Nigel Teles­ford

Ja­maican reg­gae artiste Austill “Zag­ga” Hen­ry has spent years build­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for up­lift­ing mu­sic and con­scious mes­sages, but 2026 may prove to be his biggest year yet.

His lat­est al­bum, Piece of Par­adise, has chart­ed in more than 55 coun­tries, climbed to the top of the US iTunes Reg­gae Al­bum Chart mul­ti­ple times and bro­ken in­to the iTunes Top 200 across all gen­res, while earn­ing recog­ni­tion as a Bill­board Caribbean Fresh Pick and in­tro­duc­ing the singer to an even wider glob­al au­di­ence.

For the singer, the suc­cess has been the cul­mi­na­tion of a jour­ney that be­gan in his child­hood.

By the age of ten, Hen­ry was en­ter­tain­ing class­mates by drum­ming rhythms on desks and freestyling. A so­cial me­dia freestyle even­tu­al­ly caught the at­ten­tion of ac­claimed video di­rec­tor Rup­tion of RD Stu­dios, who then in­tro­duced him to mu­sic pro­duc­er Jor­dan Mc­Clure of Chim­ney Records, help­ing to launch his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer.

Draw­ing in­spi­ra­tion from reg­gae icons such as Bu­ju Ban­ton and Caple­ton, Zag­ga has steadi­ly built a cat­a­logue of mu­sic cen­tred on pos­i­tiv­i­ty, re­silience and faith. His lat­est project con­tin­ues that phi­los­o­phy.

“The ti­tle Piece of Par­adise re­al­ly came from a place of want­i­ng to share what par­adise is to me—peace and hap­pi­ness through the mu­sic,” Zag­ga told Guardian Me­dia this week, while al­so cel­e­brat­ing his birth­day.

“This project cre­ative­ly was about de­liv­er­ing feel-good mu­sic and my vibe was and is one of grat­i­tude and feel­ing good, spread­ing good vibes and pos­i­tive mes­sages.”

The in­ter­na­tion­al re­sponse has ex­ceed­ed even his own ex­pec­ta­tions.

“The mo­ment I re­alised what was hap­pen­ing was when I saw it hit and climb up the charts,” he en­thused. “The al­bum was chart­ing all over the world and that was the mo­ment I knew.”

Zag­ga’s lat­est project fol­lows a se­ries of suc­cess­ful re­leas­es, in­clud­ing 17/06, En­er­gy Nev­er Lie and the Bill­board-recog­nised sin­gle, Be­lieve & Pray, help­ing to ce­ment his grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion as one of mod­ern reg­gae’s emerg­ing voic­es.

Among the stand­out tracks from the al­bum is I’m Al­right, fea­tur­ing fel­low reg­gae star Tar­rus Ri­ley.

“I think this song is con­nect­ing with peo­ple be­cause they need some­thing to bring them that feel­ing of hope and up­lift­ment.” He ex­plained. “This song is the kind of song you just have to wake up and press play and it jump-starts your day in the right way.”

For Zag­ga, work­ing with Ri­ley was an­oth­er nat­ur­al fit.

“As al­ways, work­ing with Tar­rus Ri­ley is a great vibe. This project specif­i­cal­ly was one of in­tent, so the stu­dio en­er­gy was per­fect and we both had an easy time con­nect­ing on the track and res­onat­ing with the mu­sic.”

The new al­bum al­so rep­re­sents per­son­al growth for the artiste.

“This al­bum comes with a lot of growth, mu­si­cal­ly and men­tal­ly. I think that is what the dif­fer­ence is main­ly,” he said, whilst re­veal­ing that a col­lab­o­ra­tion with singer Alaine is in the works and is al­ready gen­er­at­ing an­tic­i­pa­tion:

“Peo­ple know Alaine is a hap­py per­son and a very tal­ent­ed singer, so they ex­pect noth­ing but great vibes, good en­er­gy and some amaz­ing mu­sic. This will be a very good one.”

Zag­ga ad­mits he has been “pleas­ant­ly sur­prised” by the sup­port his mu­sic has re­ceived in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and that glob­al re­cep­tion has helped pro­pel him in­to one of the most suc­cess­ful pe­ri­ods of his ca­reer.

“I think the love from cer­tain parts of Eu­rope and Asia was the most sur­pris­ing to me be­cause I’ve nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced that from that side of the world so much be­fore—it must be the tim­ing and the sound we’re de­liv­er­ing at this time.”

De­spite his grow­ing glob­al reach, he al­so hopes and in­tends to strength­en his con­nec­tion with the Caribbean, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. Hav­ing vis­it­ed the coun­try once be­fore, he re­calls en­joy­ing the at­mos­phere and one of its most fa­mous culi­nary of­fer­ings.

“The vibe was good. I haven’t been there to per­form yet, hope­ful­ly soon though.” Zag­ga ad­mit­ted with a grin. “Most def­i­nite­ly love the dou­bles.

“My mu­sic is one of love and feel­ing good and I think the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are fun-lov­ing peo­ple, so it goes hand in hand and is an easy fit.”

For the re­main­der of 2026, Zag­ga’s fo­cus is clear.

“This year is about pro­mo­tion and tour­ing, so we’re shoot­ing a lot more mu­sic videos and hit­ting the road.”

For Zag­ga, par­adise is less a des­ti­na­tion than a feel­ing and, judg­ing by the grow­ing glob­al re­sponse to his mu­sic, it is a feel­ing he has man­aged to share suc­cess­ful­ly with au­di­ences around the world.

“I hope lis­ten­ers en­joy the project and mark it as one to re­vis­it of­ten be­cause of how it felt to me and how it makes them feel when they en­gage with it.”

Ul­ti­mate­ly, he hopes Piece of Par­adise be­comes more than just an­oth­er al­bum and con­tributes to the man­i­fes­ta­tion of his life­time dreams and as­pi­ra­tions for glob­al recog­ni­tion and suc­cess.