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Thursday, March 2, 1995 

THE MIAMI TIMES 

SB 

Record companies find special niche in music industry with reggae 

By HOWARD CAMPBELL 
Caribbean News Agency 

KINGSTON, Jamaica — To say 
these are exciting times for reggae 
music is probably an 
understatement. 

Since Achieving Grammy status 
in 1988, much has been done to 
transform the Jamaican music 
industry from a hustler’s paradise 
to a sophisticated business 
venture. ' 

Reggae music is now accepted 
by a greater audience worldwide. 
Many are hooked on dancehall, 
others are researching the roots of 
the music. And it's not just Jamai- 
cans who are reaping the rewards 
from Reggae’s spreading populari- 
ty. Promoters abroad are making 
millions annually, many as inde- 

- pendent distributors. 

These are the best of times for 
small companies who make it their 
business to ship reggae to fans in 
the most remote parts of the world. 
Many of these distributors, cash- 
ing in after years of playing second 
fiddle to the more established 
markets of rock-and-roll and 
rhythm-and-blues, are now feed- 
ing trees to the bigger companies. 

Ras Record, Heartbeat, VP 
Records, Shanackie, Hightone are 
just some of the bigger companies 
prepared to sign numerous Jamai- 
can acts. 

Ras Record, based in Washing- 
ton, is probably the best known 
and, arguably, the most successful 
of these companies. 

Founded by Gary, Himmefarb, 
an ex-disc jockey who goes by the 
pseudonym “Dr. Dread,” Ras 
reportedly rakes in $5 million sell- 
ing mostly cultural reggae, distri- 
buting to major record labels like 
Warner Brothers, Polygram and 
Virgin. 

According to 40-year-old Him- 
melfarb, who started the company 
14 years ago, Ras, like its counter- 
parts, came of age when reggae 
went mainstream. 

“When we began distributing 
reggae, it reached mostly a White 
college audience but things have 
taken off considerably with the 
wave of success the dancehall 
sound has had. It has benefited 
Ras because we're riding on that 
wave,” he said. 

Ras leans towards the Marley 
line of reggae. The company’s first 
release was in 1980, with Peter 
Broggs's “Rastafari Liveth” and it 
have stood by the roots tradition by 
promoting the music of former 
Marley proteges Black Uhuru, 
Inner Circle and Freddie 
‘McGregor. 

The company’s bias towards the 
roots medium can be seen in its 

commitment to acts that have been 
left out in the cold. For example, 
Himmefarb points to the case of 
Israel Vibrations, a band that 
would have to look as far back as 
1979 for their last Jamaican hit, 
“All Got To Sing The Same Song.” 

“They've got a huge following,” 
says Himmefarb. “A lot of people 
don't know that. We got the same 
reaction when people heard we 
were handling Inner Circle; they all 
thought that group was done for.” 

Ras released the first batch of 
Inner Circle's groundbreaking 
“Bad Boys" album which won it the 
Grammy awards this year. 

“Sweat”, one of the record's hit 
singles, was already on its way to 
being a big seller when Ras nego- 
tiated with Atlantic to promote 
“Bad Boys” on a wider scale. 

Like Ras, VP Records of New 
York and Boston-based Heartbeat 
Records have seen a remarkable 
upturn in sales, though both cater 
to differing markets. 

Jamaican-owned VP Records’ 
catalog is dominated by dancehall 
material. Established in 1981 by 
the husband-and-wife team of Vin- 
cent and Pat Chin, it success in 
marketing the modern technobeat 
has caught on in predominantly 
Black areas such as Washington 
D.C., Atlanta, Miami and New York 
— their most lucrative markets. 

According to VP's label manager 
David Sanguinetti, things are 
starting to open in a big way with a 
more diverse crowd being turned 
on to reggae. 

“Ten years ago, the only one peo- 
ple associated with reggae was Bob 
(Marley) but, in the last five years, 
the music has gone mainstream 
and really gotten big,” Sanguinetti 
said. 

The ability of VP artists such as 
Barbadian-born deejay Rayvon to 
cross over into the heavy-selling 
hip-hop market has been an added 
bonus. 

His “No Guns, No Murder,” says 
Sanguinetti, is “big on mainstream 
radio” with Bounti Killa, Capleton 
and Buju Banton, commanding 
the “underground” market. 

Compilation releases are also 
popular. 

According to Sanguinetti, VP's 
latest various artists effort, 
“Strickly The Best,” has been “sell- 
ing like mad.” 

The company shipped 15,000 
copies of that disc alone in Decem- 
ber to established retail outlets 
such as Tower Records and 
Stawberry’s. 

Heartbeat specializes in the 
Rocksteady sounds of the sixties 
and the “cultural vibe" of the 
seventies. 

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Like his VP counterpart, Heart- 
beat's Garrett Vandermolen says 
his company owes its growing 
reputation to the growing demand 
in the United States for various 
forms of reggae. 

“The demand has. grown con- 
siderably. We've definitely made 
headway in the last two years by 
signing bigger names. Heartbeat is 
still not a major label, but we are 
definitely a major Reggae label,” he 
said. 

Like Ras, Heartbeat's catalog is 
a diverse one. It has control of the 
extensive Studio One (Rocksteady) 
catalog and counts roots rockers 
like Burning Spear, Bob Marley 
and Black Uhuru as its leading 
sellers. 

Heartbeat's biggest coup came 
last year, with the re-release of 
Dawn Penn's “No, No, No” single, 
which was first recorded at Studio 
One in the late sixties. 

Featured on a showcase record 
two years ago, “No, No, No” gained 
prominence on reggae radio in the 
state before being snapped up by 
Big Beat Records, an affiliate of 
Atlantic Records. 

The success of the independents 
has benefited the smaller Jamai- 
can distributors that provide those 
companies with material not readi- 
ly accessible overseas. Ras or 
Heartbeat then expands on that 
product, shipping either on com- 
pact disc, cassette or, to a smaller 
extent, vinyl to various parts of the 
world. 

Sudanese say 
thanks for gift 

Broward Community College 
donated medical supplies to the 
State of Juba in Sudan as part of its 
Black History Month celebrations. 

Mirghani Salih, First Secretary 
in the Embassy of the Sudan, 
attended the ceremony to thank 
Dr. Carl Crawford, provost of the 
South Campus in Pembroke Pines, 
and others who helped him secure 
donations of books, teaching aids 
and other supplies for the Univer- 
sity of Juba. 

Crawford said after his a to the 
Sudan he was presented with a list 
of supplies needed by the universi- 
ty. After returning to BCC last 
April, he gave the list to the com- 
munity and appealed for goods. 

“Several areas of the community 
donated teaching aids to the uni- 
versity and many people helped us 
with the shipping,” he said. 
“They've been experiencing civil 
war for a long time and that takes a 
lot out of a people.” 

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Ei) 

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Corporation 
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As lucrative as this all sounds, 
there are always the snags of the 
music business. The biggest hitch, 
as far as reggae music is con- 
cerned, is the functioning of the 
copyyright system which Jamai- 
can performers say has proved a 
nightmare for them in the past. 

Vandermolen, while conceding 
that the matter of royalties is a 

“knotty issue,” claims that Heart- 
beat has dealt with legal affairs ina 
forthright manner. 

“As a growing label, we are more 
equipped to deal with such mat- 
ters” he says. “Heartbeat are not 
into this business to make a quick 
buck.” 

Dr. Dread, who was introduced 
toreggae through the movie “Hard- 

er They Come” and by Marley's 
“Catch A Fire” album, echoes Van- 
dermolen’s statement. 

“Some companies are definitely 
init for the glamorbut I think most 
independent distributors have 
become more professional,” he 
stated. “All I can say for Ras is that 
we are deeply committed to 
reggae.” 

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