IRAWMA returns with Burning Spear, Marcia Griffiths and Mavado honoured

Burning Spear, Marcia Griffiths and Mavado stood at the centre of IRAWMA’s 43rd staging in Lauderhill, Florida, as the awards returned with a clear message: reggae’s foundational voices and its contemporary hitmakers still command the same room. The International Reggae and World Music Awards opened with red-carpet arrivals at 6 p.m. EST and moved into showcase and presentations at 7:30 p.m. EST at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

The biggest spotlight fell on Burning Spear, who was set to receive the IRAWMA Lifetime and Master of Reggae and World Music Culture Award for 57 years of contribution to reggae music and global consciousness. The honour lands as a nod to a catalogue that has carried Marcus Garvey’s ideas and positive cultural messages across the world for decades, and it gave the evening one of its clearest emotional anchors. Marcia Griffiths and Mavado also received major honours, widening the celebration beyond roots royalty alone. IRAWMA described Mavado’s recognition as a Special Lifetime Achievement Award for dancehall’s global legacy, while DJ Khaled was listed among the presenters.

The 2026 field had already signalled that balance between legacy and current heat when the Best of 2025 nominees were unveiled at a press conference on Thursday, February 19, 2026, at the R Hotel Rooftop Restaurant in Kingston, Jamaica. Vybz Kartel led the nominations with 11 nods, a reminder that the awards continue to track the music pushing reggae and dancehall forward while still making space for the elders who built the lane.

That mix is no accident. Ephraim M. Martin founded the annual Chicago Reggae Music Awards and the International Reggae Music Awards in 1982, and IRAWMA has long framed itself as more than a trophy show. The platform was built to speak out against apartheid and to support Nelson Mandela’s freedom, a political purpose that still hangs over the ceremony’s glamour. Martin has also produced more than 120 entertainment events, and a 2024 partnership kit said he set a record in 2016 by producing 100 consecutive annual entertainment festivals and awards special events.

The 42nd IRAWMA, held on March 30, 2025, at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts in South Florida, handed out 11 special awards and 42 nominated awards and featured performances by Beenie Man, Nigy Boy, Everton Blender, Wayne Wonder, Richie Stephens, D’Angel, Mr. Specialist and others. Taken together, the back-to-back editions showed IRAWMA doing what it has done for years: gathering the genre’s past, present and next wave in one place, then making that meeting feel like the main event.