Reggae singer Fantan Mojah dies at 49 after heart complications in Kingston

Reggae singer Fantan Mojah has died at 49 — three weeks shy of his 50th birthday — after heart-related complications at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, a close associate told media.

The Rastafarian artist, whose legal name was Owen Moncrieffe, is said to have died on Tuesday evening. An associate said his condition worsened sharply in the days beforehand. "Since he came back from the United States, he was hearty, but over the past week he started to take down, and he was admitted at the UHWI." Booking agent Vertice said, "Last night he was vomiting blood, and that was it. He passed away."

Mojah had recently been lining up for Reggae Sumfest in Germany, with Schengen visas for that booking reportedly cleared. He was said to be the father of at least five children and had faced serious health trouble over several years. In the days before his death he could not push himself physically and was reportedly fading quickly while staying with a friend in Portmore.

In July 2024 he was admitted in Martinique after breathing problems and chest tightness; reports then put his heart function at about 15 percent of capacity. By early 2025 coverage described an encouraging recovery, and he returned to European touring.

Known for a forceful vocal style and spiritually driven reggae that mixed Rastafarian teaching, social critique, and raw emotion, Mojah rose from washing windows to the studio after meeting label chief Joe Bogdanovich. "When I met him as a kid, he was a window washer," Bogdanovich said in an earlier interview. "We got into a conversation that ended up with me recording him, and I made some really, really big records with him."

Before that break he had chased the business under the name Mad Killer, entering talent shows around St. Elizabeth while still in school, then working as a handyman for Kilimanjaro Sound System. His recording debut came in 1997 with When I Rise Up for producer Tristan Palmer. The 2005 breakthrough album Hail the King followed at Don Sound Records; he left the label the same year, beginning an on-and-off tie with Bogdanovich. He cut a hit single there, then after departing recorded Stronger and a celebrated spiritually rooted track often ranked among his best-known work.

Further details of his death were not immediately available.