Distributor consolidation: vital pipeline or diaspora gatekeeper?
One side
Big distributors as vital infrastructure
The other
Gatekeepers narrowing what reached shops
What was argued
Two documented readings of the big reggae distributors, stated neutrally: one sees Jet Star and VP as indispensable infrastructure that carried Jamaican music to shops across Britain, Europe and North America; the other worries that heavy consolidation let a few distributors narrow what reached the counter and which artists broke abroad. Neutral framing.
The records this concerns
Sources
Jamaica Observer; British Record Shop Archive; VP Records history