As a sound system proprietor he had to have the latest music and a few exclusive. Coxsone Dodd struck up a business relationship with a few record shops in the United States that enabled him to have the very latest sounds in music in order to be competitive being as he was not the first to set up in the sound system business. Tom the Great Sebastian was Jamaica first sound system but Tom hadn't got the same business sense of Coxsone who was brought up in a family business environment. Tom wasn't that keen on sound system competitions!
Coxsone Dodd had an astute business sense and he knew how to make money more than most sound system operators. Duke Reid was the only one who could put up a challenge to Coxsone Dodd. As competition between the sound systems began to take shape against other rivals like Duke Reid the Trojan and King Edwards, Coxsone Dodd began to pay regular visits the United States in order to set up importation of music for his sound systems. Coxsone visited US cities, such as Cincinnati, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and even Georgia searching for selected exclusive music!
| | Rivalry between the sound systems became so intensive that it even led to the scratching out title, names of the artist, and other details from off the record label that was the most requested tunes by the crowd. Most of the records disc jockeys played on sound systems were often never on general release to the general public Proprietors often renamed record label with titles to preserve their elitism of their import records for competitive purposes and make sure another sound system operator could not even purchase the records because they had no idea what the name of the records was! |
