Michael Prophet

Michael George Haynes (3 March 1957 – 16 December 2017), known professionally as Michael Prophet, was a Jamaican roots reggae singer known for his "crying" tenor vocal style, whose recording career began in 1977. Prophet was one of Jamaica’s most popular roots reggae singers and had several prominent hits during his 40-year career.

Biography

Michael George Haynes was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 3 March 1957, the only child of Caroline Smith, a housewife, and Lloyd Haynes, a painter and decorator who worked for the beverage company Desnoes & Geddes (Lloyd fathered 13 other children). Educated at Greenwich Farm High School, Kingston, he lived nearby with his paternal grandmother Gladys, a market trader. The impoverished Greenwich Farm district had long been a hotbed of musical activity, and during the late 1970s Michael Haynes began singing on local sound systems. In 1978 he recorded his first singles, "The Woman I Love", "Super Star" and "True Born African", but they made little impact.

Haynes then formed a vocal trio with friends from the neighbourhood, but when they auditioned for the producer Yabby You, Jackson convinced him to ditch the other vocalists, renamed him Michael...

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