World of Jamaican Music

Discover artists and hear songs from everyone on the site! Log in to Spotify in this browser to hear full songs. SourcesYour Voice

An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Garnett Silk

Artist. Dancehall, reggae

Active
1987-1994
Sunrise
April 2, 1966, Manchester, Jamaica
Sunset
December 9, 1994, Mandeville (fire)

Garnett Damion Smith recorded for about three years, and in that time became what the Rough Guide calls "the most talented of the new 'reality' singers" and played "a major role in re-establishing" the music's cultural current.

He was born in Manchester parish and began as a deejay under the name Little Bimbo at the age of twelve, working local sound systems before deciding he was a singer. On the Destiny Outernational sound in Manchester he fell in with Tony Rebel, and he followed Rebel to Kingston, where the two lived with Rebel's aunt and worked Sugar Minott's Youth Promotion sound; there he took the name Garnett Silk. The records that followed, made largely with Bobby Digital and Richard "Bello" Bell from 1992, arrived at a moment when dancehall was almost entirely secular and slack. "It's Growing," "Hello Mama Africa," "Kingly Character," "Zion in a Vision," and "Complaint" were devotional records that worked in the dance, and, the Rough Guide says, "together with a swing back to cultural lyrics by deejays like Buju and Capleton," they "marked a turning point in dancehall," the start of what came to be called the Rasta Renaissance. The singer Semaj said he "refocused Reggae, re-rooted and re-routed the music," and Tony Rebel called him "the cornerstone of a revolutionary program."

The Rough Guide hears "both 'culture' and romance in a smooth tone that befitted his name change," and Erik Magni a "gospel influenced tenor voice." He wrote as readily as he sang: "If you gave him a line," said Tony Chin Loy of Kariang, "within a couple of minutes Garnet would give it back to you lyrically."

In 1994 he signed an overseas distribution deal with Atlantic, and he was working on an album for the company when, in December, a fire broke out at his mother's house in Mandeville after a gas cylinder exploded. Silk went back into the building for her. Both lost their lives. He was twenty-eight.

His recorded catalog is small, a couple of albums and a run of singles, and it has been reissued and compiled continuously since. Luciano told Bradley he did not hear the "protesting spirit" he was listening for "until Garnett Silk come, or Tony Rebel."

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls him "the most talented of the new 'reality' singers who emerged in the early 1990s" and says that "the cultural current that he played a major role in re-establishing has, if anything, grown stronger" since his death. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 360. The Rough Guide gives his birth year as 1970, as does the National Library of Jamaica; the Gleaner marked the fifty-eighth anniversary of his April 2 birth in 2024. "Garnett Silk," National Library of Jamaica, Reggae Exhibition, accessed October 1, 2026, https://www.nlj.gov.jm/REGGAE%20EXHIBITION/garnett%20silk.htm; Yasmine Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother Garnett Silk," Jamaica Gleaner, April 4, 2024, http://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20240404/singer-lij-amlak-remembers-his-brother-garnett-silk.
  2. The Rough Guide says he began "as a 12-year-old deejay called Little Bimbo," and in his mid-teens worked with the cultural deejay Tony Rebel on the Destiny Outernational sound system. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360. The Gleaner says he switched to singing "at the suggestion of veteran singer, Derrick Morgan." Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother."
  3. David Katz, "Zion in a Vision: Jamaica's '90s Rasta Renaissance," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, April 22, 2014, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/04/rasta-renaissance-feature, which calls Silk "the dam-buster" of the Rasta renaissance.
  4. The Rough Guide says Tony Rebel introduced him to the songwriter Anthony "Fire" Rochester, and that the pair worked first for Courtney Cole's Roof International label and then for Bobby Digital, "who released his debut album in 1992." It adds that he had earlier signed with Steely & Clevie, and that he also cut sides for Jammy's, Black Scorpio, Star Trail, and Sly & Robbie. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360-61. The Gleaner says "Hello Mama Africa" was produced by Richard "Bello" Bell for Star Trail. Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother."
  5. In Bradley, Luciano describes a turn away from "derogatory lyrics" and names Silk with Capleton and Buju Banton as carriers of the "new consciousness." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 536.
  6. The Rough Guide credits "Zion In A Vision" to Jack Scorpio, calling it a "Jamaican chart-topper," and "Hello Mama Africa" to Star Trail, calling it "his biggest UK hit." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360. The Gleaner says It's Growing was among the best-selling albums in Jamaica in 1992. Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother."
  7. The Rough Guide treats the two as parallel rather than sequential: the release of It's Growing, "together with a swing back to cultural lyrics by deejays like Buju and Capleton, marked a turning point in dancehall." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360. It places Buju Banton and Capleton among the "later converts" who followed Tony Rebel. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 355.
  8. Howard Campbell, "Garnet Silk Returns to Zion," Reggae Report 13, no. 2 (1995), republished as "Garnet Silk Legacy Discussed with Rebel, Garrick & Semaj," April 2, 2020, https://reggaereport.com/?p=879.
  9. The Rough Guide says he sang "both 'culture' and romance in a smooth tone that befitted his name change, but in a style that bore the mark of the previous ten years of Jamaican music." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360. The Gleaner says his voice was renowned for being "smooth like silk," hence the name. Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother."
  10. Erik Magni, "Garnett Silk Will Always Be Remembered," United Reggae, April 3, 2011, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n611/040311/garnett-silk-will-always-be-remembered.
  11. M. Peggy Quattro, "Garnet Silk Biography," Reggae Report, written in 2000, https://reggaereport.com/garnet-silk-biography-2000/.
  12. UPI reported that police said a 25-pound gas tank at the home of his mother, Dulcie Grey, exploded at about 2 a.m. "after it was fired at by a shotgun," and that a fire then destroyed the house; three of his brothers were injured. "Jamaican Reggae Singer Dies in Blast," UPI, December 10, 1994, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/12/10/Jamaican-reggae-singer-dies-in-blast/7466787035600/. The Rough Guide calls it "a gas-canister explosion." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360. His brother Lij Amlak told the Gleaner that the house was in Hatfield and that Garnett "lost his life trying to save their mother." Peru, "Singer Lij Amlak Remembers His Brother." On the Atlantic deal and the unfinished album, Katz, "Zion in a Vision."
  13. UPI gave his age as twenty-seven; the Rough Guide's 1970 birth year would make him twenty-four. "Jamaican Reggae Singer Dies in Blast"; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360.
  14. The Rough Guide lists It's Growing (Digital B), Nothing Can Divide Us (Roof International), and the compilation Gold, and says the Steely & Clevie album "never saw release until after the singer's untimely death." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360-61. At his death he was under contract with Atlantic. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 360.
  15. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 534.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map