Junior Reid was a guest on Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion podcast recently and he gave a glimpse into the reggae and dancehall culture’s affairs. In one segment Reid was asked why aren’t there more collaborations between reggae and hip hop artist and he responded that black people don’t have controls over who they collaborated with in the music business because they do not own neither reggae or hip hop.
He said, “You see reggae music don’t own by us the black people inuh, reggae music owned by the white world because dem copyright the name reggae music”
He continued, “They copyright the name reggae, even when we used to sing on version, they copyright the name ‘version.’ So even when we put out a verse and think is we going get the money the money going to other places, you understand me?”
Reid continued with unsubstantiated accounts of who owns the name reggae.
“So you find out seh now, if the people dem who in control weh seh dem own the name reggae, that mean from you own the name reggae, anybody who use the name reggae innah anything in the world a check have to go to them. ”
Ried, a lifelong independent artist explained that was the main reason artists and producers in the 70s and 80s stopped recording on versions and created riddims with names such as ‘Bug’ and ‘Punany riddim’ so they could mark their work.
“How Reggae music start inuh, it start from the history of wah we go through” he reasoned.
“Reggae music is a music with message, if you hear a music and it don’t have no message, no care if the beat sound like reggae, thats not reggae. So reggae and dancehall is African music..Dem people now who control reggae now them set up like seh ten different names,” he then list a series of “label names” and said “a one man control the whole thing.”
Math Hoffa then asked him, “who is this one man?”
To which the Foreign Mind singer attributed ownership and control to Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. “The one man weh set dah ting deh, is the man who break Bob Marley, Cris Blackwell, a him control reggae and hip hop.”
Blackwell, a music impresario who brought to fame names such as Millie Small, U2 and Bob Marley released his memoirs recently which sought to set the record straight on the extend of his powers and relationships in the music industry.
Although the One Blood singer’s hip hop reference added another layer to the conversation, his statements have been shared by others in the Jamaican music industry as Blackwell is known as the single most important music executive in reggae music since starting his label in 1962.
Rastafarian attorney-at-law Miguel Lorne outrightly blamed the Island Outpost founder for ‘mashing up’ The Wailers at a Symposium at the University of The West Indies.
Lorne also said that “because of Bob’s Caucasian father, Blackwell found it easier to package and promote Bob to the European market.”
“Blackwell helped to break-up the group… on the basis that Blackwell felt that he could market Bob Marley to the world. But when he said the world, he really meant the white world,” he continued.
Lorne had said that when he asked Tosh why was he so bitter against Marley, the Mama Africa singer told him that Marley should not have agreed to the deal with Blackwell — whom Lorne claims Tosh referred to as “Whitewell”.
Former music publicist and Attorney-at-law Maxine Stowe has also said that the late Bunny Wailer was done wrong by Blackwell and that there is still unsettled business . “His (Bunny’s) issue with Blackwell was how he took Bob Marley and the Wailers name, the title, and redid the works of the Wailers and removed their image and just put Bob’s image. They were sidelined in their visibility… because the industry now is what is your brand, and even your earnings are depleted because people don’t know if this is you, Bob Marley and the Wailers…,” Stowe told Anthony Miller in an interview on Jamaica’s Entertainment Report.
“Peter Tosh didn’t like me. He suggested I favored Bob because Bob was half-white, with an English-born father. Behind my back, he referred to me as “Whitewell” and “Whiteworst.” All I can say is that his suspicions were misguided, as were those who accused me of exploiting Bob to make money. I never paid a Jamaican act a penny less in royalties than an English act. I was helpless without the artists. I wasn’t a singer or a writer; it made no sense to rip them off. I put my all into getting Bob’s music, and Jamaica’s music, into the mainstream.”
Blackwell was instrumental in developing Bob Marley’s career while he was alive but even in death he helped the Marley family retain the family legacy by lending them the money to buy his musical rights. As confirmed by Rohan Marley.
He sold Island Records and Island Music in July 1989, to the PolyGram UK Group for £180 million or US$300 million, a portion of which was used to U2 back royalties. His reason? “It had gotten too big and too corporate for me and I couldn’t really handle it.”
While the Golden Eye resort owner has not been at the wheels of Island records, among the influential artists who have signed to the label over the years include Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Avicii, Poppy, Cat Stevens, Kevin McDermott Orchestra, The Orb, Tove Lo, Sparks, the Cranberries, Tracy Bonham, The Weeknd, Florence And The Machine and many more.
Blackwell, 85, is still active in the music business via Blue Mountain Music UK, an independent publishing company which boast catalogues from the likes of Chronixx, Burnin Spear, Bob Marley, Toots And The Maytals, U2 and others.
Watch the full interview segment with Junior Reid on the My Expert Opinion podcast here.
