Producer Stephen McGregor adds to his rhythm by playing his guitar. - File photos

Leaking songs into the streets has long been a practice of many entertainment personalities in all genres worldwide. In the dancehall, it is no different as artistes tend to leak songs in order to get a pre-hype. However, producers argue that releasing a song before its time could be detrimental.

A song often escapes the grasp of the producer before the product is complete, making its way into the dancehall, the Internet and even on radio. This practice sometimes gives the song an early hype while, at other times, it could have negative consequences.

Producer Shane Brown of Juke Boxx Productions admitted this has happened to some of his productions and believes it is a bad practice. He told THE STAR, "it's bad because when you put out a song it's better you have a plan for it than just have it out there, because there's a certain way you go about putting out a song. Sometimes the song gets out there before you're finished with it, so your project goes into the streets before it's ready."

For Brown, he tries to work in his own studio where it is less likely persons could get a copy of a song before it is finished.

A bad practice

Producer Shane Brown

Producer Stephen McGregor of Big Ship Productions said he doesn't experience a lot of songs getting out before the time, as he has developed an understanding with the artistes that he works with. To further prevent songs from getting out, McGregor said he has stopped giving artistes songs before they have been mixed, as it can often end up circulating on the Internet long before its time.

Jammy 'Jam 2' James said while it might be a bad practice, sometimes it has positive effects.

"sometimes it helps, it helps promote the songs. We probably might hold the song but then it gets out there and blows up, so sometimes I don't force the issue. The artistes usually have a copy of the song and they burn it and give it out at dances to try an get forward on it before the time," he said.

Affect sales

Gavin Blair, a producer with Equiknoxx Music, said there are two sides to the 'song-leaking' issue as, he explained, sometimes early releases of unfinished songs could be used as a promotion strategy to gauge reactions to the songs or to gain popularity. However, songs being leaked could negatively affect the sales for the song when it is available.

"Older industry guys use to do the same thing and call it 'test press', persons like Dave Kelly use to cut 45s before the songs were actually released and just kinda gave them to select people to get reactions. It can create a buzz for the juggling project. The only thing is that the Internet is more powerful, so giving to a select few could mean giving it to everyone, which is bad for sales."