Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD (1 February 1957 – 1 July 1999) was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a subgenre of reggae. Bob Marley cited Brown as his favourite singer, dubbing him "The Crown Prince of Reggae", and Brown would prove influential on future generations of reggae singers.
Raised in the badlands of west Kingston, Jamaica, where boys become men before they reach puberty, Brown was nine years old when he was billed as the "boy wonder-singing sensation" and hoisted onto a beer crate to face an audience as the novelty act with the island's leading big band, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. By the age of 12, he was already a veteran of the music scene, and followed the same route as Bob Marley to Studio One Records on Brentford Road, Kingston, the birthplace of reggae royalty from Burning Spear to Toots and the Maytals.
It didn't take long before every producer in Jamaica was knocking on the 14-year -old's door, enticing him with little more than small change to record for them. Brown was incapable of saying "no" and duly obliged, setting a pattern that would result in at least 78 albums for 37 record labels in his 30-year career, releasing six or seven albums a year at his peak.Reggae fans, however, could not get enough of Dennis. All he had to do was sing, and his records would sell in tens of thousands, if not millions - as did his only UK Top 10 hit, Money In My Pocket, in 1977. The odd dud track was unable to distract from the countless reggae classics that he seemed to knock out - Some Like It Hot, My Time, Cassandra, Westbound Train, How Could I Leave, Easy Take It Easy and Ghetto Girl, itself recently covered by Mick Hucknall, of Simply Red.
By the mid-1970s, Brown had followed further in Marley's footsteps - to the door of the Twelve Tribes Of Israel rasta church on Hope Road, New Kingston. When he came out, the afro had been replaced by dreadlocks, and the soul ballads had been beefed up with a heavy dub bassline and the occasional rasta revolutionary lyrics, such as on the album Wolf And Leopards.
Brown seemed to have found a similar mix of lovers' music and third-world militancy that catapulted Marley into international stardom. From that same session came the tune that was to become Brown's signature, Here I Come (With Love And Not Hatred). Success brought him to England, where he set up DEB Records, which established lovers' rock as one of only three reggae styles indigenous to the UK and launched the career of a roster of female singers, including former Soul II Soul front-woman, Caron Wheeler.
In 1981, reggae drum and bass duo Sly and Robbie, who had assumed the semi-retired Coxsone Dodd's mantle, invited Brown to ascend the throne made vacant by Marley's death. Again, Brown could not say "no" when they took him into the studio, and dusted him down with a pop reggae beat and an international recording contract that saw him release three mediocre albums in successive years for A&M, Foul Play, Love Has Found Its Way and The Prophet Rides Again.
Though an international audience ignored these blatant attempts to wear Marley's crown, the reggae audience forgave Brown his flirtation with pop and welcomed him to a sellout concert at the Brixton Academy as if it were his coronation. But Brown would never become king. He had been unable to say "no" to a cocaine habit, which would torment him for the rest of his life and see his career slide into parody.
In
the late 1990s, Brown's health began to deteriorate. He had developed
respiratory issues, probably exacerbated by longstanding problems with drug
addiction, mainly cocaine, leading to him being taken ill in May 1999 after
touring in Brazil with other reggae singers, where he was diagnosed with
pneumonia. After returning to Kingston, Jamaica, on the evening of 30 June
1999, he was rushed to Kingston's University Hospital, suffering from cardiac
arrest. Brown died the next day, the official cause of his death was a
collapsed lung.
On 6 August 2011, being the 49th anniversary of the country's independence, the Governor-General of Jamaica posthumously conferred the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander (CD) upon Brown, for his contribution to the Jamaican music industry.
(Edited from Guardian obit by Dotun Adebayo & Wikipedia)