ENTITY · PERSON (ARTIST, SELECTOR, PRODUCER…)
Maxine Stowe
Well supported
The A and R executive who put dancehall on major label rosters. Born in Kingston and raised in Long Island, she came to the music through politics and then through Rastafari, reconnecting in the mid 1970s with her uncle Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and helping build Coxson Music City in Brooklyn into an export hub for Studio One.
The break came at Sony, where a Spanish language reggae compilation opened the door, and from there she signed or worked Shabba Ranks, Mad Cobra, Patra and Diana King, the run that made dancehall a major label proposition rather than an import. She has also worked with Island and Motown, including Stephen Marley's digital duets project and Chevelle Franklyn's crossover single, and in later years advised Bunny Wailer.
At a glance
- Confidence
- Well supported
- Sources
- Jamaica Observer, "Creating reggae's framework" (10 October 2012), the second part of the paper's eight-part feature on women in reggae; Jamaica Observer, Howard Campbell, "Maxine signs, seals, delivers" (27 February 2022), a fuller later profile which is the source for the Sony, Island and Motown detail and for the Bunny Wailer advisory role.
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