Queen Omega

If women are enjoying a revival in reggae, Queen Omega is probably one of the spearheads of this new female scene. After four albums, she has become an artist to be reckoned with. Jeneile Osbourne was born on 31 August 1981 in Trinidad. She was immersed in music from an early age and began singing at around the age of 4 or 5 in nurseries and churches. Her style at the time was influenced above all by the traditional music of her country.

At the age of nine, she won a calypso competition that would reveal her talent for music. In 2000, the singer, deeply rooted in the Rastafarian faith, recorded her first single Babylon Bus. But it was in 2001 that her career really began: Micky D, A&R director at Jet Star, spotted her at a concert in Trinidad. A few months later the singer went to London to record her first album, soberly titled "Queen Omega". It was the track Warning, a collaboration with the two renowned artists Sizzla and Capleton, that introduced her to Jamaican and British audiences.

The singer then played a string of shows as support to more established artists such as Junior Kelly and Luciano, increasing her popularity. The following year came her second album "Pure Love", again on the Jet Star label, featuring Hustle Up on the Christopher Colombus riddim. Only six months later came her new opus, "Away From Babylon", on which she rides a few famous riddims such as Bob Marley's Natty Dread and the Abyssinians' Abendigo. In 2004 "Destiny" came out on the French label Special Delivery. An album with a weightier sound, on which Queen Omega even allows herself to invite the deejay Buju Banton for the track Perfect Combination. The same year, she performed on the stage of the Ja'Sound Festival in Bagnols-sur-Cèze. In 2008 her fifth album was released, recorded for Mad Professor on his Ariwa label. After a European tour, she headlined the Garance Reggae Festival in Paris in 2009.

Queen Omega has multiplied her collaborations with European labels: Heartical, Stingray, Minor 7 Flat 5, Weedy G…
After releasing two 45s in 2009 and 2010, the French label Greatest Friends Records teamed up with the singer again in 2012 for a seven-track EP: "Together we Aspire, Together we Achieve" brings together the fruit of their joint work over several years, with featurings from Ras McBean and Prince Theo.