Sashi, the Jamaican Hip Hop and dancehall concert series founded by Horatio Hamilton that featured the likes of Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Eve and NEXT is set to make a return in 2024 according to the Sashi Entertainment Network’s co-founder and CEO Lexi Chow.
Chow spoke exclusively with World Music Views about the launch of the new US company whose board of directors are focused on launching a music and video streaming app with an archive of hip hop-dancehall concerts, movies and Caribbean travel content.
Although Lexi, the self described renaissance woman admits her parents didn’t allow her to go outside when Sashi reached its zenith in the early 2000s, she is pleased to steer the brand into a global direction as part owner of a company known for setting cultural trends.
Hailing from a family of musicians, Chow’s father is Bob Lyn, a producer who operated in Jamaica and Miami in the 1980s.
“That Sashi experience was a larger than life (event) which started the blueprint for many stage shows and experiences in Jamaica. We had stage shows, banquets, dinners, fashion shows. A lot of what you are seeing now we brush our shoulders off and say we started that blueprint,” the Miami born second generation Jamaican said.
With a catalogue of performances from Diddy, Tyrese, Shabba Ranks, Snoop Dogg, Lil’ Kim, Genuwine, and Wyclef Jean along with many Jamaican acts, the Google and iOS app’s soft launch is already turning heads in the industry.
Back in 2002 at the fourth annual staging between August 21-25, headline acts Usher, Busta Rhymes, Super Cat, Eve, Major Damage, Tweet and Donnell Jones brought much excitement to the island. Other Sashi events of the week included a charity fundraiser in aid of the Mona Rehab, a “Slumber Yard” Pajama party, kiddies play day, the launch of the Sashi clothing line and a “Big Ballers” Champagne Afterparty that went until morning, just outside of Jamaica’s tourist town Ocho Rios at the James Bond Beach in St. Mary.
Billboard, MTV and several international publications covered the events, but that was to be Sashi’s last hurrah, as on January 11, 2005, DEA agents arrested Sashi’s founder Horatio Hamilton at Los Angeles International Airport and he was hit with Marijuana conspiracy charges. He fought the case to the end contending that he had left the drug game in 1999 and went full time into music as the CEO of Lords Of Yard Inc., a record label that produced T.O.K’s controversial song “Chi Chi Man.”
In January 2006, Hamilton the reggae music impresario, was convicted by a jury after trial of conspiracy to distribute, and possess with intent to distribute, more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana. According to court documents obtained by WMV, Hamilton was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment, with ten years’ supervised release, and the forfeiture of $10,000,000 plus any interest in a house associated with the conspiracy. He was released after spending 18 years in an Atlanta prison.
Since then the entertainment landscape has changed globally with streaming becoming fully integrated and the commercial value of intellectual property becoming a hot commodity on Wall Street. The rebranding of Hamilton’s reggae brand “Sashi,” to Sashi Entertainment Network with the help of Chow, who has an eye for change, is to position the company to compete in the multi-media acquisitive music and media catalogue business where big investors like Blackstone, KKR and Hipgnosis, and even the Church Of England CCLA are making huge investments.
Chow, after meeting Hamilton says, she intends to turn Sashi’s cultural capital which was harvested using authentic dancehall into financial capital, as she makes the career pivot from PR agent to media maven.
“My love for reggae is deep and I consider myself also a person of change that wants to see change in the reggae industry. I started in public relations and I did it the for many years, I had my own PR firm, I started in New York and when I left New York I decided to get into the film industry. When I got to LA, I wanted to make that transition and pivot because I saw there was an evolving change in the industry and I wanted to be part of streaming, the linear network of how film, tv and content was evolving,” Chow told WMV.
“Our dear friend Mark Pinnock introduced me to Haratio Hamilton and said that we should really connect because we are both powerhouses in what we do. I took a look overall at Sashi and asked him ‘what are you doing with the brand?’ and he wanted to revamp it and I said listen you need to get into the television streaming space, it’s a billion dollar market. You can still have music, you can have movies, you can have the best of both worlds in this particular app. So here I am today, we co-founded the app together, we co-founded the actual network which is a subsidiary of Sashi on a whole,” The Los Angeles resident continued.
With Versuz as the blueprint Chow envisions, “with the live shows, Sashi (App) is able to stream live events.”
Chow also says plans are afoot to do a movie or docu-series on the Sashi empire as well as recruit “Shottas” movie director Cess Silvera to bring more stories about Jamaican culture to life.
