The 22 Best Dancehall And Reggae Albums Of 2022
Countless artists spent the first two years of the decade waiting. They waited to return; they waited until their newly recorded music could greet live audiences. Many waited to bring Reggae and Dancehall back in full force.
And, for some, 2022 marked the end of that wait. Koffee, Shenseea, and Bling Dawg shared their debuts in February. The veterans Sean Paul and Shaggy returned in May. The diligent revivalists Protoje and Kabaka Pyramid carried the momentum through September. And a steady stream of other great projects flowed among these.
The quality of the music suggests the wait wasn’t spent idly. As lockdowns slammed touring to a halt and press runs shifted to Zoom, many moved their focus to recording. Artists and producers scaled up their visions, crafting some of their most ambitious work yet. Themes got bolder: Several albums were diaristic, aching with the sting of loss and uncertainty, while others roared with hope and defiance. Two Jamaican artists even wrapped up trilogies this year.
2022 also saw a historic flow of sounds into Reggae and Dancehall’s creative reservoir; some tracks were inspired by the melodies and grooves floating out of Lagos and Accra, and others absorbed the drum patterns born in Atlanta. A few producers chopped up samples as eagerly as their hip-hop counterparts, fueling innovation with nostalgia. And even the more traditional-minded fans got their fix as homegrown, roots rhythms cradled uplifting messages as reliably as ever.
So, as we bask in the afterglow of what was a standout year for Reggae and Dancehall music, DancehallMag looks back at some of 2022’s defining projects. Several releases did well to capture the current moment, while others looked beyond it, mining the past to reroute the present. More than being albums that beckoned us back for repeat listens, these projects were considered for their ambition, cohesion, and their potential to endure.
Here are DancehallMag’s 22 best albums of 2022 from Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall artists.
22. Rygin King – Therapy
Therapy opens with a vivid re-enactment of the 2020 shooting that left one person dead and Rygin King bound to a wheelchair. Across the length of the project, the Montego Bay deejay surveys the damage caused by that flash of violence, unpacking trauma and paranoia over bleak beats, his voice flickering from agony to acceptance. Painfully aware of the perceptions swirling around the incident and its consequences, he sounds defiant as he bears his scars and charts his path forward.
Release Date: September 9, 2022
Label: Rygin Trap Records
21. Sizzla – Rise Up
The firebrand sing-jay Sizzla has had a more prolific career than most; three decades of recording have produced a catalog of more than sixty albums. Still, as he proves on Rise Up, he remains eager as ever to stretch, contort, and reshape his voice in new ways to spread Rastafari’s message. On the album, produced by Sizzla’s Kalonji Music and Blaqk Sheep Music, the vocalist stays the course, remaining as eager to praise as he is to rebuke.
Release Date: July 22, 2022
Label: Kalonji Music Production
20. Nation Boss – Inkosi
Released in the early months of the pandemic, Nation Boss’ single Humans struck a receptive chord with millions who came across it. Though the song, which frames mankind as consistently self-interested and flawed, doesn’t appear on Inkosi, its spirit lives on among the project’s tracklist. Nation Boss, worn down by a string of personal tragedies, wrestles with cynicism and emotional chaos across the bulk of Inkosi, finding safe harbor among beats that brood with him. Rather than buckle under the weight of anguish, he trods on, bringing solace closer within reach.
Release Date: October 14, 2022
Label: Doni Music Productions / Native Entertainment / Tekktronicc Musiq
19. Dre Island – High Times
On his 2020 debut, Still I Rise, the pianist and singer Dre Island basked in the opportunity to showcase his range, moving freely between unraveling esoteric history, chanting down Babylon, lifting praises, and serenading love interests. With High Times, his 2022 follow-up, he narrows his focus, dedicating the entire project to the wonders of cannabis. Across the album’s eight tracks, he extols herb as balm, as sacrament, and as muse, his voice leaping comfortably through different strains of sound.
Release Date: June 3, 2022
Label: DubShot Records / Dre Island Music
18. Fatis Burrell / Various Artists – XTM.Nation Presents: Fatis Tapes In The Oven, Vol. 3
As the founder and backbone of the Xterminator label, the producer Philip ‘Fatis’ Burell sought to overhaul Jamaican music with blends of live and digital sounds and socially conscious messages, working alongside talents like Luciano, Sizzla, and Dean Fraser to bring his ideas to life. His son, Kareem Burrell, has carried that legacy forward, largely with the release of Fatis Tapes in the Oven, an ongoing compilation series featuring new mixes and rare hauls of Fatis’s work. Even after lying dormant for decades, these fifteen tracks, made at the height of Xterminator’s reign, attest to the endurance of Fatis’s grand vision and peerless talent.
Release Date: November 4, 2022
Label: XTM.Nation
17. Jimmy Cliff – Refugees
With Refugees, the Reggae pioneer and ambassador Jimmy Cliff returned from a decade-long lull in studio albums to lend his voice to the downtrodden, once again spotlighting the grim and persistent realities which they face, and offering clarity and upliftment through song. Over rhythms that underscore the enduring link between Jamaican and West and Central African tradition, Cliff sings of forced displacement, racism, oppressive systems, and the joy and promise of music. His voice carries the hope of a better tomorrow – just as firmly as it always has.
Release Date: August 12, 2022
Label: Sunpower Productions / UMG Recordings
16. I-Octane – I Am Great
“Mek mi rise above obstacles / Ghetto youth rise above obstacles,” I-Octane sings on the first track on I Am Great, an album shaped by resilience, and one which affirms self-worth in the face of doubt. On songs produced by Troy “Troyton Music” Hinds, I-Octane grapples with topics from racism to garrison politics, from the looming specter of violence to the healing power of faith. His voice stirs and aches from bitter knowledge, and even when it’s cast in auto-tune, his humanity and conviction never fail to burst through.
Release Date: March 18, 2022
Label: Troyton Music / Conquer the Globe Productions
15. Kranium – In Too Deep
Over the years, Kranium has stretched the limits of his supple melodies, fitting them as easily to the grooves of American R&B or Afrobeats as to those birthed in his native Jamaica. On In Too Deep, he cycles through that range of styles, shifting easily through the party-ready Wi Deh Yah, the streetwise Paranoid, and the rootsy love song Early In The Morning. Whether intimate or observational, the songs by the Montego Bay artist are furnished with the same magnetic polish.
Release Date: November 18, 2022
Label: Atlantic
14. Horace Andy – Rockers & Scorchers
Midnight Rockers boasts a towering meeting between the legendary Jamaican singer Horace Andy and the English dub wizard Adrian Sherwood. Andy’s voice, offering a lifetime’s worth of wisdom and dancing through Sherwood’s dynamic production and meticulous arrangement, materializes in bursts and evaporates just as quickly. Several tracks on Midnight Rockers re-work previously released songs – an approach which is redeployed even more heavily on the album’s hypnotic, deejay-assisted sequel, Midnight Scorchers.
Release Date: December 1, 2022
Label: On-U Sound
13. Yaadcore – Reggaeland
Towards the end of the last decade, the message-conscious selector Yaadcore decided to take on new roles, shifting between music curator and music producer, alternating from DJ to deejay. His debut album, Reggaeland, is a monument to this change. Across the project, he carries on the legacy of his forebears by building off traditional roots rhythms, reviving a vocal style that conjures the live freestyles of early Dancehall, and pleading the case for consciousness expansion with songs like Shrooms. His witty and sometimes free-associative rhymes cruise by in his mellowed drawl, which drifts out and lingers like the haze of burnt indica.
Release Date: March 18, 2022
Label: Delicious Vinyl Island / 12 Yaad Records
12. Shaggy – Com Fly Wid Mi
In 2018, Shaggy and Sting released 44/876, their first collaborative project, and though it was an unexpected pairing, it proved successful, earning acclaim from fans and an award from the Grammys. This year, Shaggy rejoined forces with Sting for the production of Com Fly Wid Mi, an album on which the Boombastic singer offers his baritone tenor vocals in the place of Frank Sinatra’s. Across a dozen easy-going, Reggae-fied reimaginings of Sinatra classics, Shaggy finds triumph in unlikely reinvention yet again.
Release Date: May 25, 2022
Label: Mr. Luva Luva Inc.
11. Jahmiel – Legend
From the biblical parallels that open Legend, the Portmore singer Jahmiel paints himself as a latter-day vessel of the Lord, the perpetual underdog constantly matched up against forces set on dragging him down. And like Daniel or Jonah of the Old Testament, he weathers adversity through his faith in God, then spreads the gospel by pointing to his own unlikely victories. Unlike Daniel or Jonah, however, Jahmiel’s praises are often set to somber keys and trap drums, and his voice bursts with melodic fervor as he seeks to uplift those searching for calm amid the storm.
Release Date: April 15, 2022
Label: Sweet Music
10. Bling Dawg – Elev8
Bling Dawg spent the first decade of the new millennium shining on jugglings, his gruff voice plowing through scores of riddims crafted by some of Dancehall’s greatest producers. Around the mid-10s, his output slowed to a halt as he recentered his focus on his physical, spiritual, and emotional health. With Elev8, his debut album, he returns refreshed with purpose. (“New me!” he cries on the opener, Yo!) Over one-drop riddims sculpted by producers as diverse as Jr. Gong and the late Bobby Digital, Bling Dawg musters up his blossoming piety, sounding sure-footed in his pivot as he’s joined along the path by Reggae stalwarts like Morgan Heritage and his old friend Bounty Killer.
Release Date: February 4, 2022
Label: Creative Titans Music / Dawg House Productions
9. Shenseea – Alpha
Jamaican artists who thoroughly and consistently conquer the island’s hearts and airwaves are often faced with the urgent question of how far they’d like to extend their grip. Alpha, the debut album by Dancehall prodigy Shenseea, seeks to provide her answer. Here, she harnesses her growing momentum; enlists the support of mainstream veterans; and juggles the sounds of Dancehall, hip-hop, R&B, and pop, all in an attempt to bridge the gap between her roots and her ambitions. Despite a few growing pains, she moves gracefully, always sure of where she’s coming from and where she’s headed.
Release Date: March 11, 2022
Label: Rich Immigrants / Interscope
8. Stick Figure – Wisdom
Scott Woodruff – the singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who writes and records as Stick Figure – rearranges chaos into densely layered order. As on Wisdom, his songs ache and probe, often turning within, working to secure peace of mind. He bottles flashes of insight and re-releases them in universal metaphors, which burst through streams of echo and reverb. The battles of spirit may last a lifetime, but so does wisdom, the indelible spoils of victory.
Release Date: September 9, 2022
Label: Ruffwood Records
7. Hollie Cook – Happy Hour
Despite its title, Happy Hour, the latest album by British singer and keyboardist Hollie Cook, finds bliss in awakenings, never sedation. In the tradition of her lover’s rock forebears, Cook often writes about shedding the dead weight of doomed romance, while navigating the snares of old habits and chronic desires. On each song, her voice rises through a dense swirl of instruments, beckoning the listener to wade deeper and deeper into the shifting tides of her musical brew.
Release Date: June 24, 2022
Label: Merge Records
6. Sean Paul – Scorcha
On his eighth studio album, Sean Paul summons his familiar and famed exuberance, and cashes in on the practice and perspective he’s amassed over his glittering career. Scorcha’s title track, built on Chimney Records’ Style A Style riddim, proves that the veteran can still hold his own against the new school when it comes to jugglings. Songs like Dynamite and Calling On Me signal that crossover hits are still within his reach. The closer, No Fear, confirms that he hasn’t lost his socially conscious edge. And everything in between shows he’s as eager as ever to jumpstart a party.
Release Date: May 27, 2022
Label: Island Records / SPJ Productions
5. Spice – Emancipated
Spice’s sophomore album, Emancipated, revels in the adrenaline of a hard-won victory lap. From its opening moment onward, it erupts with high-octane energy as Spice straddles and steamrolls largely self-produced tracks. She builds off that momentum, regularly doling out lines as disarming in their candor as they are hilarious in their absurdity.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Spice album without the spectacle. But even her flair for viral antics is in service of the marquee attraction: her skill as a spirited deejay. From the thrust of the bass to the irreverence of her lyrics, Emancipated carries the spirit of Dancehall into the modern age: it provokes, resists, grips, and entertains.
Release Date: August 26, 2022
Label: Stealth Music Group / Spice Official Entertainment
4. Runkus & Toddla T – Out:Side
In recent years, the Portmore artist Runkus has cemented himself as one of Jamaica’s most inventive young artists. His music, though expansive, rarely feels disjointed, largely because of the care he takes when weaving loose threads into his tapestry of sounds.
Out:Side is undoubtedly his most ambitious project yet. Joined behind the boards by the Sheffield producer Toddla T, and others, Runkus finds clever ways to meld his experiments together, even when his sample-heavy songs pinball through beat switches (the closer, Taxi : Zion, boasts five.) In this stirring tribute project to his late friend, France Nooks, he navigates fear and love, loss and attachment, faith and chaos, offering a panoramic view of the human spirit in the process. It’s an LP with big ideas – and equally big tunes.
Release Date: July 22, 2022
Label: Delicious Vinyl / Runkus Music / Toddla T Ltd.
3. Protoje – Third Time’s the Charm
As the pandemic swept across the globe, Protoje retreated to his newly built home studio, hidden among the hills of St. Andrew, and a healthy distance away from the streets of Kingston. He emerged in 2022 with more songs recorded in two years than in the previous eight — as he told Ebro Darden — and he offered ten of these tracks on his new album, each one bearing the clarity of careful reflection and earned revelation.
Third Time’s The Charm features Protoje applying his lyrical flair, his ear for lingering hooks, and his ability to marshal first-rate talent, all in an effort to cap his “Time Trilogy” on the highest possible note. Producers like iotosh, Cadenza, and ZIAH .PUSH are at the helm, blending inspiration from various corners of Reggae, R&B, and hip-hop to supply Protoje with firm ground on which to parade flashes of wonder. As time flows on, he sounds more aware of the forces pulling him down, and of all the blessings keeping him afloat.
Release Date: September 23, 2022
Label: In.Digg.Nation Collective / RCA Records
2. Koffee — Gifted
Since 2017, Koffee’s music has been a reliable bright spot in Jamaica, binding the island’s grit with an often-elusive optimism. She sprung into the hearts of Jamaicans – and of listeners around the globe – with swerving Ragga flows, dense rhymes, and sticky hooks, all wrapped up in unmistakably homegrown energy. With Gifted, she lets more of that sunshine in and aims to rally a bruised world in dire need of a lift.
With Gifted, she also takes the opportunity to stretch the limits of her sound. The album opens with stripped-down instrumentals, slowed tempos, and the warm and familiar embrace of Koffee’s melodies as she sings of her gratitude for the day, her commitment to the voiceless, and some occasional – and well-earned – boasts. She cruises through riddims spanning roots, lover’s rock, and Afrobeats with ease. And, from the urgency of tracks like Defend to the joyfulness of others like West Indies, Koffee uses Gifted to prove, once again, that she knows how to craft songs of freedom.
Release Date: March 25, 2022
Label: Promised Land Recordings
1. Kabaka Pyramid — The Kalling
“‘Cause I’m a man of the past / And I’m living in the present / And I’m walking in the future,” echoes the Peter Tosh sample that opens The Kalling. The otherworldly drawl of his voice, seemingly beamed in from the afterlife, sets the stage for Kabaka Pyramid, who tears through syllables with jabs and jolts.
With Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley on board as an executive producer, Kabaka comes unbound across The Kalling, offloading torrents of wisdom on tracks as wide-ranging as the booming roots anthem Red Gold and Green to the sublime, Spanish guitar-bearing Life Is Beautiful. The future of Jamaican music converges with its past as Kabaka infuses spirituality with pragmatism throughout these sample-bearing, forward-facing tracks.
The Kalling draws strength from its collaborations, too; across the album, Kabaka tempers searing verses with soul-stirring hooks by crooners like Nathália and Jereme Morgan. Several of the Reggae revivalists have credited their explorations of sound and style to the brothers Damian and Stephen Marley, who broke new ground with releases like Welcome to Jamrock. So when Stephen’s hook on the title track punctuates verses by Kabaka, Protoje, and Jesse Royal — all over a Jr. Gong and Young Pow riddim — it feels like a torch being passed off to the most capable of hands.
Release Date: September 30, 2022
Label: Ghetto Youths International / Bebble Rock Music