Alkaline submits his sophomore album, Top Prize, for consideration for the upcoming 64th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2022.
Every year, artists around the world compete for the biggest recognition in music, winning a GRAMMY award. The road to the GRAMMYs all started by submitting your work for consideration ahead of the nominations process, and every year reggae and dancehall artists submit their body of work to the Recording Academy since there is only one reggae category, Best Reggae Album.
Alkaline‘s manager/sister, Kereena ‘Kereberry’ Beckford, revealed on Instagram that they submitted Top Prize for consideration. Whether or not the dancehall deejay will pick up a nomination is left for the Recording Academy members to decide.
Voting started on October 22 and will end on November 5 this year, after which the nomination will be announced sometime in November.
Alkaline remains one of the most popular artists in dancehall currently and also one of the most commercially successful acts in the genre for the past decade. Top Prize was released on May 14 and went on to move 2957 album-equivalent units in the first week of release, making it one of the top-selling dancehall albums this year, topping Vybz Kartel and Spice. Some 1527 units were from pure album sales. The project ended up missing out on the No. 1 spot on Billboard after peaking at No. 2.
The Vendetta deejay will also be competing for a nomination with other big-name dancehall acts like Vybz Kartel, Spice, Sean Paul, Dexta Daps, and more. Despite receiving fewer sales than Alkaline’s Top Prize, Vybz Kartel‘s album, Born Fi dis, remains hugely popular among dancehall fans in Jamaica and worldwide. Spice debut album, 10, is also a hit as her fans waited a decade for the project that saw some big names showing out on it like Sean Paul and Shaggy. Sean Paul also released his feature heavy project, Live N Livin, on March 12 this year. He remains the most popular dancehall artiste on the planet after over two decades in the game.
There are also some roots reggae artistes who released hugely popular albums, including Etana’s Pamoja, Jesse Royal’s Royal, California-base reggae band Rebelution’s In The Moment, and U-Roy’s posthumous album, Solid Gold U-Roy.
To be eligible for consideration for the 64th annual GRAMMY Awards, artistes would have to release music between September 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021.
The Best Reggae Album Grammy is one of the most sought after awards in the reggae/dancehall community. Despite creating controversies almost every year, artistes still look forward to picking up nominations and potentially winning. Only a select group of artistes have had the privilege of calling themselves Grammy winners, with the Marley name being the most synonymous with the Best Reggae Album category.
While Bob Marley himself has yet to win a GRAMMY, Bunny Wailer has picked up two GRAMMY Awards for albums released in Bob’s honor. Wailer won in 1991 for his project, Time Will Tell: A Tribute To Bob Marley, and again in 1997 for Hall of Fame: A Tribute to Bob Marley’s 50th Anniversary.
Ziggy Marley holds the title for the artiste with the most GRAMMY Awards for Best Reggae Album, with a total of seven trophies with two of them as part of the group, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers. Koffee is the youngest person and the only woman to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album at age 19.
Toots and the Maytals win a GRAMMY for the album, Got to Be Tough at the 63rd annual GRAMMY Awards in 2021.
If nominated, this would be Alkaline’s first GRAMMY nomination.
