When the various annals of reggae are written it will not be complete unless major labels are accorded their rightful place for how they accommodated some of reggae's finest artistes and their love-hate relationship with the genre.

David Kahne, former senior executive of Columbia Records, was responsible for the signing of a slew of reggae acts to that company in the 1980s. He is presently the producer for Jewish reggae star, Matisyahu.

Of course, the human element must be taken into consideration and for that reason the name David Kahne must be mentioned. A musician/arranger who became a producer and later a senior executive at Columbia Records, Kahne was the man who signed a slew of reggae acts in the 1980s.

"As head of A&R at Columbia I could sign what I wanted. And we started working on a record called Dancehall Reggae Español . and that's is how I met Maxine Stowe and then we started bringing all the reggae music in," Kahne who is presently the producer for Jewish reggae star Matisyahu, told the Sunday Observer recently.

Kahne said he was really involved in trying to bring reggae music into Columbia Records with artistes like Super Cat, Ini Kamose, Worl-a-Girl, and also Fugees which is not exactly reggae music, but was very influenced by it.

Other reggae acts signed to Columbia were Diana King and Tony Rebel. Asked to comment on what was the reason behind Columbia Records dropping most of its reggae acts during the 1990s, Kahne, who spent 13 years at Columbia Records, before his five-year stint at Warner Bros, said that there has "always been resistance to reggae at Columbia as that label has a preference for hip hop music".

He said that some reggae acts were even forced to do hip hop. So when he left Columbia, the label began dropping its reggae acts.

"Because I left, I think. Maxine (Stowe) stayed a little while and then she left also," Kahne said before admitting, "I don't know why, but there has always been resistance, right. They have what they called Urban Music Department, and it works hip hop acts. But most of the time they won't work reggae artistes. And Super Cat was very vocal about that. Super Cat did pretty well, all the reggae acts were signed by Maxine and I, we did it all together. Ini Kamose was a big hit, which they didn't want us to sign."

Kahne, who produced other international acts of different genres such The Bangles, Fishbone, Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney and Cher, shared with the Sunday Observer the secret behind his passion for reggae music.

"The rhythm. I just love it," was his immediate response. "And also the soulfulness," he continues "Because it stays true, it always stays true to me, even as its gone into other kind of music, and gets more and more complex, it has more and more influence around the world. And I like the fact also, that it works in almost every culture in the world, people listen reggae music. If you go Antarctica, you can talk to the penguins about reggae music."

As he chuckled about the penguins of the Antarctic Ocean, inevitably came the ultimate reason - which had to do with his favourite reggae artiste of all time. And of course, there is no prize for guessing that it is the King of reggae, Bob Marley.

And when pushed to name his favourite reggae artiste still alive, it took him a couple of seconds before he stuttered, "Lets see, I really like Barrington Levy. We just did a song of his for Matisyahu's record. And I really like Stephen's (McGregor) Dad (Freddie McGregor)."

After leaving Warner Bros, he never worked on much reggae music until he met Matisyahu, with whom he did a project with Paul McCartney who is another huge fan of reggae music. So much so, not so long ago, the ex-member of the Beatles, did a remix with Sizzla and Lady Saw, produced by Kahne.

Before Matisyahu, his last major project was with Paul McCartney, but before that, it was the classical piano player, Regina Spektor. "I work with lots of different kinds of music, I'm doing a project with a band called Taking Back Sunday. It's a rock band. And after that I don't know what I'm going to do. I write ballet music for orchestras, so I'm working on a ballet right now, and I'm thinking after I'm done with that band I'm going to finish that ballet," David Kahne concluded.

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