-international-female-2019/2/