Canadian company banks on Jamaican talent

Toronto-based entertainment company 7 Gates Enterprise Records is determined to become a significant force in Jamaican music.

The company, which was founded in 2018, recently signed a budding new dancehall singjay called Keywee.

"We've been working with Keywee about a year now, and things look very promising. Most of the work that we've done with him so far has been in the area of artiste development and music production," said the vice-president of the company, Letchoy Welcome.

She added "We are currently promoting his first project for our label, a hot dancehall song titled Tickle. We dropped it in December. Since then we've been promoting it heavily, both locally and overseas. I recently visited Jamaica to supervise the filming of the music video for Tickle. This video will be released before the end of March."

7 Gates Enterprise Records is a full-service entertainment company which offers a variety of services, including artiste management, music production, and copyright management.

"We've noticed that professional artiste management is something that's not abundant in the Jamaican music industry. We've also found out that a lot of artistes do not know about copyright or publishing. We plan to change that. All the artistes that work with us will be protected. We will manage their careers in a manner that will bring them success not just locally, but also internationally," said Welcome.

Although the company plans to sign other artistes, Keywee's career is the main focus right now.

"We're investing a lot in his career because he's very talented and we believe that he has the potential to be a big star. As soon as his career takes off, we'll look at the possibility of signing new acts," she said.

The founder of the 7 Gates Enterprise Records, Patrick Welcome, originally hails from Clarendon. He is also the owner of the popular Toronto-based sound system called Quantum.