Karen Mason

Record executive, and one of the people inside the American majors during dancehall's crossover decade. Born in Reading, St James and raised in Brooklyn after her family emigrated in the 1970s, she worked at Epic, Columbia and then Elektra, handling marketing and artist development for reggae and dancehall acts under the label chief Sylvia Rhone.

The records that carry her work are Super Cat's Don Dada and the Elektra runs for Terror Fabulous and Nadine Sutherland, at the point where dancehall and hip hop audiences were being introduced to each other. Her stated concern through all of it was keeping the music recognisably itself while it was being sold to people who had not heard it before. She later moved into film and television production.