Nardo Ranks, the east Kingston deejay best known for the 1992 hit “Dem A Bleach,” died in Queens, New York, on Sunday, December 22, 2024, according to colleagues on social media, the Jamaica Observer reports. Born Gary Henderson, he was in his late 50s. No cause of death has been given.
The news was shared by Red Fox, a veteran of the tri-state dancehall scene. “Saddened to hear the passing of Nardo Ranks… My condolence to his family and love ones. RIP DJ,” he wrote on Instagram.
Dunkirk to Profile
Henderson came from Dunkirk — McIntyre Villa — in east Kingston and started out in the mid-1980s on the Cave Man Hi Power sound system. His first release, “Love To See The Girls,” came in 1989, and he scored an early hit with fellow Dunkirk native Wayne Wonder on “Sound Boy What Happen” for producer Winston Riley.
“Dem A Bleach,” produced by Sly & Robbie’s Taxi Gang on the Bam Bam rhythm, took aim at skin-lightening creams and held the top of the RJR Top 40 for six weeks. “When I did Dem A Bleach it was in response to Buju Banton’s ‘Love Mi Browning’,” he told the Observer in 2017. “Bleaching was just catching on at di time, and I wanted to highlight dat in my song.” “Burrup,” produced by Soljie Hamilton, followed in 1993 and reached No. 16 on Billboard’s Dance Music Maxi-Singles Sales chart, and a deal with Profile Records — the New York independent with deep hip-hop ties — produced the album Rough Nardo Ranking that year. He later acted in the films Jamaican Mafia and Jump Off, and was still releasing music; his last Instagram post, in October, promoted a new song, “Reggae Music,” Our Today notes.
“Nardo was an underrated deejay,” said Murray Elias, who worked with him at Profile. “He had a super-hot run in the early 90s, where he had not just back-to-back-to-back dancehall hits, but every one of those hits crossed over into the hip-hop world. They were massive hits in New York, both in the clubs and on the mix shows, and in the case of ‘Burrup,’ on radio [stations] like KISS-FM and stations up and down the East Coast. ‘Burrup,’ ‘Rikers Island,’ ‘New Jersey Drive’ and ‘Dem A Bleach’ were all innovative and ground-breaking classics.”
Listen and dig deeper
- Browse Nardo Ranks, Wayne Wonder, Red Fox and Sly & Robbie in the JamaicansMusic library.
Sources: Jamaica Observer — “Nardo Ranks passes on” (Howard Campbell, Dec 24, 2024); Our Today — “Veteran dancehall artiste Nardo Ranks passes away” (Dec 23, 2024).
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.