Trinidad & Tobago reggae gospel artist, Joel “Positive” Murray

Trinidad & Tobago gospel reggae recording artist Joel “Positive” Murray is this year’s top Marlin Awards nominee with a whopping Thirteen (13) nominations. Positive is also the top nominee from Trinidad & Tobago scoring nominations in a number of key categories including Album of the Year for his sophomore CD “Forever My King”, Song of the Year for his massive Soca anthem “Blessing After Blessing”, Reggae Recording of the Year for “Sweeter”, Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year–Duo/Group for “Let Me Be The One” and Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year–Male for his dub opus “Better Must Come”. He was also nominated twice in the Song of the Year category, once for “Blessing After Blessing” and the other for the dancehall track “Rock of My Life” featuring DJ Nicholas. 

Sherwin Gardner and DJ Nicholas follow close behind and are tied with Eleven (11) Nominations each. Sherwin who recently celebrated twenty five (25) years in ministry with two major concert events over this past Easter weekend in Antigua and his native Trinidad, also landed nominations in most of the major categories including Album of the Year for “Relentless” and Song of the Year for his up-tempo smash “We Now Start” featuring J Prince. The single “We Now Start” was also nominated for Calypso Vocal Performance of the Year-Duo/Group and Soca Recording of the Year. In addition to being nominated for Producer of the Year, Sherwin also was nominated for Rock Recording of the Year for the single “God So Big” featuring American Gospel Hip-Hop Artist “Da T.R.U.T.H. He also scored his first ever nomination in the Foreign Language of the Year category for the single “Brinca” featuring Puerto Rican born female Hip-Hop artist Ruth Vega.

On The Shout Records CEO and Jamaican dancehall artist DJ Nicholas also captured nominations in several key categories including Album of Year for “School of Rock”, Reggae Recording of the Year & Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year-Duo/Group for “Close to You” featuring Jermaine Edwards and Kevin Smith and Song of the Year for “Rock of My Life” featuring Positive. Like Positive, DJ Nicholas was also nominated twice in the same category, first in the Dancehall Recording of the Year category for the singles “Cut If Off” and “Rock of My Life” and then in the Reggae Hip-Hop Recording of the Year category for “Meet My Star” and the Jermaine Edwards single “Never Lose My Faith”. 

Jamaican gospel songbird Kerron Ennis has emerged with Ten (10) nominations which is a personal record for her and making her the highest nominated Female artist this year. In addition to being nominated for Album of the Year for her latest CD “I’M Alive”, Kerron’s apocalypse inspired single “Last Days” was successfully nominated for three (3) awards including Music Video of the Year-Female, Rock Recording of the Year and Song of the Year. She won her first Marlin Award in 2006 for the title track of her debut album “God is On Our Side”. 

Also receiving Ten (10) nominations is one of Trinidad & Tobago’s leading gospel recording artist Isaac Blackman who snagged several key nominations this year including Album of the Year (World Changers), Calypso/Soca Vocal Performance of the Year-Duo/Group (Sweet Music), and Packaging of the Year (World Changers). His latest Soca single “Blessing Me” earned him nominations for Calypso/Soca Vocal Performance of the Year-Male, Music Video of the Year-Male, Soca Recording of the Year and Song of the Year. In 2009 Blackman won several Marlin Awards including one for Song of the Year for his global anthem “To the Ceiling”. Past multiple Marlin Award winner and Producer Jermaine Edwards earned Nine (9) nominations this year including Reggae Recording of the Year and Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year-Male for his single “I Feel Joy” as well as Praise & Worship Recording of the Year for “Awesome God”. He is nominated twice in the Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year–Duo/Group category, first for his single “In My Life” featuring Sean Lypher and then for his guest vocal performance on the DJ Nicholas reggae single “Close to You” that also featured singer Kevin Smith. During the last Marlin Awards hosted in 2010, Jermaine emerged as the top winner that year with awards in many of the top categories including Song of the Year for his mega hit “Make You Smile” and Album of the Year for “Destiny”.

Joining Jermaine as a nominee in the Producer of the Year category is Trinidad & Tobago new recording artist, songwriter and producer Joel Prince aka J Prince who also recived a total of Nine (9) nominations. In addition to be nominated as one of Six (6) New Artist of the Year contenders, Joel was also successful in receiving nominations for Calypso Recording of the Year and Calypso/Soca Vocal Performance of the Year-Male for his single “Di Water”. He captured a major nomination in the Song of the Year category for his guest vocal appearance on the Sherwin Gardner Soca hit “We Now Start” and also scored a nomination in the Adapted Contemporary Recording of the Year category for his urban flavored version of the universal Praise and Worship anthem “Here I AM To Worship”. 

Three (3) artists received Seven (7) nominations each including Trinidad & Tobago new female recording artist Kezie Peters whose debut album “Music Over Me” earned her a nomination for Album of the Year and one for New Artist of the Year. Jamaican male recording artist Kevin Downswell also earned Seven (7) nominations this year including Album of the Year and Packaging of the Year for his sophomore CD “The Search Continues”. He also earned a nomination for Praise & Worship Recording of the Year for his worship single “More (Says The Lord)” and his inspirational ballad “If It’s Not You” earned him three (3) nominations including Contemporary Recording of the Year, Contemporary Vocal Performance of the Year-Male and Song of the Year. 

Rounding out this list with Seven (7) nominations as well is gospel reggae artist and Lion of Judah Sounds CEO Monty G, making him the highest nominated Bahamian artist this year. Monty, who was nominated along with sonic partner DJ Frost for Producer of the Year, also secured a nominated for Album of the Year for his latest project “King’s Highway”. In addition to being nominated for Song of the Year for his global smash “Plead My Cause”, Monty was also successful in being nominated twice in the Reggae Vocal Performance of the Year category. He picked up one nomination for his guest vocal performance on the Rueben Heights’ single “Guide Over All” and the other for “Will You Be Mine”, the mid-tempo reggae ballad featuring Kristine Alicia. 

For a complete list of all nominees interested persons can visit the awards official website at www.marlinawards.com. Official nominations were released on Friday April 10th 2014 in over Fifty (50) Categories.

Winners will be announced during this year’s Caribbean Gospel Music Marlin Awards scheduled to be held on Saturday July 26th 2014 at the Diplomat Center in Nassau, Bahamas. In addition to the general categories a number of special awards will also be distributed including the Life Time Achievement Award, The President’s Award as well as a number of Regional Contribution Awards in honor of several Caribbean Gospel recording artists who have passed away since the hosting of the last awards in 2010.