At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards on 10 February 2019, Shaggy and Sting won Best Reggae Album for 44/876, the Grammy.com listing confirms — defeating Black Uhuru’s As the World Turns, Etana’s Reggae Forever, Ziggy Marley’s Rebellion Rises and Protoje’s A Matter of Time. The Jamaica Gleaner called it Shaggy’s second Grammy, 23 years after Boombastic; for Sting it was a first nomination and win in the reggae category after 39 career nominations.

The collaboration

Released on Interscope/A&M in April 2018 and produced by Sting International, Martin Kierszenbaum and Paul “Groucho” Smykle, 44/876 paired the former Police frontman with the dancehall toaster whose career he had influenced from across the Atlantic. The title encodes the dialling codes for England and Jamaica; Culture Minister Olivia Grange told the Gleaner the concept “underlined the long-standing relationship between the two countries.” The Gleaner also noted that 44/876 was the top-selling reggae album of 2018 in the United States, per Billboard’s year-end chart — more than 50,000 copies sold.

The night

Shaggy hosted the Grammys pre-show and had performed the album’s lead single “Don’t Make Me Wait” with Sting at the previous year’s ceremony. The Grammy.com artist page lists 44/876 as nomination number six and win number two for Shaggy — closing a circle from the 1996 Boombastic trophy to a reggae reunion with rock royalty.

Why it matters

44/876 proved Shaggy’s crossover instincts had not dimmed — only matured. Two decades after the Levi’s advert, he and Sting showed that reggae’s global conversation still runs through Kingston.

Listen and dig deeper

Sources: Grammy.com — Best Reggae Album 2019; Jamaica Gleaner — “Shaggy stings with second Grammy” (Feb 11, 2019); Grammy.com — Shaggy awards history.

Editor's note: This entry is part of the JamaicansMusic online museum — a career timeline assembled from the archive. It is dated to the era it documents; every claim is drawn from the linked sources.