Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

Putumayo World Music is a leading pioneer in the music industry and has set its sight on the Caribbean landscape.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Putumayo has experienced remarkable growth. With two offices in the Caribbean, Putumayo's Caribbean CDs include Caribbean Party, French Caribbean and Caribbean country themes like Jamaica, Cuba and Puerto Rico. There are also children's CDs such as Caribbean Playground and Reggae Playground.

The company was founded by Dan Stroper in 1993 and has grown to expand across the world finding new talents and exposing different cultural music to the masses. Publicity manager for Putumayo, Yann Perrigault, told The Gleaner, "Putumayo was the name of a store owned by Dan Stroper, in the store he would play some random compilations and people who would walk into the store would be more interested in the music than the clothes.

"So he started to think about it and after so many people asking him about the music that's when the whole concept of Putumayo came to his mind. He gave up the store and started Putumayo World Music, and since the first year we sold about 45, 000 copies of CDs. Fifteen years later we're about 20 million."

Putumayo distributes the best in jazz, Latin, reggae, French, Italian, Arabic music - every compilation is by theme, example The Caribbean, French Cafe, Jamaica. One of the best sellers across the border is a CD from the Caribbean entitled Cuba. The CDs usually feature new and established artistes - the best of the genres.

Motto

"As long as the music is good, the lyrics are good we just go for it. The main motto of Putumayo is to guarantee that people feel good, that's what we're trying to do by bringing cultures, languages together through the music," he said.

Putumayo also caters to children with Putumayo kids, a line of children's music by theme to bring knowledge, culture and different languages as a teaching tool. From each compilation, a part of the proceeds goes to charities in different areas all over the world as part of its music-as-a-purpose theme.

According to Perrigault, Putumayo is focusing on its Caribbean market.

"We're trying to get as much airplay as possible. We're also planning to have a Putumayo tour in the Caribbean with a bunch of artistes featured on the compilations. This is our main goal for the next 12 months," he said.