Brains behind soca

stars

by MICHELLE SPRINGER

SHE'S THE BOSS and has the final word

on whether some of the hottest acts of Crop-Over appear on stage.

Santia Bradshaw and her team at Pyramid Entertainment help to make sure that artistes like Li'l Rick, Peter Ram, Mr Dale, Biggie Irie, Edwin, Khiomal and krosfyah are seen live and direct by their fans.

Bradshaw sits at the helm of one of the leading entertainment companies on the island, which provides a range of services for artistes, including management, bookings, artist development, music video and documentary production, among others.

While she says that being a female in a male-dominated sector doesn't wield the power that ability does, she concedes nonetheless,that femininity plus professionalism is an irresistable and invincible formula.

"There isn't really any advantage in being a woman in this end of the industry. Being female may help sometimesin getting things done because some people are more receptive to a woman in business but that'll only happen if they see that you're serious about what you do and you show that you understand the business," she said.

"If half of my artistes didn't believe I knew what I was doing and half the promoters didn't believe I was being firm in my beliefs about how artists should be dealt with, then they wouldn't have any respect for me. So that has nothing to do with being a woman or being a man. That has to do with knowing the field well enough to be ableto represent the people you've been given the opportunity to represent," she said.

Bradshaw is also an attorney-at-law and recently made her debut into politics, followingin her father Delisle Bradshaw's footsteps.

She is the Barbados Labour Party candidate for St Michael South-East, a seat formerly held by her father, and is considered familiar territory.

In fact, she was born in 1976 when he wonthe seat and to this day, several people therecall her "little sister".

"I was always at political meetings with him . . . . We always talked about politics, helping people in the community service then that was what I was encouraged to do," she said, indicating the value

of having a strong support network in her family.

Having created a much needed niche in the industry, Bradshaw has seen the complexities of being involvedin the seasonalCrop-Over Festival.

"I'm not thinking about the competition in the way I would have thought about it before. Yes the music is driven by competition because the structure of our industry is such that if a song is in the top 15 songs and it's tied to a particular radio station as a sponsor, deejays are going them single out and play them. But that's for Barbados, but what often happens is we promote our music to the rest of the world via the deejays and they make the choice as to which the songs they actually consider to be really good songs coming from Barbados," she said, stressing the structure at Pyramid Entertainment did not rely on Crop-Over to makeor break the artiste.

"Our focus in Pyramid is not on the Crop-Over competition or what comes out of the competition. Many artistes have won crowns and have gotten no work because of it.

"We take a different approach. If the qualityof music is good it will be able to withstand getting rotation on other stations," she said.

As an example she cited Biggie Irie who went into competition in Trinidad in 2006 and won [the Groovy Monarch title] which helped to catapult his career.

"Biggie is to this day getting regional and international bookings from this champion song Nah Going Home which gives him the platform to perform other songs not played locally, but in heavy demand further afield. Before Crop-Over, the song was popular so we didn't have to depend on it to make the artistes successful," she added.

Bradshaw also has strong views on the development of the island's cultural industries stating some of the challenges faced between Government and the cultural sector may be an overlapping of boundaries.

"Difficulties arise when an organisation that had a mandate to develop culture evolves into a profit making entity, where the business development component of the organisation asks the public to submit comprehensive proposals and business plans for cultural and entertainment ventures and then in turn uses the ideas, changes the names and develop them into a money making ventures for itself. It's not like it's a private enterprise with a confidentiality agreement," she stated, adding when such situations occur they pointed to potential conflicts of interest as well as ethics.