Sto­ry by JHANEAL FRENCH | Caribbean Na­tion­al Week­ly

Pe­ter “Pee­tah” Mor­gan, the lead singer of Gram­my-award-win­ning reg­gae band Mor­gan Her­itage, has died.

The singer died on Feb­ru­ary 25, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the band.

“It is out of sin­cere love that we share that our beloved hus­band, fa­ther, son, and broth­er and lead singer of Mor­gan Her­itage Pe­ter An­tho­ny Mor­gan has as­cend­ed to­day,” the group said.

“Our fam­i­ly thanks you in ad­vance for your over­whelm­ing love and sup­port, and we ask your con­tin­ued prayers as we go through this process. We al­so ask that you please re­spect our pri­va­cy dur­ing this time of heal­ing.”

The group did not dis­close Pe­ter’s cause of death. He was 46 years old.

The lead­ing voice of Mor­gan Her­itage

Pe­ter Mor­gan was one of Ja­maican singer Den­roy Mor­gan’s over twen­ty chil­dren. He was born in Brook­lyn, the New York City bor­ough that has been home to thou­sands of Ja­maicans since the 1960s.

Mor­gan Her­itage was formed in 1994 by five Mor­gan sib­lings. They were sub­se­quent­ly signed by MCA and re­leased their de­but al­bum Mir­a­cles the same year.

Af­ter the re­lease of Mir­a­cles, the fam­i­ly moved to Den­roy’s home­land of Ja­maica.

In the years fol­low­ing, Una Mor­gan and Nakhamyah “Lukes” Mor­gan left the group, leav­ing Pe­ter, Roy “Gramps” Mor­gan, and Mem­mala­tel “Mr. Mo­jo” Mor­gan.

They suc­cess­ful­ly worked on group and in­di­vid­ual projects.

The group’s 2015 al­bum Strict­ly Roots won the Gram­my Award in the Best Reg­gae Al­bum cat­e­go­ry in 2016. The band lat­er re­leased the al­bum Avrakedabra, which was nom­i­nat­ed for an­oth­er Gram­my in 2018.

Pe­ter Mor­gan’s un­mis­tak­able voice has been at the fore­front of Mor­gan Her­itage’s jour­ney for three decades, steer­ing the group through some of the most sig­nif­i­cant an­thems in mod­ern roots-reg­gae.

From time­less tracks like “Don’t Haf­fi Dread (To Be Ras­ta)” to soul­ful melodies like “Down by the Riv­er” and “She’s Still Lov­ing Me,” his vo­cal prowess has left an in­deli­ble mark on reg­gae mu­sic.