Rockers International record shop

Well supported

Augustus Pablo's record shop at 135 Orange Street, Kingston, and the retail face of his Rockers International label — the oldest surviving record shop on the strip and a destination for collectors of roots, rocksteady and dancehall vinyl from around the world. Shops like it were not only outlets but filters and meeting points: where a producer sold his own pressings, where selectors heard what was new, and where a record's reputation was made. Pablo founded it with his brother Garth Swaby to sell the family's own productions, and it is kept today by his son Addis Pablo with Ainsworth "Mitchie" Williams behind the counter. The founding year is unsettled — the archive's editor gives 1976, LargeUp 1978 and The Vinyl Factory 1979 — and no start date is recorded here until a source close to the shop settles it. The address had music in it before Rockers arrived: 135-135A Orange Street was Leslie Kong's Beverley's, record shop and ice-cream parlour, until his death in 1971.