Rudy Grant's "Lately" on new three-CD compilation
Stabroek News
July 16, 2002
He has stopped singing, but Guyanese international recording artist, Rudy Grant has once again made it big. He is one of 35 reggae artists to have a hit featured on a three-CD compilation produced in the UK.
Grant's song is a remix of "Lately" made popular by Stevie Wonder. He first sang it in the 80s.
Some of the other artists featured on the compilation, which is produced by Deca UK Dance and dubbed Dynamite Reggae Classics, are Bob Marley, Dennis Brown; Boris Gardener; Jimmy Cliff; Beenie Man & The Taxi Gang; Althea & Donna; Sophia George; Shabba Ranks; and Toots and the Maytals. The artists, except for Grant and another, are from Jamaica.
The deal for Grant's song to be on the record was struck with the company by his brother, Eddy Grant through a company owned by the brothers in UK.
He told Stabroek News in an interview that he did not know what he would make from the song being on the hit list, as everything depended on what the budget was in putting together the complete album of 35 tracks. He said that the album could have cost as much as 300,000 pounds Sterling to put together.
Grant said that album has already been released in England and it is expected to be released around the world in the next couple of months.
"I do hope that it will do as well as other compilations that the company has released," Grant told Stabroek News.
According to him, compilations are done because record companies believe that they can sell all over the world. "This is so because many people will buy the compilation and get to know the hits which they did not buy when they first came out because sometimes you can only afford to buy one record a week. Record companies usually go after hit songs, to make up their compilation," Grant said.
He said that it was not easy to get onto a compilation if you did not have a hit, because everything was based on that.
"It is good to show the Guyanese artists that it is possible that if you make a good record it could go on forever and earn you money even when you are not making records," Grant said.
Grant said that it was very difficult to make records in Guyana when there were no investors in music in the country.
He said the reason that a lot of investors were not investing money in the music industry in Guyana was because copyright laws were not being enforced. "This means that you could invest US$10,000 in an album and from the day you bring it out it could be on the streets the next day [being sold] by pirates," he said.