As Jamaica picks up the pieces in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa’s historic devastation, the global reach of their artists remains cause for celebration.
On Friday (Nov. 7), the Recording Academy revealed the five nominees for best reggae album at the 2026 Grammy Awards — and Jamaican musicians snagged every single spot. The five newly Grammy-nominated albums are Treasure Self Love (Lila Iké), Heart & Soul (Vybz Kartel), Blxxd & Fyah (Keznamdi), From Within (Mortimer) and No Place Like Home (Jesse Royal). Notably, Billboard correctly predicted four out of the five nominees in its round-up of global field Grammy predictions.
“It’s exactly 464 days ago to the day I achieved a significant milestone with my freedom, and within this time span, I have been nominated [for a Grammy Award] twice,” Kartel exclusively told Billboard. “I am genuinely thankful that my artistic contributions have once again garnered such esteemed attention from the Recording Academy.”
Earning his second nod in this category in as many years, Kartel’s latest Grammy nomination bookends a seismic comeback year that began, in earnest, with his January Billboard cover shoot. The sole dancehall album in contention, Heart & Soul arrived on Aug. 29, featuring a steamy collaboration with Ishawna. The week before Kartel dropped Heart & Soul, Lila Iké celebrated her third consecutive Caribbean Music Award win for female reggae artist of the year by releasing her long-awaited Treasure Self Love debut album. “I’m always paying homage to my culture and the people who laid the foundation for what’s going on in Jamaican music right now,” she told Billboard about the nods to Peter Tosh, Patra and Barrington Levy sprinkled throughout her album.
In February, Keznamdi spoke with Billboard about the music video for “Time,” the lead single from Blxxd & Fyah, saying, “In the process of making the problem, the music just sounded like Africa.” Now, Blxxd & Fyah has earned the independent Kingston-born reggae artist his first career Grammy nomination. Throughout the year, both Mortimer (“Bruises”) and Jesse Royal (“Too Late”) had tracks from their now-Grammy-nominated albums featured in Billboard’s monthly Reggae/Dancehall Fresh Picks column.
Check out how each 2026 best reggae album Grammy contender reacted to the news of their nomination.
Vybz Kartel
Trending on Billboard
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}Nominated for: Heart & Soul
“I am profoundly grateful for this recognition, and it is difficult to fully articulate the depth of my appreciation,” the King of Dancehall exclusively told Billboard. “[It’s] exactly 464 days ago to the day I achieved a significant milestone with my freedom, and within this time span, I have been nominated twice. I am genuinely thankful that my artistic contributions have once again garnered such esteemed attention from the Recording Academy. And I want to send a heartfelt congratulations to all fellow nominees.”
Lila Iké
Trending on Billboard
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}Nominated for: Treasure Self Love
“Boy, I’m feeling a lot right now. It’s a mixture of feeling proud of myself, super happy, shocked and anxious,” Iké gushed to Billboard. “I feel so blessed. I’m really proud of myself. I know I put a lot of work into this album, and also it’s been such a long time coming. I feel great for my team — In.Digg.Nation Collective, Protoje, Lorna Bennett, everybody who worked really, really hard to get this album out there. I also feel like this year’s a really amazing representation of reggae music, so big respect to everyone that’s been nominated.”
Jesse Royal
Trending on Billboard
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}Nominated for: No Place Like Home
“I’m incredibly excited to be acknowledged once again by the Academy,” Jesse Royal told Billboard. “This entire project has been a blessing. A little bit over a week before we released the project, l almost lost my life, and that shock showed me the brevity of life and that we really have to be intentional. We barely recorded anything in our studio, we wanted to not just capture the words and the songs on this project, but [also] the vibrations and the energy that come along with all the different spaces and places that we were writing and recording.”
“But we have to take the time out to acknowledge what is going on inna Jamaica and spread awareness in terms of just how much help and aid is really needed for Jamaica to really get back on [its] feet,” he continued. “We’ve contributed so much to the world, so it’s the world’s time to show some love back to Jamaica.”
Mortimer
Trending on Billboard
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}Nominated for: From Within
“It’s an honor, man. This is like the highest music award ever, and we do this for much greater purposes, but it’s great when your effort is recognized,” Mortimer tells Billboard ahead of a show in Grenada on Saturday (Nov. 8). “I wish my mom was around to share [this] with her, but I will go and sit with her at her grave and tell her that we’ve come this far. Thank you. Respect to the Grammys for considering our work of heart and love.”
Keznamdi
Trending on Billboard
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}Nominated for: Blxxd & Fyah
“This Grammy nomination is a mega win not just for me and my music but for my whole independent label team that has been operating as a self-governing grassroots movement from the beginning till now,” Keznamdi said in an exclusive statement to Billboard. “We built Blxxd & Fyah from the ground up — no label, no big machine, just pure faith, vision, and fire music from the heart. To be Grammy-nominated by the most prestigious academy in the music industry is a big boost for us on a long and tough uphill climb.”
He continued: “I also have to big up my fellow nominees. My heart [swells] to know that this year’s nominations are fully an all-Jamaica line-up of basically youts. This is a new tidal wave for reggae… it gives us faith that reggae from the roots still has a forefront space at a global level. The work continues, the mission is to keep the fyah burning and carry the culture and Rastafari works forward globally.”
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