World of Jamaican Music

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

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Sanchez

Artist. Dancehall, reggae

Active
1987-present
Sunrise
Kingston, Jamaica
Also known as
Kevin Jackson, Kevin Anthony Jackson

Sanchez (Kevin Jackson) is the sweet-voiced crooner who became, with Thriller U, one of the most popular singers of the digital era. At home, the Rough Guide says, he held a place like Bobby Brown's in American R&B, while remaining almost unknown outside the dancehall.

He grew up in Stony Hill and Waterford, a church choir singer who became a selector on the Rambo sound, where Flourgon and Red Dragon were deejays; his friends named him for the Mexican footballer Hugo Sanchez after a skillful pass. Fatis Burrell recorded him for Vena in 1987: "Zim Bam Zim," over Sly and Robbie's riddim, sounded as though someone in the studio had heard Afrika Bambaataa. His first big hit was "Loneliness" for Winston Riley in 1988, and the same year Sweetest Girl, made for Dennis "Star" Hayles, set the pattern he rarely left: mostly covers of American R&B hits, with the odd reality tune and soundboy boast. Critics split on him: the Encyclopedia of Popular Music dismissed "a cover-singing fad," and heard his early voice as "distinctive but untutored," while others praised a "smooth, soulful style." "Old Friends" and his first cut of "Let Me Love You Down" were the hits that, in the Rough Guide's words, "sent girls wild in 1988."

Burrell drew the best from him: the album Number One, with his version of Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You," and later the rootsy "Never Dis the Man." He also recorded for Donovan Germain at Penthouse, where he rode Germain's version of the "Run Down the World" riddim with "Soon As I Get Home," for Bobby Digital, and for King Jammy's brother Trevor "Uncle T" James. His version of "Amazing Grace" is a dancehall standard, and he has gone on making gospel records.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 299, 321. The Gleaner gives his birth date as November 30, 1964. Yasmine Peru, "Five Questions with Sanchez," Jamaica Gleaner, June 17, 2022, https://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20220617/five-questions-sanchez.
  2. Peru, "Five Questions with Sanchez."
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 280, 362, 433.
  4. Peru, "Five Questions with Sanchez." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 303, 323.
  5. Doris Morris Maxfield, "Sanchez," Contemporary Musicians, Encyclopedia.com, accessed November 5, 2026, https://encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/sanchez, quoting the Encyclopedia of Popular Music and a CDNOW review of Number One. The Rough Guide says his "vocal approach" is comparable to Bobby Brown's. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 299.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 323.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 323. Wikipedia dates Number One to 1989. "Sanchez (singer)," Wikipedia, accessed October 7, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanchez_(singer).
  8. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 298, 310, 313, 318, 356.
  9. Peru, "Five Questions with Sanchez."

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