Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD born February 1, 1957, was a reggae singer from Jamaica. He made more than 75 albums during his prodigious career, which began in the late 1960s when he was eleven years old and was a significant star of lovers rock, a subgenre of reggae. Bob Marley referred to Brown as “The Crown Prince of Reggae,” and he would have a lasting influence on future generations of reggae vocalists.
His father, Arthur, was a dramatist, actor, and journalist, and he grew up in a large tenement yard in Kingston with his parents, three elder brothers, and a sister, albeit his mother died in the 1960s.
He began his singing career at the age of nine, while still in junior school, with an end-of-term concert, the first time he performed in public, despite having been interested in music since a childhood and being a fan of American balladeers such as Brook Benton, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Nat King Cole was one of his earliest influences, he said.
What caused Dennis Brown’s death?
Brown’s health began to decline in the late 1990s. He had developed respiratory troubles, which were likely exacerbated by persistent problems with drug addiction, primarily cocaine, and he became unwell in May 1999 while touring in Brazil with other reggae musicians, when he was diagnosed with pneumonia.
On the evening of June 30, 1999, after returning to Kingston, Jamaica, he was transported to Kingston’s University Hospital, suffering from cardiac arrest. Brown died the following day, the official cause of death being a ruptured lung.
P. J. Patterson, the sitting Jamaican Prime Minister, and Edward Seaga, the opposition leader at the time, of the Jamaica Labour Party, both spoke during Brown’s funeral on July 17, 1999, in Kingston.
