JACQUELINE Lewis is one determined woman. Once she decides what exactly it is she wants, she will move heaven and earth to get it.

Lewis, the driving force behind family-owned business JRM Productions, has joined the ranks of female producers in a male-dominated reggae/dancehall music business. And, what’s interesting about her is that she cannot lay claim to “having music in her blood”. In fact, Jacqueline Lewis stepped on the musical stage through a side door, and then got bitten by the bug.

“I am a person who always love music, but I didn’t keep up with the current trend. Sometimes I would be in a group and the name of a new artiste would come up and I would be lost,” confessed Lewis.

But now, it’s a totally different ball game for the woman who is just one class away from receiving her MBA. The CEO for JRM Productions traces her newfound zest for knowing all aspects of the music business to a conversation with artiste, Steady Ranks.

As Lewis recalls, Steady Ranks was supposed to go on a European tour and so, having witnessed her professionalism, asked her to be his manager. However, the only problem was that she didn’t know much about the music business.

“Steady Ranks told me ‘I’ll teach you’,” Lewis recalled.

Being a strong and determined woman, she took up the challenge, and her life has not been the same since.

As it turned out, Steady Ranks didn’t go on the tour, but Lewis learnt a lot and ended up liking the process so much that she is on her way to graduating with a producer’s cap.

The Miami-based Jamaican now spends her time between Kingston and Miami, checking out various studios, ensuring that her music projects are on target and seeing to well-being of the two artistes signed to her label — Sidra and Jehvouri. Lewis is also working with four other artiste who are not yet signed to her label.

Like most young producers, she has spent a lot of money on the first project, which in hindsight could have been better spent.

“But it’s a learning process,” she says with a sigh and a smile.

She started out at Signature Group Studio, then did work at Mixing Lab and is now at Friends For Real working with Red Boom on the Silky Smooth riddim.

“I am getting to know the people in the business, learning from everybody and it has been a great experience,” Lewis says.

With music now pumping through her veins, Jacqueline Lewis’s next challenge is to learn to play the keyboards.