Dennis Brown

Dennis Emmanuel Brown was born on February 1, 1957, in the Kingston suburb of Sandy Park, Jamaica. He began performing publicly at around age nine, singing in talent contests and with local vocal groups, and quickly earned a reputation as a preternaturally gifted child singer.

Brown's breakthrough came at Coxsone Dodd's Studio One, where as a boy he recorded the ballad "No Man Is an Island" (1969), a hit that made him a national sensation. Through the 1970s he became one of the most recorded artists on the island, working with producers including Winston "Niney" Holness and Joe Gibbs.

In 1978 Brown relocated to London and founded his own label, DEB Music; that year a reissue of "Money in My Pocket" climbed to number 14 on the UK Singles Chart. He released an extraordinary volume of material — commonly cited as 75 to over 90 studio albums — and earned two Grammy nominations for Best Reggae Album.

Bob Marley is widely quoted as calling Brown his favourite singer. Brown mentored and directly influenced a generation of singers, including Barrington Levy, Junior Reid, and Beres Hammond. He died on July 1, 1999, at age 42, after being admitted to hospital with a collapsed lung; his health had been severely weakened by long-term substance use.