Julian Marley is a Grammy winner. Colors of Royal, his eight-track collaboration with producer Antaeus, won Best Reggae Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 4, 2024, the Recording Academy confirms. Presenter Patti Austin read the result during the Premiere Ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, DancehallMag reports.
The album is in the JamaicansMusic library: press Play all above to hear it while you read, open the Colors of Royal album page, or jump to the track-by-track player below.
The field was strong: Buju Banton’s Born for Greatness, Beenie Man’s Simma, Burning Spear’s No Destroyer and Collie Buddz’s Cali Roots Riddim 2023, from 65 entries. Last year’s award went to Kabaka Pyramid’s The Kalling.
Third nomination, first win
Marley, 48, had been nominated twice before — for Awake and for As I Am in 2020 — and now joins his brothers Ziggy, Stephen and Damian as a Grammy winner, the Jamaica Observer notes. He was not in Los Angeles: the only one of Bob Marley’s sons born in England, raised there by his Barbadian mother Lucy Pounder, he spent the weekend performing at Jammin, Australia’s flagship reggae festival, the Gleaner reports.
Antaeus — Alexx Antaeus, the Greek-born composer and producer known in Jamaica as much for his restaurant as his studio, and for whom the record was a first nomination — accepted. “I’d like to dedicate this to the people of Jamaica, who have accepted me as one of their own,” he said. “And they have lived up to the motto of the country, ‘Out of Many, One.’” Another member of the team remembered Aston “Family Man” Barrett, who died the day before, and Jo Mersa Marley.
“Julian’s win is a well deserved win for such a talented musician and singer,” music marketer Sean “Contractor” Edwards told the Gleaner, noting his perseverance through personal tragedy, including the death of his 12-year-old daughter in 2019. The album, Edwards said, “has the new one drop reggae sound … not the traditional one drop sound like Burning Spear. It’s reggae infused with other genres, and it is highly appealing.”
The record
Released in March 2023 on Antaeus’s Monom Records with Digital Minds, Colors of Royal takes its name from Marley’s nickname, JuJu Royal. Antaeus produced, with NotNice, Mr Sonic, Sean Alaric and Prince Productions; the Recording Academy credits Antaeus, TwiZtED di Engineer, Joe Maldonado and Alex Psaroudakis as engineers and mixers. Its centrepiece is a rework of John Holt’s “The Tide Is High.”
- Jah Sees Them
- Robbed (feat. Notnice)
- Inna Mood
- Made for Your Love
- Roll
- The Tide Is High
- Roll (Rodando Mr Sonic Remix) (feat. Bahiano)
- The Tide Is High (Pentagono Remix) (feat. Melo El Melodico)
Listen and dig deeper
- Play the winning album on the Colors of Royal album page, and browse the Julian Marley artist profile.
- Related: the album’s release (March 2023) and Buju Banton’s Born for Greatness, a fellow nominee.
Sources: Recording Academy — Best Reggae Album, 66th Grammy Awards; Jamaica Observer — “Julian Marley wins first Grammy Award” (Shereita Grizzle, Feb 4, 2024); Jamaica Gleaner — “Grammy Award for Julian Marley” (Yasmine Peru, Feb 5, 2024); DancehallMag — “Julian Marley, Antaeus’ ‘Colors Of Royal’ Wins ‘Best Reggae Album’ At 2024 Grammy Awards” (Dani Mallick, Feb 4, 2024); Daily Reggae (Feb 5, 2024). Sources differ on whether the Awake nomination fell in 2009 or 2010.
Editor’s note: This story is part of an archive backfill covering Jamaican music news from 2022 to 2026. It is dated to the events it reports.