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This year the American Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on February 13 at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.
Grammy Awards, originally known as Gramophone Awards when the concept was first mooted in 1958, are trophies given to outstanding musicians for their recordings in different categories of music genres.

The annual awards feature prominent musicians every year who have shown outstanding achievement in the music industry mainly through record sales. Grammy is the music equivalent to the Emmy Awards for television or the Oscars for film.

This year sees Isaac Gabriel Kalumbu a.k.a. King Isaac, a Zimbabwean singer among the Grammy Award nominees for the best reggae album of 2010.
His album is competing with four Jamaican albums namely, Before The Dawn by Buju Banton, Revelation by Lee Scratch Perry, Made In Jamaica by Bob Sinclair, Legacy: An Acoustic Tribute to Peter Tosh by Andrew Tosh and One Pop Reggae by Sly and Robbie for the trophy in the best reggae album category. King Isaac has been nominated for his Isaacs Meets Isaac — a collaboration album, which he did with the late Gregory Isaacs.

Which Zimbabwean in their wildest dreams would ever think of being a musical talent who is honoured to be nominated for their part in a musical performance or part? Not me.
King Isaac is a reggae songwriter and a professor of Ethnomusicology at Michigan State University, USA.
On February 13, he will be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Akon, Bon Jovi, L.L. Cool J, Donna Summer, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Kanye West, Neil Diamond and Katy Perry among other celebrities.

As a lyricist, King Isaac writes catchy and meaningful songs of outstanding quality. He is a deep and thoughtful songwriter, and this is reflected in the passionate and engaging lyrics in his songs.
King Isaac delivers his music with a warm and powerful voice. His music is about peace, love and harmony amongst the various people of the world.
During the singer’s first visit to Jamaica in 1998, the name “King Isaac” was bestowed upon him by Joseph “Bragga” Russell, a former aide of Bob Marley at the Bob Marley Museum, which is situated in Kingston at 56 Hope Road.

King Isaac was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. He started writing poems at age 14. At about the same time, the censorship of reggae was lifted in Zimbabwe when the nation attained independence in 1980. Subsequent visits to Zimbabwe by reggae stars such as Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown helped to fuel King Isaac’s love for reggae music.
The young poet soon turned to writing lyrics for songs, and by the mid to late 1980s, he was singing in local reggae bands. In 1986 he recorded his first song, Simuka, a reggae piece about the liberation struggle in South Africa.

At the same time he was studying at the University of Zimbabwe and in 1987, earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economic History.
He then spent two years studying ethnomusicology at the National Certificate level at the Zimbabwe College of Music.
In January 1991, King Isaac left Zimbabwe to study at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. Although he was interested in an academic career, King Isaac also knew that a move to the USA would bring him closer to Jamaica and to the reggae world at large. Upon arrival in the USA, he immediately formed a reggae band named Zimbeggae (Zimbabwe + reggae).

The group performed in many venues in Indiana, focusing on both original and cover material, and King Isaac wrote and recorded several more original songs.   In 1993, he earned his MA in ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Later in 1997 he was appointed to the faculty at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan. His continuing graduate education culminated in his earning a PhD in Folklore/Ethnomusicology in 1999 from Indiana University.

In the meantime King Isaac reached a milestone in his career when reggae music promoter Gwen Clemens introduced him to Leroy Sibbles, for whom he opened up shows in 1998 in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
That same year he embarked on his first annual pilgrimage to Reggae’s Mecca, Kingston, Jamaica, to make his first recordings there, thus fulfilling a long-held dream. Since then, King Isaac has visited Jamaica at least once a year.

Between 1999 and 2001, King Isaac worked on his self-titled debut album, which was released in Zimbabwe in 2002.
Riding on the success of his first album, King Isaac recorded a new album that was released in Zimbabwe in 2004. This album, Munokokwa Mese, was recorded mostly in Zimbabwe and featured a mixture of various Southern African musical styles and reggae; sung in the local Shona and Ndebele languages, and English.

In December 2004, King Isaac was invited by veteran singer, the late Sugar Minott, to perform at Minott’s annual Reggae in The Hills concert where he was well received, owing to his powerful vocal delivery and stage charisma.

In October 2005, he returned to Jamaica to deliver a paper on the contribution of Peter Tosh to the Southern African liberation struggle at the University of the West Indies, and to perform at the international annual Peter Tosh Commemoration Concert in Kingston.
Both appearances were received with great appreciation and support.

During subsequent summers, King Isaac travelled to Kingston, where he worked with many veteran reggae artistes, including Gregory Isaacs, Leroy Sibbles, Dean Fraser and the legendary U Roy.
These recordings culminated in King Isaac’s third album, Legends of Reggae Present King Isaac, which contains a special appearance by South Africa’s royal ladies of song; the Mahotella Queens.
Since the release of the Legends album, King Isaac has been hard at work in the recording studio. His most recent release is a collaboration with the late Gregory Isaacs on the album, Isaacs Meets Isaac.

King Isaac and Gregory Isaacs began working together in 2005, and completed their work in July of 2009. This is the album, which has been nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Reggae Album for the year 2010.

Currently, King Isaac is putting final touches to his follow-up album, working title Don’t Give Up, projected to be released in August.
The new album contains the socially conscious song Domestic Violence (Is Wrong), and its video is available on YouTube. Also included on the album is King Isaac’s special rendition of Bob Marley’s Waiting in Vain. Whatever happens at the Grammys next week, we keep our fingers crossed in the hope that King Isaac will bring the Grammy Award to Zimbabwe. We wish him luck!

• Professor Fred Zindi is at the University of Zimbabwe. He is also a musician and an author of several books on music. He can be contacted via e-mail on   [email protected]