Island Music Conference – The Ownership of Reggae Music

For the fourth time, a four-day con­fer­ence ded­i­cat­ed to the busi­ness of Jamaican music took place in Kingston at the end of Feb­ru­ary. Its cen­tral ques­tion: Who owns reg­gae? Rebec­ca Raum reports from the ses­sions.

Text: Rebec­ca Raum

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”Rahtid.”

That was the first word Shag­gy said when Judith Bod­ley, one of the co-founders of the Island Music Con­fer­ence, called him on stage to open the fourth edi­tion of the Island Music Con­fer­ence (IMC) in Kingston. The spon­ta­neous out­burst broke the for­mal­i­ty of the moment imme­di­ate­ly. He went on to wel­come the atten­dees and set the tone for the upcom­ing pan­els.

This year’s theme cen­tered on own­er­ship. For decades, artists across the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Jamaica, have often been exclud­ed from the long-term val­ue of the music they cre­at­ed, even as it con­tin­ues to shape glob­al sounds today. Shaggy’s vision is to help them edu­cate them­selves so they can take their careers into their own hands.

On the first morn­ing, the Courtleigh Audi­to­ri­um is packed. The audi­ence is diverse, school stu­dents sit next to pro­duc­ers, song­writ­ers, emerg­ing artists, media pro­fes­sion­als and indus­try vet­er­ans.

Now in its fourth year, the con­fer­ence has already estab­lished itself as a key meet­ing point for the Caribbean music indus­try. Ini­tial­ly, it was held as a five-day event (this year it lat­est four days).

After Jamaica’s nation­al anthem and open­ing remarks from Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der, Enter­tain­ment and Sport, Olivia ”Bab­sy” Grange, the first pan­el begins: ”Mas­ter­ing the Art of Influ­encer Entre­pre­neur­ship.” The title sig­nals that the con­fer­ence means busi­ness and focuss­es on giv­ing atten­dees prac­ti­cal career tools.

The pan­el brings togeth­er a live­ly mix of mul­ti-hyphen­ate pro­fes­sion­als. Dance­hall star and entre­pre­neur Spice, artist, DJ and actor Noah Powa, pod­cast­er Jaii Frais and UK pre­sen­ter and DJ Bec­ca Dud­ley share the stage, mod­er­at­ed by Wayne Mar­shall.

Opin­ions dif­fer. Tal­ent and per­son­al­i­ty may get you atten­tion, but con­sis­ten­cy is what keeps the algo­rithm (hope­ful­ly) work­ing in your favour. More impor­tant­ly, the pan­elists stress clar­i­ty of pur­pose. Are you build­ing an audi­ence to sell music, or are you cre­at­ing a plat­form to pro­mote oth­er prod­ucts or wider ven­tures?

The dis­cus­sion revolves around a ques­tion many young artists are grap­pling with: How do you turn influ­ence into some­thing you actu­al­ly own? Is suc­cess dri­ven by tal­ent, per­son­al­i­ty or relent­less con­sis­ten­cy?

When Jaii Frais rais­es the ques­tion of what actu­al­ly defines an influ­encer, Spice takes things a step fur­ther. She invites sev­er­al influ­encers from the audi­ence onto the stage, turn­ing the con­ver­sa­tion into a spon­ta­neous moment of audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion.

”Get­ting fol­low­ers is not the goal. Own­er­ship is,” Spice tells the audi­ence, echo­ing the theme Shag­gy intro­duced ear­li­er. Wayne Mar­shall sums it up: ”Influ­ence can open doors, but entre­pre­neur­ship can build a house.”

Moments like this show that the IMC rarely feels like a rigid cor­po­rate con­fer­ence. Many times, the room is filled with laugh­ter.

Between pan­els, inter­na­tion­al DJs includ­ing Seani B from the UK and DJ Dr Doom from the US play rid­dims, while artists such as Kemar High­con per­form.

Every part of the Caribbean music scene gets high­light­ed. Even the dancers who help make dance­hall what it is, and who often dri­ve viral dance trends, get their moment to shine. Drift dancer Gab­bidon even attempts to teach vet­er­an enter­tain­ment exec­u­tive and IMC co-founder Sharon Burke a move.

Spice stands out not only for her pan­el appear­ance but also for her com­mit­ment to the con­fer­ence itself. She returns every day to sit in the audi­ence lis­ten­ing, learn­ing and ask­ing ques­tions along­side the oth­er atten­dees.

The Island Music Con­fer­ence is notably per­son­able. Atten­dees can get close to key fig­ures from the music and wider enter­tain­ment indus­try. From the way peo­ple speak on stage in their own dialect to the depth of the behind-the-scenes sto­ries shared, the tone remains open and direct. Pan­elists fre­quent­ly move beyond rehearsed talk­ing points to share per­son­al expe­ri­ences, shar­ing their suc­cess­es but also their mis­takes and loss­es.

Moments like Stephen ”Di Genius” McGre­gor describ­ing record­ing ses­sions with Mava­do while still a teenag­er, or Lila Iké reflect­ing on attend­ing Gram­my Award events, bring a rare behind-the-scenes per­spec­tive to the audi­ence. Lila recalls how sur­prised some peo­ple were to see her pre­sent­ed as a reg­gae artist, high­light­ing the per­sis­tent expec­ta­tions around what a reg­gae per­former is sup­posed to look like.

Equal­ly valu­able is the chance for atten­dees to ask direct ques­tions, some­thing not always pos­si­ble at larg­er inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences.

Com­mu­ni­ty build­ing is at the heart of the event. Net­work­ing hap­pens not only dur­ing the pan­els but through­out the evening pro­gramme. The Chairman’s Din­ner, the Island Vibe Show­case for emerg­ing artists and a ded­i­cat­ed film night cre­ate addi­tion­al spaces for con­nec­tion.

Edu­ca­tion also extends beyond the stage. Dai­ly song­writ­ing work­shops give young pro­duc­ers, singers and song­writ­ers hands-on oppor­tu­ni­ties to net­work, col­lab­o­rate and devel­op new mate­r­i­al.

The con­fer­ence aims to pro­vide a holis­tic view of the music and enter­tain­ment indus­try and con­nect the dif­fer­ent parts of it. Pan­els cov­er top­ics rang­ing from cre­ative prac­tices and per­for­mance to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, brand­ing, man­age­ment, media and mar­ket­ing, pub­lish­ing, stream­ing rev­enue and book­ing strate­gies.

Beyond prac­ti­cal advice, the dis­cus­sions also raise broad­er ques­tions that the indus­try is still grap­pling with. From how Caribbean gen­res are rep­re­sent­ed and how to get their own cat­e­gories at major insti­tu­tions such as the Gram­my Awards, to how emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies like AI may reshape music cre­ation and rights own­er­ship. Many of these con­ver­sa­tions point out chal­lenges that don’t yet have clear-cut answers.

Con­ver­sa­tions around men­tal health in the music indus­try also sur­face repeat­ed­ly, reflect­ing the grow­ing aware­ness of the pres­sures artists and indus­try pro­fes­sion­als face.

The line­up reflects that breadth, fea­tur­ing fig­ures such as soca leg­end Ali­son Hinds, dance­hall artist Rajah­Wild, hiphop pio­neer San­dra ”Pepa” Den­ton, mul­ti-plat­inum record pro­duc­er Major Sev­en, artist man­ag­er Rome­ich and indus­try vet­er­an Tuma Basa.

At times, the sheer vol­ume of infor­ma­tion or tech­ni­cal jar­gon can be over­whelm­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly for younger artists still find­ing their foot­ing on the busi­ness side of music. Yet there is always at least one valu­able take­away for every attendee.

Much of that momen­tum comes from the team behind the con­fer­ence. Co-founders Shag­gy, Sharon Burke and Judith Bod­ley con­tin­ue to refine the event year by year.

Cred­it is due to the entire IMC team who work tire­less­ly behind the scenes. Sched­ul­ing can still run slight­ly behind at times but the organ­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to improve each year.

Even when last-minute dropouts occur, the team man­ages to main­tain high-qual­i­ty and infor­ma­tive pan­els, some­times with co-founder Judith Bod­ley step­ping in to host her­self, bring­ing an ener­gy and indus­try insight that often ele­vates the con­ver­sa­tion.

Four years in, the Island Music Con­fer­ence is still evolv­ing. But its core mis­sion is clear: to strength­en con­nec­tions across the Caribbean music indus­try glob­al­ly, while giv­ing artists the tools to claim own­er­ship of their work and unit­ing pro­fes­sion­als to build a more sus­tain­able future for Caribbean music.

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