Gramps Morgan is stepping into what he’s calling a bittersweet moment, joining Stephen Marley and Buju Banton on their Roots and Rhymes summer tour for twelve shows running from June 26 through July 18. The bittersweet part is hard to miss: Morgan’s brother and longtime Morgan Heritage collaborator Peetah Morgan passed away, and Gramps is feeling that absence as he prepares to share these stages.
“I know he’s watching down and smiling and will be enjoying many of the shows as we all share a stage together,” Gramps told Observer Online, describing the lineup as three families coming together: Marley, Myrie, and Morgan. That framing says a lot about how he’s processing this, turning what could be a painful reminder into something closer to a tribute.
The tour swings through some serious ground, hitting New York’s Bethel and Elmont, Cincinnati, Boston, Bridgeport, Dallas, Huntsville, Detroit, and Chicago. Gramps was candid about the scale of it, noting that some venues are large and some midsize, but framing the whole thing as a statement for reggae as a genre and a culture.
These are two of the biggest names in reggae music who have done it at the highest level, coming together to do this,” he said, and he’s not wrong. Buju Banton and Stephen Marley are about as close to the top of that conversation as it gets, and Morgan clearly sees his inclusion as meaningful beyond just the booking.
What makes this summer even more packed is that Morgan isn’t treating the Roots and Rhymes run as his only move. He’s headlining his own solo No Water in My Whiskey tour simultaneously, with a standalone show on July 4 in Kansas City, Missouri, while the rest of the Roots and Rhymes crew takes the day off.
From there he pivots to Morgan Heritage mode, heading to Reggae Land in the UK on August 1, followed by four more UK dates and a closing show at Reggae Lake in Amsterdam on August 15. He’s also hinting at West Coast US dates in the fall, which means this stretch is really just the opening chapter of a very full run.
The fact that he’s juggling a major co-headlining tour, a solo project, and Morgan Heritage commitments across two continents in the span of a few months is a lot to hold together. Whether the emotional weight of performing without Peetah makes any of that harder or actually gives it more fuel is something only these shows will reveal.
