Success brings 'death' to clash series

Mel Cooke, Sunday Gleaner Writer

In 2006, at the World Clash in New York, Garfield 'Chin' Bourne of Irish and Chin announced that the following year would be the last of the series. In its 10th year, it would be officially 'Game Over'.

"I knew what would be happening. I started to say to myself, 'What if the people realise last year's clash was not as strong as the one before?'" Chin said.

He was faced with rising costs from selectors and no sponsorship, as Irish and Chin refused to make changes, including cutting out the profanity used freely by selectors, which potential sponsors did not want to associate their products with.

"It was a no-no for us. We felt that we would be fake. We felt that we would be selling out then," Chin said.

Not that the sound systems they were hiring had a problem putting a large sticker price on their services. He freely concedes: "There came a time when we were struggling financially. The price for bookings started to go up by $80,000 each per year." Still, he says, "I can't blame this on the sound systems being greedy. At the same time, artistes started to increase their fees.

"You started to have a whole thing in the dub plate market called World Cup price."

poor sponsorship support

In that financial climate, Chin said, "We wanted to reach out to the big companies and keep it moving. However, nobody wanted to touch it because of the name 'Death Before Dishonour' - that was the excuse at the time." They tried to take the 'death' out of the title, bringing the event at Pier 1 squarely into the 'World Clash' fold. Then, Chin said, "The word 'clash' became a problem."

He admits that at one point, they tried to get the selectors to cut down on the profanity, but "none of them would work with us". Still, Chin said that he was making the request "against my better judgement". In any case, the selectors "said 'no, a mash up yu a mash up de ting'".

Irish and Chin made a decision. "We decided to take the authentic route to World Clash and ride the bus 'til the flat. We could have gone with the sponsors and got two spare tyres," he said.

It was a bad business decision and Chin knows it. "Keeping it in its rawest form hurt it because apart from Puma, nobody came on board. Everyone turned their doors - including Guinness," he said. However, with the Guinness Sounds of Greatness clash competition currently on, Chin is now second-guessing himself.

"I am not sure I made the right decision, because some of the same selectors are now competing in Guinness Sounds of Greatness," Chin said. And there can be no profanity in the Guinness Sounds of Greatness clashes.

In 2007, Chin said, he made up his mind that with Death Before Dishonour, "the minute I make it to 10, I am done; frustrated with dub-plate prices, frustrated with the attitude of selectors who, together, we made each other famous, some made it look like World Clash never did anything for them".

ungrateful selectors

He points out that, "we were paying good money, US$4,000 to US$7,000 to perform in the US". In Jamaica, the elite sounds were being paid $200,000 to $350,000, while the new sounds were getting a stipend and travelling money.

"I started to see they were not in favour of the sound clash but just themselves. I started to see selectors being ungrateful to us," Chin said.

He emphasised: "The event never declined ... . It was the things we had to deal with." That included winners not willing to come back and defend their title the following year.

So, in deciding to end the event, Irish and Chin's ultimate wish was "to make World Clash the greatest memory ever. Since there were the seeds (of a crisis), we decided, let's take it to 10 and go out with a bang. We wanted people to look back at a decade of great entertainment".

"You have to know when enough is enough. Being a successful business person is, I believe, knowing when to move on."