Laureates of the Caribbean: Sister Nancy in Conversation

Join us for a special conversation between legendary Jamaican music recording artist  Sister Nancy an Jamaican editor and publisher Tanya Batson-Savage, as Nancy reflects on a remarkable life and career that stretches from a strict religious upbringing in Jamaica to her emergence as one of dancehall’s pioneering female deejays. Together they explore the enduring influence of Rastafarianism on her life and work, the challenges of forging a path in a male-dominated industry, the making of her biopic What a Bam Bam, and the resurgence of her music through sampling, streaming and a new generation of listeners. Sister Nancy’s story also reveals the struggle for artists to maintain ownership of the work they create. After years of seeing her music used without permission, she fought to reclaim her rights and secured long-overdue recognition and compensation for one of the most sampled songs in popular culture. Her victory speaks to a wider history in which Caribbean artists have shaped global music while fighting to have their authorship, intellectual property and economic value fully recognized.

Presented as part of Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival‘s 2026 theme, One Hand Don’t Clap: Caribbean Worlds, Writing Towards the Future, this conversation pays homage to the collective forces responsible for music’s survival across generations. Artists, sound systems, producers, dancers, listeners and diasporic communities have all helped Jamaican music travel, endure and continually find new life.