Producer and director Dameon Gayle making documentary about experiences in the music business

Having learnt various lessons in the music industry, Dameon Gayle wants to give a voice to colleagues facing challenges. The music producer and recording artiste, who is currently disputing the digital music distribution of his catalogue, is working on a documentary to shed light on the contracts he and peers have entered into over the years. “A lot of us as creatives are looking at things short-term and not long-term,” Gayle shared on a break from filming the latest vignette to be included in the doc. “The contracts [being signed] use long-term jargon that we are not paying attention to. We are looking at the money we are getting now, and not at what our creativity and intellectual property means for the future,” he explained of oft-misdirected focus.

Admittedly, not fully comprehending the fine print of the distribution contract — and with a desire to terminate his own arrangement made years ago — Gayle says he believes he has not received all the royalties and incentives to which he is entitled. He tells The Sunday Gleaner that he is now attempting to exit a five-year exclusive digital distribution deal with Hapilos, which he says ended in January this year. While he retained ownership of his masters, Gayle contends, “I gave notice I was terminating the relationship, and my lawyer later reiterated that position, but my catalogue continues to be distributed.”

Through this journey, he says he has discovered a community of industry folk whose circumstances in the larger music industry were comparable to his. “When I put out a video about the situation I am going through, I didn’t know there were so many people experiencing the same thing,” he revealed.

Already, almost 40 music industry peers, locally and across international borders, have made contact to share their personal experiences with music contracts involving various companies. Gayle says a much-called-upon producer and director behind seminal videos and songs for a slew of dancehall and reggae artistes, including Busy Signal, Konshens and Vybz Kartel, has reached out. “A lot of people are reaching out because they identify me as a [fellow] creative. There is this gap between the language of what they should do and seeing somebody create a safe space and platform for them to speak their truths,” he disclosed of the number of inboxed messages, texts and direct calls he continues to receive. “I have prominent industry people that have actually communicated with me. Some of them are trying to find out how they can walk the legal line because when it comes to the legal process in this industry, a lot of artistes are very intimidated by it. My thing is to level that playing field and create a way to look at it so they don’t feel overwhelmed,” he further detailed.

As of last week, Gayle indicated, “I have filmed a few producers and lawyers, but I am not at liberty to call any names,” given that while they signed on the dotted line to participate in the documentary, they are not yet ready to publicly comment. Of the doc now in progress, Gayle summarises, “What I am doing right now is documenting my real-life process in moments, not when me dead and gone for somebody to tell my story.”

And, in spite of challenges he is now facing, the 44-year-old music insider has never soured on the industry, noting that his work in the recording studio, behind the camera and on tours across the globe with Jamaican artistes provided him with his home and wheels. Recalling an emotional response of “crying over a keyboard the first time I played it”, the self-taught multi-instrumentalist started playing the drums at the Church of God of Prophecy in his Waterhouse community at 16. He would move on to the keyboards and then bass guitar. Gayle gave his signature rhythmic licks to drum kits in the house of worship for several years. That is, until he was “suspended from the church instruments” by his pastor. It came to light that Gayle was playing secular music, moonlighting with a band on the weekends on the hotel circuit on the north coast. “I was getting introduced to people in the music industry through the guys I played at hotels with, and I was just out in the world and seeing this whole other side of music I didn’t even know existed at the time,” he reflected.

Then employed for an electronic security company, he made the choice to leave that nine-to-five life to fully immerse himself in his creative interests in the music business. Gayle developed his professional reputation at the now-defunct Mikey Melody Studio, working first as an engineer and later a producer. “Most of the artistes used to come there,” recalled Gayle, who by this time had produced Ninja Ford’s Some Days and Wasp’s Unfair Officer, both runaway dancehall and reggae hits from 2010.

It was Gayle’s production work on these two songs that caught the ear and interest of Fantan Mojah. “I started recording with Fantan and had the knowledge to add the melodies and wrote verses for him, and then he came with Rasta Got Soul,” Gayle recounted of the recently departed singer with whom he shared a decades-long friendship. “Fantan is one of the best vocalists I worked with who has a natural chanting frequency, and he trusted me as a producer. Even when he was recording songs with other producers, he wanted me in the studio to help with melodies and thing like that,” Gayle recalled as a bittersweet smile made its appearance. “He was like family, because we had times we argued and weren’t talking to each other, and another time we would cook together. When you start touring with people for an extended period, a lot of vulnerabilities are there, and you have access to a human connection with them,” Gayle continued, noting that cherished memories of Mojah’s funny, authentic personality live on in his heart.

Dialling back on his prolific work as a producer, Gayle now handpicks projects only when he feels a deeper purpose exists. “I think I reached my peak in the music industry around 2019. I earned successfully from it, but for me, it’s always what’s next. I created top hit videos and hit songs and had been in Dubai touring with Busy Signal, and someone could recognise me from my work,” he shared of watershed moments. The arrival of the pandemic six years ago activated a long-buried desire for introspection. “It was a whole new experience because I think I was burying everything in the music, but I have not faced myself 100 per cent,” a ruminative Gayle noted.

His self-discovery journey saw him reading extensively and watching a lot of psychology-focused online podcasts, with author and psychologist Jordan Peterson and psychotherapist Carl Jung as two of his go-tos. “I am still learning, but one of the biggest things I have taken away was a lot of love. I learnt a lot about my childhood traumas and how a lot of us grow up in survival mode,” explained Gayle, who is the third of his parents’ four children. “We are sometimes not conscious of our upbringings and act off subconscious behaviours and learnt patterns from our environments and parents, and how you break out of that is where the challenge is because you have to confront versions of yourself you have not met,” he expounded on emotional truths he has had to reckon with. “I am definitely loving myself more and realising everything I am experiencing is me creating that reality, and I have control [over] how I react in every situation. I found I have anxious attachment, and whatever I never got from my parents I was outsourcing that from others and giving what I wanted to other people, not knowing I should give it to myself.” With a revitalised mindset, “it took me three years to go through different aspects of my psyche,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Gayle is a passionate advocate for Maroon Town and is committed to reconnecting with his ancestral roots. He is currently undertaking developmental projects in Quick Step, Trelawny. The Cockpit Country community was the hometown of his late father. “I have teamed up with Randy Griffiths of Pencils4 Kids, and we are pretty much trying to improve the environment there; we just completed a football field there.” He has also collaborated with Chief of Accompong Richard Currie for the annual Maroon Fest celebrations to assist with organisational and logistical support. Elsewhere, Gayle is immensely proud of a recent documentary, Jamaica Is, that he worked on. Commissioned by the Jamaica Tourist Board and directed by Gareth Cobran, Gayle disclosed, “It was my first job as a sound designer, and we went to all the parishes. I created all original soundtracks for it, and [I] am so pleased to see how people are responding to it.” There is also the recently released Kryptonite Rhythm, which he created and features Anthony B, Craigy T, Busy Signal and himself on the track.

Returning to his in-progress doc on his legal challenge to exit his music contract, he shared that it was important to settle his affairs. “What dawned on me going through the situation is that if I don’t take care of stuff now, who is going to take care of it when I am gone, because I am not going to live forever. I am looking to the future and my 10-year-old son who is going into the fifth grade and is a straight-A student. I have seen a lot of artistes in the industry who have died, and their families are fighting over their estates. This is my fight, not my son’s.”

The Sunday Gleaner reached out to Hapilos for comment. Shawn Jones, label manager for 21st Hapilos Digital Distribution Inc., shared the following response from Legal via email: “Hapilos does not make public comments on ongoing legal matters”.

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