Legacy in every note

ON any given day in studio, music comes to Jamaican American reggae artiste Marcus “Nesta” Gayle the same way it always does, freely and almost as if it were second nature.

Long before he understood chords, structure, or production techniques, he understood feeling, and for him, the best feeling was rooted in the unmistakable baselines of reggae music that not only fed his soul but connected him to his Jamaican father, the late Basil Gayle. The elder Gayle was a member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel roots reggae vocal group Visionaires, known for their early 1980s work.

The 33-year-old, born and raised in Queens, New York, USA, said it was through embracing his Jamaican roots that he found his sound — a unique blend of reggae, R&B, hip-hop, and dancehall — that has branded him as a rising force in contemporary Caribbean-influenced music with successful releases of lover’s rock songs Worthwhile and Don’t Let Me Down.

Set to take the main stage at the ‘To Mom With Love’ Mother’s Day show at AC Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, on May 10, 2026, the musician, singer, songwriter, and producer said he is excited to share his melodies in the country whose cultural influence shaped his identity and career.

As he continues to honour his father’s legacy, Gayle, whose stage name is Nesta, remains driven by a singular mission: To break barriers and elevate the music industry while promoting a message of unity and love, paving a smoother path for the next generation of artistes.

In a sit-down interview with the Jamaica Observer during a trip to the island recently, he said his love for music came as naturally as breathing, but he could not pinpoint the moment he took his first breath.

“I grew up in a house listening to reggae and R&B music. I got a lot of siblings as well, so I was hearing a whole lot of hip-hop. I’m the type of guy who just researches all kinds of music all over the world and just takes things from literally all over — Brazil, Africa — wherever it is that I like melodies and stuff like that. I try to fuse it into what I’m doing and try to make my sound as universal as possible,” said the singer-songwriter.

This hobby transitioned into him making hip hop and trap beats for his friends and recording songs while living in Florida. However, it was not until 2012 when he started to receive compliments on his vocal abilities that he began to experiment with his voice. The Puzzle Piece songwriter said he had doubts about entering the music industry, but the loss of his father brought clarity, allowing everything to fall into place.

“He got diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, an incurable form of leukaemia, and that caused me to just say, ‘Alright, it’s not whether I want to do it or not, it’s something I have to do.’ In 2013, I moved back to New York to help take care of my dad and that was the most memorable year I had with my father; 2014 was his last year. Around that time, I brought him my music that I was making in Florida. I played it for him, and he said, ‘You see me? Me never sing [foolishness] yet,’ ” he recalled, laughing.

“I was making all kinds of hip hop-type stuff, and a bare nonsense me a talk inna it, and he was just telling me like, ‘Look at Alicia Keys, look at this artiste, look at that artiste, they don’t got to curse, they don’t got to do nothing to make a hit song,’ and so I really started strengthening my pen as far as making music that doesn’t have anything like that,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Through his experimental process, Gayle said he discovered that he was running away from his true identity. Once he embraced his cultural background and his father’s legacy in roots reggae, the stars aligned. While the practical elements, such as harmonising and playing the guitar and keyboard came naturally, he had help from a friend he identified as Jennifer to tackle the theory aspect of songwriting.

However, he said it was collaborating with trap producers at Black Wax Studio in 2014 that transformed his approach to music, pushing him to create freely, in the moment, rather than rely on writing. That shift taught him to trust his instincts and embrace spontaneity, allowing ideas to flow naturally while in studio. He said much of his EP
Your Love Alone was created this way, through mental preparation and raw expression.

For him, the process has become about trusting his mind, capturing the moment, and turning nothing into something meaningful.

“I feel like it’s a more intuitive and spontaneous experience that is going to hit your heart rather than when it’s premeditated, and it’s going to hit your mind more. When you’re pulling it out of the [air], it’s going to hit you, and it’s going to resonate with the people in the same type of way,” he explained.

Gayle later released his first song, Blending, in 2017, a lovers rock-style track. However, it was his remix of Jamaican singer and songwriter Gyptian’s Hold Yuh that blew up on social media site TikTok and put him on the map. The recording artiste said he rode the wave and kept releasing songs, eventually quitting his job at Whole Foods Market, a supermarket chain in the United States, in 2024.

He shared that he also previewed his song Worthwhile, which was released in 2025 on TikTok, and the song also blew up. Before he knew it, the Queens native was making waves in the United Kingdom.

“I got to do my first headline acoustic set in London a couple of months ago, and that went great because those are people that have been rocking with me from 2021. They were singing songs that I didn’t even know they knew, like my song Already There, which was one of the first tunes that I really, really fused reggae and R&B together. To hear them sing everything from the ad-libs and all that type of stuff, it was an amazing experience,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Gayle added that he also went on tour with Collie Buddz, a Bermudian reggae singer, earlier this year, and has travelled across the United States and to Kenya to perform.

Now gearing up to take the main stage alongside reggae and gospel icons and recording artistes Third World, Marcia Griffiths, Glenn Jones, and Robert Minott on Jamaican soil in May, he’s promising that it will be an experience everyone can enjoy.

“You don’t got to turn my music off when grandma comes in the car, and everybody can enjoy my music. I want everybody to be able to come to my shows as well. You can bring the family out to my shows. It’s just a better music, and if you ask me, reggae music is like the best music. It’s a worldwide music, it’s a universal music, it’s different [from] any other music,” said Gayle.

He shared that his songs Already There, Worthwhile, and Don’t Let Me Down are true representations of who he is as an artiste and he hopes the messages embedded in the lyrics will resonate with not just Jamaicans, but a wider global audience.

“I want my music to make people feel love. I want people to feel all forms of love — love from their lover and self-love — that’s really what I’ve set out to do, and just a message of oneness. In my perception of life, I look at it like God resides in everybody. Some people call it spirit, me, I look at it as the Most High in everything. He is the conductor, the grand conductor…Separation is an illusion. I want people to just acknowledge oneness,” said Gayle.

Jamaican-American reggae artiste Marcus “Nesta” Gayle (centre), his manager Mario Wilson (left), and event organiser Ryan Fender share a photo op at the Jamaica Observer’s St Andrew headquarters recently. Photo: Karl Mclarty

Jamaican-American reggae artiste Marcus “Nesta” Gayle stopped by the Jamaica Observer’s headquarters in St Andrew during a recent trip to the island ahead of his Mother’s Day performance at ‘To Mom With Love’, scheduled for May 10. Photo: Karl Mclarty