Route 76 on the marketing highway

Route 76 is probably the best example of a group of young, Jamaican artistes who have latched onto modern ideas in marketing and promotion to win approval for their music.

Bernard "Mega-V" Wisdom and Nahgeib "Nags" Miller joined forces as students on the campus of the University of the West Indies, Mona in 1997. They have not only developed a unique music genre they want to unleash on the world, but also have developed the skills to use the most modern techniques in marketing and promotion to achieve their goal.

As Route 76, they have emerged as a relatively new group out of Jamaica, poised to join the list of accomplished performers. Their approach to the business is very uncommon ­ they write, produce and perform their own songs and their music is a fusion of blues, rock, R&B and hip-hop with a dancehall/reggae base.

"People find it difficult to place the music, but it's just a new thing, not hip-hop or just dancehall. It's for people who are looking for something fresh," said Mega-V.

They have support in producing their music from Queensbury-based musician Serami, from Daseca Productions. They do most of their work at the Katch-A-Korner studio in Cherry Gardens.

As co-owners of their own production and distribution company, Faculty Entertainment, they have absorbed all the new techniques available to independent companies and are using them to achieve their goal of creating music "that will transcend generations and impact on all cultures, irrespective of race or social status."

They see themselves in the future as the country's leading ambassadors of music, changing the way the world views our music, especially dancehall music.

Another interesting thing about the fellows is that they both hold down normal 9-5 jobs and work, at least, 20 hours per day juggling their dreams with their jobs. Mega-V works as a software engineer, while Nags is a geologist.

"We work 20 hours each day and sleep four hours. After work it is the studio, promotion, appearances or rehearsals," said Mega-V.

"If we were to have somebody to do the road work for us, we would want someone who would be able to be 100 per cent committed and not just work for a commission," Nags pointed out.

"But, music is our main love, so all our spare time and our salaries go into preparing us for the future," said Mega-V.

Mini-album

They have co-produced a superb mini-album, Detour, with four songs, which they are using as their vehicle to a label contract. They have also developed their own website, www.route76music.com.

Recently they saved up enough money so that Nags could travel to London and MegaV to New York to market their music to major foreign labels.

"We saved the money from our salaries and CD sales and bought the tickets. We got in touch with the record companies, went to them, personally, and offered our demos to their A&R people. We pounded the streets for days doing all the dirty work," Nags explained.

"They told us that they have never heard anything like this out of Jamaica, but they think we need to create a buzz at home before they would be more willing to take a risk with us," said Nags. "It will really take a considerable amount of money to promote us and that's why they would prefer established people. But we were very encouraged when they telephoned us from the company."

"Everything we do, we do our research first. We did the demos to a certain international standard and we used the songs that were most popular among the people who heard our songs," said Mega-V.

The duo use the Internet as a key marketing tool. Their website carries three photo galleries, a chat room, a message board and games and their music, hosted by soundclick.com, is available to be downloaded for free.

Soundclick also hosts top acts like the Backstreet Boys and Janet Jackson and carries an international Internet chart, which allows viewers to vote on the tops songs. All their songs, except one, made soundclick's top ten.

One unreleased soca song, Lah Lay Lah, went to number one ahead of Blu Cantrell's Hit Em Up Style (Oops!) on that chart. Their It's a Party was number six up to recently.

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