Billboard
Robbie Shakespeare, the two-time Grammy Award-winning bass player, record producer, and one half of the iconic rhythm section Sly & Robbie, died Wednesday (Dec. 8) at the age of 68.
The late musician is remembered as one of the all-time greats on the bass guitar, and for shaping the sounds of reggae and dancehall music, across a career that earned him 13 Grammy nominations, snagging wins in 1984 and 1985.
Jamaica’s Culture Minister Olivia Grange remarked that Shakespeare was among the country’s “greatest musicians.”
Rolling Stone
Robbie Shakespeare, bassist for Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, and countless reggae legends, died on Wednesday.
David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images
Robbie Shakespeare, the renowned reggae bassist who helped move the genre into new sonic territory and whose playing was heard on classics by Black Uhuru and Peter Tosh as well as albums by rock icons such as Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, has died at age 68. His death, from unconfirmed causes, was announced on Twitter by Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sport.
As half of the long-standing and prolific rhythm section Sly and Robbie, with his longtime friend and collaborator Sly Dunbar on drums, Shakespeare was rooted in the reggae rhythms of his native Jamaica. But he and Dunbar were also sonic mad scientists, moving their sound — and the music — into even more syncopated, electronic-driven territory on classic singles like Grace Jones’ “Pull Up to the Bumper.”
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