Saturday, February 4, 2023: 3 PM, Royal Electric
Kairo McLean created history after winning the JUNO Award in the Reggae Recording of the Year category. He became the youngest ever to win the award at just 13-years old. The ceremony was held in May 2022.
Thirteen-year-old Kairo McLean is a scholar of Reggae music. His father Garvin is Jamaican and his mother Kim is Canadian of Jamaican descent. When Kairo was 2 years old he began to show an interest in music and by the time he was 3 he was already playing drums. At 5 he picked up the acoustic guitar and by 6 he was already singing and performing at festivals. To call this child a natural would be an understatement.
Kairo is deeply familiar with all the artists in the genre, past records, musicians, producers and sound systems, details that only the most studied connoisseur of reggae would know. When it comes to his own compositions, Kairo is as “old school” as it gets, drawing influence from Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown and Gregory Isaacs. This 13 year old artist knows the tradition, studied the history and has developed his own sound and style.