Skengdon, Stowe celebrate ‘40th Anniversary of Digital Dancehall’
Hit songs by veteran artistes re-released in new era
Published:Tuesday | December 16, 2025 | 12:06 AM
Businessman and producer Kenneth ‘Skengdon’ Black has teamed up with entertainment consultant Maxine Stowe for the re-release of the Skengdon label catalogue with several key singles to mark what they dub the ‘40th Anniversary of Digital Dancehall’.
“The 40th Anniversary of Digital Dancehall is a phrase coined by us. The Skengdon catalogue is the icing on the Digital Cake. The historical impact of the Skengdon era lies in its significance in establishing the digital dancehall era, being a leading label, and sound system platform with the synergistic launch of Stereo Mars with ace selector and producer Danny Dread,” Stowe said.
She highlights the importance of the Stereo Mars sound system as one of Jamaica’s first fully digital platforms, and Black’s establishment of SSL Studios in Miami, which followed his work with Inner Circle Studios and Roger Lewis.
The Skengdon catalogue’s reissue is distinguished, she adds, by “amplified investment in studio and equipment technology” featuring engineers Oswald ‘Chunnie’ Palmer and Bunny Tom-Tom of Channel One fame.
Recent re-releases include Junior Delgado – Stranger; Gregory Isaacs – Talk Don’t Bother Me; Echo Minott – Familiar Face; and Leroy Smart – Musical Don. These follow the international rollout that began in May with heavy-hitters like Tenor Saw ( Wake The Town); Sugar Minott ( Ghetto Child); Frankie Paul ( Sizzlin’); and Winston McAnuff ( Electric Dread).
BLACK AND STOWE: THE SYNERGY
Black and Stowe are two seminal figures in the history of dancehall music and their collaboration runs the gamut from politics to music to community organisation and mobilisation from Jamaica to the diaspora. Politics gave the framework, music carried the message.
Their diaspora experiences – in New York, Miami, and London – added another layer. In the diaspora, politics and culture converge differently. They encountered how Jamaican creativity was commodified internationally, and how communities abroad organised to protect and celebrate their heritage. This experience taught them the importance of building institutions that could hold their own in global systems.
“The re-release of the catalogue at this time in 2025 is strategic. It spans our musical relationship and my focus on the dancehall genre and museum project, where Kenneth’s seminal relationship with George Phang and his Powerhouse label and Sugar Minott’s Youthman Promotion Sound and artistes converge as an anchor, artistically and as a music community linked to Jungle/Trench Town and the Maxfield Park Division,” Stowe said.
In 1985, Black launched the Stereo Mars sound system and Skengdon Records, bringing organisational discipline and community vision into the digital dancehall arena. Stereo Mars’ début dance at Skateland featured Super Cat, Tenor Saw, Nicodemus, and others, while Skengdon’s catalogue soon showcased Cocoa Tea, Gregory Isaacs, and Junior Delgado.
These ventures were continuations of Black’s teenage role as a community organiser, only now amplified by speakers, studios, and vinyl pressings. Originally named Skengman from his early musical exploits, it was Stowe who upgraded the title to Skengdon, to project the label and brand.
For Stowe, the move from political science to music was equally natural. After attending Barnard College, she merged academic grounding in politics with cultural entrepreneurship. Her work with Sugar Minott’s Youth Promotion, beginning at Studio One in New York in 1979, reflected the same instinct for mobilisation and representation she had honed in activism.
By the late 1980s, as Stowe transitioned from collaborating with Skengdon, she began working with VP Records and Columbia Records, where her first artiste signing was Super Cat.
The Skengdon period coincides with Jamaica’s leap from analogue to digital, powered by Sly Dunbar’s digital drum systems, Casio-based rhythm sequencing and the emergence of the Sleng Teng Riddim, which redefined global beat programming
The project affirms Black and Stowe, not just as producers and executives, but as curators of Jamaica’s digital transition and global sound-system diaspora legacy.