Urban Vine Media

The Sound System Convo: A Eulogy For What We Didn’t Register

We had more talent than brain. That’s the first hard truth we never said out loud.

As a Jamaican I’ve seen the come up where some go get the ply board a next man have the speakers and a few weeks later “dance a keep”. Voice a dub at 3am that makes a sound unbeatable for a season. Curate a playlist that wins the dance before the first tune plays. Talent built the culture. But brain didn’t protect it.

Ricky Trooper is Killaman Jaro. Not Noel Harper. Rory G, Billy Slaughter, Diamond — they are Stone Love. Not the paper. Sky Juice + Oliva = Metro Media in people’s minds. Crowds chanted for the voice, not the owner. Faces + audio built every legendary brand we have. But talent without structure is just vibes. And vibes don’t survive when money shows up.

The second hard truth is we do not respect IP.

Selector stays up 6 hours cutting dub. Curates the whole playlist that kills the dance. That playlist is intellectual work. That dub is intellectual property. But in sound system culture the line was always “You get paid for the night. That’s it.” No production credit. No IP share. No split sheet.

Man cut a new song at 8pm. Drop it at 11pm. By 2am the whole place knows it. No JACAP. No ISRC. No registration. Selectors became A&Rs and publicists the same night — advertising new artists and new songs. But nobody registered the brand. Nobody owned the parts. So let’s look on the fact they also are used to break new acts. That’s one angle where the business is more than mere vibes and hustle. Careers are built on the back of everyone playing their roles. This is also the eco.

Stone Love itself as a brand can be sold… without even playing a single song. Hard Rock model. But we never treated the name like IP. So when the money came, there was nothing to divide.

And the third hard truth: the sound not registered.

Sound worth millions in equipment. Refused insurance quote. Refused valuation. One fire, one flood, 20 years gone. Caveman International — fire and flood took 90% of equipment. Gone in one night. No paper, no claim. 20 years of building erased.

NO ONE wanted to register every part of the business. So when the owner died, when the name was sold, when the disputes came… the sound died too. You can’t inherit what was never written down. You can’t split what was never defined.

Turning to intellectual property 
I know this because Don McDowell — MBTT, JARIA, Full Sail, DJ Mc family — asked me to lecture at Edna Manley. JARIA, MBTT, Full Sail saw it coming. I told them: register every part. Divide the points before the money comes. Nobody listened.

How we saw intellectual property, or rather how we didn’t see it, is why we’re drowning now. Because of that lack of respect we’ll always have these things. Arguments. Arbitrary situations. Court cases.

Over the last two years especially in reggae and dancehall music — from Ricky Trooper, to Wayne Wanda, to Vybz Cartel. We’ve seen so many different dialogues. A young lady walk out the blue accusing Massacre that she wrote all his songs. All of these things happen when paperwork is missing.

So stop talking MUSIC industry without understanding the makeup. You can’t jump to streaming, publishing, and global business when your foundation was built on “vibes now, paperwork never.”

That’s why there’s lack of growth in the business. The culture grew. The business didn’t. The culture gave the world bass, clash, dubplate, selectors. The business gave the world nothing to inherit.

When done properly, IP speaks for itself. But we never did it properly. The sound not registered. That’s the eulogy. That’s why the culture died.