Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter

Chuck Fendah does not try to make a living out of dub plates. - File

What! $40,000 for a dub plate? Although dub plates, customised records made exclusively for a sound system or selector, are a staple product of reggae and dancehall culture, some on the fringes of dancehall culture would never understand why anyone would spend this amount of money on one.

Ricky Trooper, 2006 'Death Before Dishonour' clash champion says "dub plates a di weapon whe you use fi overpower your opponent in a clash. But at the same time, it depends on the clash. You can have one where you can play pure 45s a shoot-out and LP songs, then for the more serious ones you have the specially built songs wha yuh call 'specials'. Dem song deh specially built for your sound and only your sound can play it".

A dub plate usually has the sound's name in it and will sometimes have saucy lyrics aimed at another sound system. An ordinary dub can be mass-produced, where only the name of the sound systems are changed, while a real 'special', as the name suggests, is specially built for the particular sound.

Expensive

Alhough a sound system may be lucky to get a dub plate for free, it doesn't happen often. On average, an ordinary dub plate starts at $20,000 and it doesn't take a second thought to figure out that a 'special' is more expensive.

Ricky Trooper says "The most important thing in the clash is the special. It can cost you all $100,000 to $150,000 fi a song and after it's all done you can't play it again in a clash. It's all about winning, because the more fame you get the more money you get ...

"With regular dubs, the artistes go out and give everyone the same song, so when you go to a clash and three or four man go and play before you then the dub don't have no effect when you go on to play it. But when you have a special you can sit and wait to go on-stage because when you drop dem bomb deh you know you going to defeat the others," he said.

Trooper says to prepare for a clash, he often spends more than he earns, but it's still worth it because of the audience's reaction and the international appeal.

"Sometimes you get paid $150,000 for a clash, but you end up all a spend four times that amount. If you check it, it mad you ... The thing is that outside of Jamaica, like in Japan and Europe, the sound man dem do so much research on the culture and the history of the music that the sound dem bad bad bad... The sound that win the World Clash was from Germany. Nuff a selector dem out here don't play nothing different, only the top 10 music, so if we not careful the European and Japanese going to take the music from we.

"When you go overseas dem don't want to hear the same song dem. Dem want to hear something different and dem fraid fi ask a Jamaican sound fi play. So you have to go with your special dem. So the special dem important and not so much the dubs," he said.

Sound systems that aren't clashing sounds are usually referred to as juggling sounds, but they too understand and rely on dub plates to excite their audiences.

Matthew Gray of Coppershot, says "For clash sounds, dubs are your lifeline. If you're a juggling sound you can get away without doing too many dubs ...With dubs, you are able to differentiate yourself. The sound will want to be different than everyone else who is playing the ordinary 45s".

Promotional issue

Gray also said Coppershot does a lot of dubs, but he is also aware that other sound systems will have the same ones given to them by the artiste.

He says "If an artiste just wants to promote his song, then he is just going to go and give the song to every sound so it can get more play and get mileage out of it".

Pepsi from Renaissance Disco says "Artistes will come and give a lot of dubs. It's really because they understand that one hand washes the other. The young artistes will want to buss and the current artistes want to keep their names out there."

Deejay Chuck Fender says he does dubs because it helps to pay the bills and also for promotion.

"It is like a promotional thing really. You have the thing that you do for the disc jocks and what you do for the sound systems. The thing is you get more respect when the sound man dem play your thing," he said.

He says he does a countless amount of dub plates per month, but he doesn't have a set rate.

"It depends, because it's like a second kind of earning fi certain artistes. It can help you to pay certain bills, but like me, me naw stress the dub plate thing fi live off it," Fender said.

Underground audience

Artiste Chino does dubs because it helps to secure his underground audience.

"It's because of a thing name underground. Radio is good, but you have to have the underground as well where the people get the opportunity to hear a different version of the song they love," he said. "The money is also good sometimes. There is no set rate, but it depends on the negotiations between the two parties. Overall, dub plates are necessary in dancehall culture because it is there for promotion, and it's something for the underground.

He says he finds himself doing almost 20 dubs per month.

"I find myself doing a lot for radio, but I don't ask them to pay me, because I think that would be disrespectful. They are already giving their support playing the music, so I won't ask for any money ... On average, I do probably 15-20 dubs per month, and some of them are for people outside Jamaica. I have the myspace website where the sound men can reach me. You have people from the U.K., Brazil and all over," he said.