BYRON Lee will be honored posthumously on October 16 during the first New York Hakka Conference, at the Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA).
The founder and leader of the Dragonaires band died in November 2008 of cancer at age 73. That year, he was recognised for his contribution to Jamaican music by MoCA’s Toronto chapter.
A presentation of Lee’s career, produced by MoCA and VP Records, will be shown during the ceremony.
His daughter, Julianne Lee, will accept the award.
“This is a huge achievement and honor, I am elated that my dad was chosen for this award. It clearly demonstrates how impactful his work was on Jamaica and the Caribbean,” she said.
Born in Manchester to a Chinese father and black mother, Lee attended St George’s College where he started the Dragonaires in the early 1950’s.
In the 1960’s, they had a handful of hits including Jamaican ska. Lee’s introduction of calypso and soca sounds to the Jamaican mainstream was, arguably, his greatest achievement.
His band had played the carnival scene in Eastern Caribbean countries like Trinidad and Tobago since the 1960s and Lee wanted to stage similar events in Jamaica.
He achieved that in 1990 with Jamaica Carnival, a week-long party that attracted calypso and soca’s biggest names.
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