THE Jolly Boys mento band topped the Reggae/Dancehall charts because Jamaican pop music has lost creativity, argues band manager Jon Baker.

The band plans to further extend its chart dominance by releasing a documentary and reality series in preparation for its US and Japan album release in 2011.

“We going through a stagnation of creativity in Reggae for the last five years. Dancehall artistes sing about the same old stuff. It has not had anything dynamic to crossover into the mainstream,” he told Splash in an interview.

The Jolly Boys returned this week from a hectic European tour which avoided reggae festivals but instead played at rock, pop and culture concerts. Baker avoided marketing the band as reggae in order to avoid restricting the album’s sales potential.

“I don’t want you to take this in a non-patriotic way but to look at it fairly. When I got requests to do Reggae festivals and to do Reggae press, I vehemently declined the request,” he stated. “I have watched the genre of Reggae stagnate certainly in the last few years and I have seen the perception of the international market look at reggae and say ‘that’s cool but that niche or specialist’. If we started to position Jolly Boys as Reggae that’s would have immediately put the perception of what they are at a disadvantage.”

The Jolly Boys continue to out-chart all living reggae/dancehall artistes online, including Gyptian. This week the album was in the top-10 in nine markets on iTunes reggae albums which is the largest online music store. The band already released its CD Great Expectations in Europe in September, however the album is notably absent from the US and Japan charts which are the world’s largest and second largest markets respectively.

“We expect to release the album in the US by the second quarter of 2011,” stated Backer. “In Japan we are still talking but not yet confirmed.”

The strategy is to visually introduce the band in US and Japan markets prior to releasing music for sale, which mirrors the Cuban model according to Baker who is also head of Geejam Group.

“We looked the Buena Vista Social Club and where they were successful. They broke out of Germany, France, the UK and then North America. It was also driven by a movie. A first they had modest sales then one year later they started to break out when the movie was released,” he said.

The band returned this week from a hectic European tour which avoided reggae festivals but instead played at rock, pop and culture concerts. Baker avoided marketing the band as Reggae in order to avoid restricting the album’s sales potential.

“My skill in music is the crossover, and we did it with the Jolly Boys. We did this by taking the instrumentation and pure charisma of the band, bringing in some younger musicians for live performances and taking pop and rock standards and doing mento interpretations of them,” he said.

It’s rare that a mento group releases an album marketed by a music label. Geejam Records included a cover of Amy Winehouse’s hit single Rehab, in order to introduce mento to a new generation.