Stranger Cole, the Jamaican singer whose recording career stretched across more than six decades, from the birth of ska to the present day, and who long claimed to have made the very first reggae record, has died at the age of 83. He passed away on June 11, 2026, at Kingston’s University Hospital of the West Indies, in the same city where his story began.
Born Wilburn Theodore Cole in Kingston on June 26, 1942, he came by his memorable nickname early. His family took to calling him “Stranger” because, as they saw it, he didn’t resemble anyone else among them. The name stuck, and it would follow him through a lifetime of music.
Cole first made his mark not as a performer but as a writer, penning “In and out the Window,” a hit for Eric “Monty” Morris. That success opened the door to his own recording debut in 1962, and he wasted no time, scoring immediately with singles like “Rough and Tough” and “When You Call My Name,” a duet with Patsy Todd, for the legendary producer Arthur “Duke” Reid. More hits followed through the mid-1960s, and he worked with a who’s who of Jamaican production talent along the way, including Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Prince Buster, Bunny Lee, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Sonia Pottinger.
Duets became something of a signature for him, reportedly born of his shyness about singing alone. He recorded with Ken Boothe, Gladstone Anderson, Hortense Ellis, and most enduringly with Patsy Todd, with whom he cut a long string of sides as “Stranger & Patsy.”
His place in music history rests in large part on one song. Cole was credited with creating the first reggae record with his 1968 hit “Bangarang,” recorded at Duke Reid’s studio with engineer Bunny “Striker” Lee, saxophonist Lester Sterling, and keyboardist Lloyd Charmers. It remained a point of pride he defended for the rest of his life.
In 1971 Cole emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he toured tirelessly, before moving again in 1973 to Canada, settling in Toronto. There he lived a quietly remarkable second life, working as a machinist in the Tonka Toy factory and later opening a record store, the first Caribbean shop in the city’s Kensington Market, helping to seed a Caribbean-Canadian cultural community that endures today. He released his debut album, “Forward” in the Land of Sunshine, in 1976, following it with a steady run of records, many on his own label.
He never truly stepped away from music. In 2006 he released Morning Train, a collaboration with Jah Shaka and his first album in two decades, and in 2009 he appeared in the documentary Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, reuniting with fellow legends of the era to record a new album of the same name. He was still performing in his eighties, taking the stage with The Steadytones as recently as 2024.
His musical legacy carried into the next generation. His sons followed him into the business, with Squiddly drumming for the likes of Ziggy Marley and Mutabaruka, and Marcus, known as KxritoXisen, producing music for his father.
From the first stirrings of ska to the global spread of reggae, Stranger Cole was there for all of it, a foundational voice who helped shape the sound of Jamaica and carried it to the world.