Maxi Priest

Maxi Priest, hailing from Britain, ascended during the final years of the 1980s and across the 1990s to rank among the reggae performers who attained the broadest worldwide recognition after Bob Marley. Expertise in lovers rock combined with ventures into pop and R&B yielded numerous global successes for him, among them the trans-Atlantic number-one single “Close to You” and an upbeat interpretation of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World.” His velvety vocal style lent itself especially well to understated romantic songs that married reggae rhythms to R&B’s emotional warmth, making his most resonant recordings both erotic and profoundly soulful. Substantial sales greeted projects such as the 1990 release Bonafide, and he maintained a steady output of fresh material in later decades, issuing Refused in 2007, the Shaggy-produced album It All Comes Back to Love in 2019, and United State of Mind in 2020, recorded in tandem with Robin Trower and Livingstone Brown.

Born Max Elliott on June 10, 1962, in London’s Lewisham district, he was the eighth child in a family of nine whose parents had relocated from Jamaica years earlier. His mother participated actively in the Pentecostal church, where the household regularly performed gospel selections together; Elliott later embraced Rastafarianism and adopted the name Maxi Priest. Employed as a carpenter at the time, he received an invitation to construct speaker boxes for the established Saxon International sound system. Contacts there soon recognized his singing ability, leading to appearances on live dancehall stages; in 1984 he joined Paul “Barry Boom” Robinson in co-producing Phillip Levi’s “Mi God Mi King,” the first reggae single by a U.K.-born artist to reach number one in Jamaica.

Priest joined Virgin Records and issued his debut album, You’re Safe, in 1985. More rooted in conventional reggae than his later work, the set carried production by Robinson and live instrumentation from the band Caution, spawning the U.K. success “In the Springtime.” Intentions, released in 1986, delivered two further British hits with “Strollin’ On” and the Van Morrison cover “Crazy Love.” The 1988 album Maxi Priest, crafted with Sly & Robbie, marked his genuine breakthrough; the Top 30 treatment of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World” supplied his initial American hit, while another cover, Robert Palmer’s “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” sustained his chart presence in Britain. On the same record he delved more deeply into sinuous lovers rock rhythms and, unusually, addressed social themes via the Beres Hammond duet “How Can We Ease the Pain?”

Already a major star in the U.K. and gaining traction in the United States, Priest created what became his highest-selling album, Bonafide. Issued in 1990, the project advanced on the charts thanks to the sultry, Soul II Soul-tinged single “Close to You,” which ascended to number one on the American pop listings. Subsequent tracks “Just a Little Bit Longer” and “Space in My Heart” did not replicate that Stateside impact, though “Peace Throughout the World” and “Human Work of Art” fared well in Britain. The compilation Best of Me appeared quickly in 1991 after Priest joined Shabba Ranks for the club-oriented “House Call” and before his Roberta Flack duet “Set the Night to Music” entered the U.S. Top Ten. The follow-up album Fe Real, released in 1992, received solid notices yet modest sales; neither American single—“Groovin’ in the Midnight” nor the Shaggy collaboration “One More Chance”—registered strongly. After a supporting part in the film Scam, Priest stepped away from recording for several years to establish his own British imprint, Dugout.

He resurfaced in 1996 with Man with the Fun, the most overtly crossover-oriented entry in his discography. The project yielded the Shaggy duet “That Girl,” which reached the U.K. Top 20. Despite its dancehall leanings, much of the album showed Priest moving beyond the lovers rock style that had defined him. That direction persisted on 1999’s CombiNation, which emphasized hip-hop and polished soul balladry. Guest singles, additional appearances, and a 2003 American tour alongside Joan Osborne, Bootsy Collins, and Motown’s the Funk Brothers preceded the 2004 album 2 the Max. Refused arrived in 2007, followed in 2008 by road work with UB40 and the joint single “Dance Until the Morning Light.” The Maximum Collection compilation gathered his international and Jamaican singles in 2012, and two years later Easy to Love appeared on the VP label featuring Sly & Robbie and Beres Hammond among its contributors. Shaggy served as executive producer on the 2019 album It All Comes Back to Love and supplied vocals on several cuts; the project also included appearances by Bounty Killer, Anthony Hamilton, and further guests. Priest sustained activity the following year with United State of Mind, a collaborative effort alongside rock guitarist Robin Trower and mixer-engineer-multi-instrumentalist Livingstone Brown. Across 2021 and 2022 he issued multiple standalone singles together with assorted remixed editions of his track “None a Jah Children.”