Reggae or dancehall wouldn’t be in the global music conversations six decades later had it not been for the record label CEOs who took songs and artists from the streets to the studio and onto the Billboard charts. In research done by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Reggae was found to be the 10th most listened-to genre of music worldwide, and dancehall, its coming-of-age protege, continues to be one of the most influential genres of music worldwide with four diamond singles.
Before the genre became as popular, there were and still are some people working behind the scenes who have been the backbone of its development. Here are World Music Views’ extended top 10 list of Reggae-Dancehall impresarios and CEOs.
1. Chris Blackwell
Bob Marley is the most popular reggae artist, and the man largely responsible for the marketing and promotion of the brand Bob Marley and his music is Chris Blackwell. The compilation album Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley & The Wailers remains the No. 1 reggae album on the Billboard charts for more than 146 weeks. The album has been streamed more than 3.5 billion times in the US alone, according to the latest 2022 data obtained by World Music Views from our correspondence at Billboard’s Sales Tracker Luminate.
He has worked with some of the biggest acts in music and laid the foundation for reggae’s success. With over 60 years in the music industry, The Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer has the lion’s share of reggae, having signed and developed U2, Steve Winwood, Cat Stevens, Millie Small, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Bob Marley, and has sold more than 300 million albums.
The Music Business Worldwide A&R Icon awardee is widely acknowledged as the best at developing artists into long-term brands. Bono called him “an adventurer, an entrepreneur, a buccaneer, a visionary, and a gentleman,” and Grace Jones said he “knows how to get the very best out of people… he’s a mover and a shaker and a mischief-maker”.
David Geffen says, “I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award than Chris. What he did for the music world and reggae in particular is astounding. He is a pioneer.”
Richard Branson, with whom Blackwell has had a long business relationship, told MBW that: “Chris Blackwell had a profound influence on the music industry [and] helped develop some of the most legendary artists of our time. He challenged the music industry, and his contributions to it are immeasurable. To my lifelong dear friend – well done!”
2. Robert Livingston
Robert Livingston is the CEO of Scikron Entertainment, home of Big Yard Studios, where Shaggy developed his illustrious music career. As an artist and music manager, Robert brought Super Cat to Columbia Records, where he co-produced the classic dancehall album Don Dadda. That album has sold 357,000 units in the US, which includes 85 million streams. “We both produced the album, and I did a lot of work on the album,” Robert told WMV.
Other than “Dem Nuh Worry We” and “Dolly My Baby,” which got international attention, Don Dada also spawns political songs like “Them No Care,” and “Fight Fi Power,” and Robert was tasked with finding a foothold for Cat amidst a sea of emerging hip-hop acts.
“I kinda watched what was going on in the market and how the urban market was gravitating to the dancehall market. We did the collaboration with Heavy D, and a lot of fusion was happening at the time; the whole reggae vibe in New York City was getting attention from the key DJs. The energy was good,” he recalls.
It helped that Super Cat offered the market something unique which could not be cultivated in the streets of New York.
“Super Cat had this unique sound and style and was gaining respect. Marketing-wise, I got the American urban market to respect him,” he states. “Super Cat fit the urban crossover; the song with Sugar Ray crossed the top 40. For me, I was blessed to have that knowledge and that understanding,” Robert says.
After his split with Super Cat, the music mogul managed Shaggy’s career into multi-platinum and global superstardom status. With Gold and Platinum certifications under his belt for Boombastic, Robert executive produced Hot Shot, Shaggy’s 5th studio album and the most successful album by a dancehall artist to date. The album has sold 8.8 million units in the U.S. according to the latest data supplied to WMV by Luminate. This includes 6.8 million pure copies along with 1.2 billion on-demand streams.
Under his belt are over 20 million records sold worldwide.
3. Clifton ‘Specialist’ Dillon
Dillon is to dancehall what Blackwell was to reggae. The Montego Bay native produced Shabba’s back-to-back Grammy-winning albums X-tra Naked and Raw As Ever, which have both been certified Gold in the U.S. for selling 679K and 522K respectively. He brought Patra, Diana King, Maxi Priest, and OMI to fame and in the process sold more than 18 million records and had a Billboard No. 1 song, “Cheerleader.” Other songs under his belt that helped with dancehall’s recognition globally include Patra’s ‘Worker Man’ and Mad Cobra’s Gold-selling single ‘Flex,’ which paved the way for the ‘hardcore lova’ marketing that was used by many artists like Gyptian, Konshens, and Dexta Daps for years to come. He also produced Eddie Murphy’s ‘I Was A King’ and Buju Banton’s ‘Boom Bye Bye,’ which caused Shabba Ranks to fall from grace. Still, Dillon is widely credited as the man who brought dancehall to the international market with a special kind of fusion.
4. Pat and Randy Chin
Other than Island Records, no other label has championed the cause of reggae and dancehall like VP Records. With their slogan “Miles Ahead In Reggae Music,” the company she and her now deceased husband built boasts the biggest reggae catalogue, consisting of music from almost every notable reggae and dancehall artist over the last 40 years, including superstars such as Sean Paul, Shaggy, Beenie Man, Dennis Brown, Gyptian, Beres Hammond, and hundreds of other artists.
Randy and Patt Chin started their independent label in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew it to become the first point of entry for most of the reggae and dancehall artists.
DJ Kool Herc, the founder of Hip Hop, describes Miss Patt as: “What Berry Gordy was to Motown Records, what Russell Simmons was to Def Jam Recordings, what Sylvia Robinson was to Sugar Hill Records, what Clive Davis was to Arista Records, Patricia Chin is to the Reggae Industry and VP Records.”
As a teenager in the early 1950s, Vincent Randy Chin oversaw the stocking and maintenance of jukeboxes in the island’s bars for Syrian-Jamaican businessman Isaac Issa, but Randy had bigger visions than stacking jukeboxes.
Miss Patt told WMV how she got into the music business:
“My husband, God bless his soul wherever he is, he used to work with the Jukebox company and then changed the old records from the Jukebox. We didn’t have reggae music at that time, just American R&B, Percy Sledge, Jim Reeves, Sam Cooke, those types of music. When he changed out those old records, we bought them out from the company and then we started to sell those old Jukebox records down East Street about 70 years ago. Jukebox on a whole was a way of entertainment in the bars, restaurants, the clubs, and a little corner store. People would go and punch a 25 cents, a 10 cents and get five records and that was a form of entertainment for them.”
Miss Patt, VP Records Founder, also said she didn’t know reggae music was going to be a lucrative business when she started but says the risk was worth the reward because Jamaicans love to sing. “We just did it as an experiment and it developed and made money,” the 84-year-old told WMV.
5. Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd
Dodd, now deceased, started out using American R&B records on his sound system and became the first black owner of a record label in Jamaica, Studio One, in 1963. As one of the foundational music impresarios in Jamaica, he held auditions and championed the early careers of Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and Bob Marley, thereby forming The Wailers Band and the I-trees. He also recorded Burning Spear, Alton Ellis, and many more foundational artists of 1960s and 70s Jamaica.
Dodd’s in-house band, “Soul Dimensions,” created a unique reggae sound with the rhythm “Real Rock” that has been sampled and influenced many hip-hop and dancehall billboard chart-toppers, including KRS1, Koffee, Sean Paul, Shaggy, Snoop Lion, The Clash, Kabaka Pyramid, UB40, and more.
6. Donovan Germain
Donovan Germain is the founder of Penthouse Records, one of the most successful record labels in Jamaica. He has produced hit songs for artists such as Buju Banton, City Ranks, Mad Cobra, Tony Rebel, Wayne Wonder, Beres Hammond, and more. Penthouse was home to many of the dancehall artists who emerged in Kingston in the 80s & 90s. It was the place where Dave Kelly honed his skills as a producer to define the sound of the era.
Before Penthouse, Germain ran the Revolutionary Sounds label, which was a New York Reggae label in the 1980s.
Germain told WMV that Penthouse was and continues to be the place where inner-city boys with talent can come to develop their skills as artists, knowing that the output will be of high quality.
Penthouse Records, now at 6 Ballater Avenue, Kingston, has its own pressing facility and an online store with over 400 albums in the catalogue. Classic compilations from the Penthouse studios include dancehall riddims such as “Dickie” (1992), which has Banton’s song of the same name, as well as “Operation Ardent” (1992), which spawns Tony Rebel’s “Creator” and Banton’s titled track.
Germain has been awarded the Institute Of Jamaica’s Silver Musgrave Medal as well as the Order Of Distinction for his contributed to Jamaica’s music Development.
6. Patrick Roberts
Roberts is a career politician, but he dedicated his early life to building the record label and entertainment company Shocking Vibes that championed the international careers of no lesser artists than Tanto Metro and Devonte, along with the King of the Dancehall, Beenie Man. His first hit song was the explicit dancehall track “Gun Inna Baggy” by Little Lenny. His company, Shocking Vibes, at one point shared premises with Donovan Germain’s Penthouse Records on Slipe Road in Kingston. At the zenith of the company, Roberts produced songs for Buju Banton, Dennis Brown, Lt Stichie, Tiger, Lady Saw, Ghost, Mad Cobra, Capleton, Buccaneer, Sanchez, Wayne Wonder, Richie Stephens, Jack Radics, and more. He took Beenie Man to Grammy-winning status and has sold over 1.5 million reggae and dancehall albums worldwide. In 2019, Roberts was awarded an Order Of Distinction (OD), Jamaica’s 6th highest honor, by the Governor-General for his contribution to the music industry.
8. Romeich Major
Romeich Major ushered in the new era of reggae and dancehall entrepreneurs who use modern means to achieve success in the music business. He is the CEO of Romeich Entertainment, a talent management and event planning company in Jamaica. In the last 5 years, he has charted an unconventional route to breaking Shenseea in the US market and offloading her to Interscope Records. The fashion designer and street promotions marketer used the power of social media and his affinity to create a spectacle to generate a loyal fanbase for his artists. His strength as a music entrepreneur has been to snag major corporate endorsements for his acts and secure major shows and concerts.
Shenseea, his most successful artist, told WMV that, “Romeich is like a hero to me. A hero. I came from nothing, and if someone can see you and invest so much in you and work so hard and keep pushing and pushing, he’s like a hero to me.”
Under the guidance and marketing assistance of Romeich, Shenseea’s Alpha album broke records and led the charge as the most-streamed project by a dancehall artist released in 2022. The Interscope/Rich Immigrants set was released on March 11 and has so far earned 60,000 equivalent album units (SEA, TEA) according to data provided to World Music Views by Billboard sales tracker Luminate.
Alpha sold 4,900 units total from sales and streaming in the United States in its first week of release, according to data provided to World Music Views by Luminate. This included 800 copies in pure album sales.
Her first single from the album “Blessed” featuring Tyga was certified Gold in Canada for selling 40,000 units in that country.
Speaking about that achievement to World Music Views Shenseea says, “Thank you to God, my shenyengz and my team. I am blessed.”
Romeich has worked with several other top Jamaican artists such Ding Dong, Tarrus Riley, Teejay and more recently he has been behind the continued success of Apple Music top charting act Valiant.
9. Joe Bogdanovich
In 1999, Joe moved his company DownSound Records from Los Angeles to Kingston, Jamaica, to develop talent from the island. In the process, he re-energized artists like Nuff Nuff, Ninjaman, Elephant Man, Harry Toddler, Ishawna, Foot Hype, Skatta Burrell, and Nanko with his sizable investment. He took on a sizable investment in the long-running irreverent dancehall clash show Sting in 2015. “When I got the opportunity to put my name on this festival called Sting, the baddest concert in Jamaica, I jumped in headfirst,” Bogdanovich told The Daily Beast. “To me, this was just awesome. This was the wildest Wild West of Jamaica. It was the last chance for Sting to get some sponsorship. I held my neck out to keep this 30-year-old product alive because I could not allow another festival to go out of business.”
After they bootlegged the live stream and organizational issues, Joe then pivoted to the more inclusive Reggae Sumfest, where he has been at the head since 2016. “In 2019, Sumfest brought in more than $10 million (U.S.) to Montego Bay and the country of Jamaica,” he boasts. The entertainment lifestyle enthusiast, who was the heir to the Tuna Fish Company Star Kist Foods, has a majority stake in the KLE Group, a Jamaica Stock Exchange-listed company that owns Usain Bolt’s Tracks & Records restaurant. His investment in reggae music generates over US$20 million annually in the Jamaican economy.
10. Thomas Cussins and Igor Katz
Thomas and Igor started their reggae music outfit and record label in 2006 based in California. Their most successful act has been Stick Figure, whose album Wisdom dethroned Bob Marley’s Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley & The Wailers for the top spot on Billboard’s Reggae Albums chart. In their catalogue are songs from Anthony B, Mr. Vegas, Demarco, reggae legend Cocoa Tea, and a host of other Caribbean and dancehall artists, as well as acts from as far as Hawaii. Ineffable Music is the only reggae label that has an ownership stake in major U.S reggae festivals.
Regarding Stick Figure’s success and their comparisons to Marley, Thomas told the Jamaica Observer: “It’s a testament to the hard work Stick Figure has put in for the past 15 years to perfect his sound and spread reggae music. For us and for Stick Figure, it’s never been about and never will be about competition or comparison. The fact that Legend sells over 10,000 copies a week shows how much Bob Marley is still reaching new audiences and that he will always be the king of reggae music.”
President of Ineffable Records, Adam Gross, told WMV that the mission statement for the label is “To allow artists to make an income off of their music while staying independent. To position artists for long-term success. To help artists own their masters and make the right business decisions so they can be sustainable. To amplify music that we love.”
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