Patrick City record label hopes to deliver positive material

Two brothers who own a record label in Patrick City, St Andrew, hope to change the negative stigma placed on dancehall music.

"Nation Cry started back in about 2012, when my brother and I both finished high school. At the time, we were sitting down, and we said to ourselves, the music need some positivity. We said the nation is crying, and not in a good way, and we wanted to change that. We wanted to do music that would uplift and motivate and make people cry out with joy," said Nigel Warburton.

He said the music produced by Nation Cry focuses on societal issues.

"We wanted to do things that people can relate to, but real, true and positive. We want to produce music that would talk about people's struggles, social issues, the things that matter. We just want to impact the music in ways dancehall isn't always known for. The genre already has too much of the other stuff. Too much of the guns, the sex, the murder," he said.

His brother, Orville Perry, said they have a list of topics that the label is staying clear of, and their regular collaborating artistes are advised as such.

Give people positive music

"Everyone we have worked with so far understands what we are about and are willing to work with it, and that tells me that there are artistes out there who want to give people positive music," he said. "But we really want to work with artistes like Mavado, Masicka, Alkaline, hardcore artiste dem weh people used to hearing certain things from. We want to show people that these artistes are capable of much more. We also want to show that the same music that is being blamed for a lot of stuff happening now can be used as the agent of change."

The brothers, who grew up in St Mary and Kingston, respectively, said it has always been their dream, since recognising their musical ability, to impact the local and international entertainment scene.

"We have been around now for about nine years as a label, and although we haven't had the kind of impact we want, we are going to do everything to make sure that changes. We want people to look at Nation Cry Music as a standard-bearer of positivity in the local industry, and we are going to work hard to make sure that happens," said Warburton.

The brothers released a track by dancehall artiste Proghres, titled World Crisis 19, in 2020 that is making its way to 100,000 views on YouTube. They also recently produced an inspirational track for dancehall artiste Gage called Word of Prayer. The video, which debuted on YouTube two weeks ago, is racing towards the quarter-million- views mark on the popular streaming platform.