Christopher Birch, is one of dancehall’s most prolific producers. Originally from Montego Bay, Birch has worked his way up the annals of the music industry producing some of the biggest riddims in the dancehall genre and working with several notable Jamaican artists, including Shaggy, Sizzla, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer and more.
His first project was the “King David Riddim” in 1997 with fellow musicians Dean Fraser, Sly Dunbar and Leroy Mafia which featured the songs “Are You Ready” by Dennis Brown, “Righteousness” by Frankie Paul and “Heaven Sent” by Lukie D. Since then Birch has produced or co-produced more than 30 riddims including the Military (Sizzla, Assassin, Vybz Kartel) and Gangster Rock Riddims (T.O.K., Shaggy).
His breakthrough hit came with Shaggy’s Hey Sexy Lady(Big Yard/MCA) which was certified Platinum in Canada 20 years ago on April 28, 2003. That song is also Platinum in Australia (70,000), and certified Gold in Belgium (25,000). Hey Sexy Lady has surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify, it is Shaggy’s 9th song to reach the milestone. Internationally Birch has worked with Chaka Khan for the Shaggy track “Get My Party On“, which he describes as “fun.”
Towering at 6′ 7″, the producer who says he has never played basketball visited WMV studios to discuss the arc of his music career and share industry insights that have worked for him for over two decades.
He addressed head on one of the more contentious issues in the music business, which is, the ownership of the masters between producers, labels and artists.
Sean Paul told WMV in an interview that he does not own his masters, because in his deal with VP Records the offer required him to forfeit ownership.
“I always wanted to own my songs. It has taken years because VP records and Atlantic Records own all my hits. They were a big distribution link so those are owned by them but I have the right to re-record them after 15 years and I own those. I haven’t done it yet but this new relationship with Island Records allows me to record and release in Jamaica so I decided to put out singles. With them, I own my masters but I lease it to them for a few years and when they are done I get it back for ownership. It took me twenty years,” the Dutty Cup artist told World Music Views.
From a producers point of view Birch said, “Owning masters you have to pay for it, put in work and put in time, they think they are a businessman, maybe they put some money or maybe they have badness, you haffi invest your owna money.”
“First and foremost, music business is a Business, if Universal see an artist in Jamaica and its raw talent and they gonna invest it’s the artist who have to decide if they want to be a part of it. Sometimes the artist gotta know how they are gonna make money from this venture,” Birch said. “Its a worldwide thing, look at African, everybody want a piece of the Afrobeats so the labels setting up shop down there, like they did in Jamaica.”
Birch says in order for the business to work and attract investors, dancehall needs to be doing bigger numbers even at the local level.
“It’s all about numbers. Afrobeats making numbers and pushing numbers and streaming like crazy. Burna Boy, Wizkid doing great, Tems, they are doing numbers so we have to start making some numbers.”
Reggae’s selling problem, Birch says is a million dollar problem caused by the lack of unity. “Everybody is over there doing this and some doing that, nobody coming together anymore, that used to happen in the 90s and 2000s but 2023 is a whole different thing.”
“Some artists don’t want to be on stage with other artists, it never used to be like that. I have never seen anything like that. They don’t even want to be on the riddim with each other. You have a riddim and they call and seh ‘who on the riddim, and they don’t want to be on the riddim (if someone they don’t like on it),” he continued.
“I like Valiant, I like what he is doing. I always liked Teejay. I will work with anyone of them,” Birch said contemplatively about working with the new and emerging artists.
Another reason for local dancehall’s lack of international reach is a missing “mid range” according to the veteran producer and pianist. The midrange in music is the frequency range between 300 Hz and 5,000Hz. This is the range where the majority of audio content is in most hit music, movies and TV shows.
“There is a certain frequency that the world relates to and it’s always in the middle, there is a lack of midrange In dancehall and that’s part of communication. Music is communication.”
Although local dancehall artists are not selling huge numbers, dancehall music is at the top of the pop charts and selling Diamond when artists such as Justin Bieber, Drake, Swae Lee and Wizkid fuse it with their music. Birch said the reason for that is Marketing.
“Marketing is the thing. It’s all in the marketing, all the songs that go Diamond is marketing. It’s not just the song because anybody can come with a song which is dancehall influenced but it’s all in the marketing,” he said.
“Bruk Off Yuh Back” by Konshens on the Moskato Riddim is now certified Silver in the U.K. by the British Phonographic Industry. The certification was issued on June 2, 2023 for selling 200,000 equivalent units in sales and streams in that country as measured by the Official Charts Company.
“I went in hard on marketing of ‘Bruk Off You Back’,” Birch said. “I did experiment with that song.”
The song also got an airplay worthy boost from Chris Brown who did a remix shortly after the song gained momentum on the turntables in the US. In 2019 Reggaeton singer Farruko sampled the song for his Konshens collaboration Roatán.
When asked if he is at all concerned about winning a grammy award Birch quipped, “I would take a bammy, I am fine I am just making music, I don’t care about Grammy because Grammy is just a small part of this big movement we have in Jamaica. It’s just a small part of reggae and dancehall and we appreciate what we get, grammy is fine.”
As he maneuvers the streaming era with new release, Birch reemphasizes the need for unity in the music industry if there should be progress.
“Hip Hop, Soca, Afrobeats is our main competition, it’s not just one person, one person can’t do it, that’s what dancehall did (in the 90s) till everyone just cut off (and went their separate way).”
There are dozens of dancehall and reggae artists and producers with earnings from their extensive catalogues but there has not been any announcements of acts from the genre selling their music masters or publishing in return for multiples.
All over America and Europe, legendary musicians and rights holders like Neil Diamond, Neil Young, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, and Justin Timberlake have sold or are in the process of selling their life’s work for eye-popping sums of money: The James Brown Estate reportedly walked away with $90 million from Primary Wave after a fifteen year contentious internal battle. Primary Wave Music is a New York company that specializes in marketing estates and song catalogs, bought the assets of the Brown estate, including music rights, real estate and the control over Brown’s name and likeness.
Birch said he has not been approached but said he doesn’t know if he’d sell his life’s work. “I don’t even know, I am not at that bridge, I am still making music and having fun. I don’t know.”
