Have you heard the new Missy Elliot CD? What about Christina Milian's lead single, Dip It Low, from her new album? Or pop princess Christina Aguilera's second single, Can't Hold Us Down, from her platinum-selling album, Stripped? What about track number three, (Oh No) What You Got, on the platinum-selling album Justified by Justin Timberlake, another member of pop's royal family? Not to mention the new Winterfresh chewing gum commercial! If you have heard even half of these tracks, and did some investigation on the production credits, you would agree that Jamaican dancehall producers are missing the boat.

It happened a decade ago, when Ace of Base and UB40 were riding the reggae wave far better than we, the creators of the music ever did. And yet again, the top foreign acts are minting money using Jamaican music, without employing our home-grown producers to get the Jamaican sound. Instead they select the hip-hop producers, like Timbaland and Scott Storch, to recreate our sound, and rhythms, many of whom have no interest in collaborating with Jamaican producers.
So history repeats itself, as if we, the founders of the music, never learned anything from the past. I have questioned a few hip-hop producers and executives in the American music industry on their reasons for excluding the Jamaican producers in their projects and have found similar themes in their responses. Many just have a cocky attitude and feel they can do what our producers do, just as well, or better. A lot of the equipment used in dancehall and in hip-hop is the same - most notably, the MPC drum machine, which provides the bulk of our signature sounds, facilitating the replication.

Producers claim that their projects happen so quickly they don't have time to go to Jamaica to find producers and develop a rapport and comfort level to facilitate working together. Others complain that our producers have been too suspicious, and difficult to work with, or are too tardy in their delivery times. But a common theme to me seems to be the well-worn phrase: "Out of sight, out of mind".

Given the widely publicised criminal element in our country, most Americans are reluctant to travel to Kingston, regardless of motivating factors. The key players and facilities of dancehall music are centred in Kingston. So, as far as record company executives and executive producers are concerned, who are not hooked into the VP Records network, they perceive only two choices if they want a Jamaican flavour on their projects. They can either spend the money to fly to Kingston, a city they don't know, with a culture they don't understand, where they don't know a soul, to get the hot new Jamaican dancehall beat maker on their project, while risking life and limb in the process. Alternatively, they can just sit down with a bunch of VP Records CDs, and listen to them until they feel they have a sense of what the main ingredients are in building a halfway decent dancehall track, and do it themselves. Which option you think they are going choose?

My point is that our producers have an opportunity now to make serious inroads in the international music industry. VP Records has not cornered the only road to international opportunities for our producers. There are other ways of creating successful dancehall music ventures. One doesn't have to have a track on Sean Paul's next album, or any other "big man's" album, like Elephant or Beenie, in order to achieve international recognition.

As you know, just because Beenie and Elephant are getting lots of BET and US radio airplay, and are on the charts, doesn't mean they are the only profitable artistes for dancehall now. Our artistes cannot support every dancehall producer with international ambitions, nor should they have to. Refer to Billboard magazine. Who is selling the most records? The aforementioned pop, hip-hop, and R&B artistes are the ones that are moving serious units, in addition to Sean.

When reading that Billboard magi, and calculating those production dollars earned, I am sure our producers stop to think to themselves: "Wouldn't it have been good to have been the dancehall producer in the same city, with a good relationship with the executive producer on Christina Aguilera's album? Or Justin Timberlake's album? Wouldn't it have been worth it to fly to the US and spend a few months knocking on doors, and networking, for a chance to get to work with some of these artistes and executive producers?"

And then there's the work in jingles, and similar avenues for our producers. Do you have any idea how much an advertising agency would have paid the producer for the Winterfresh gum jingle?

A 30-second piece of music, to be played on every American television station from New York City to Los Angeles, from Maine to the Mexi-Cali border, and from Seattle to Miami? A hell of a lot more than VP Records would pay a hot Jamaican producer for a 20-track compilation of his riddim.

Some Jamaicans can get caught up in the excitement of what is happening locally, and may have difficulty thinking outside the box. But with a little creative thinking, and a lot of guts to take the risks necessary to forge the international links, to maintain and strengthen them to a level that can support a viable international music business venture, our producers can actually make a decent living off their craft, beyond the VP projections.

The Royalty Network is one New York and LA-based company with strong ties to Jamaica, which can provide other routes for dancehall producers and songwriters to international success. A keen and focused search for other links, a well-developed system of networking, followed up with a sustained, and positive, open-minded pursuit of the opportunities presented by these links can yield results never imagined possible.

Our producers need to stop missing the boat and start flying with their beats, so that next year, the pop, hip-hop and R&B Billboard charts will be peppered not only with our flavour, but also with a heavy dose of Jamaican production credits.

Executive Class

Gardens with Gravel

Death to the Mullet!