Morrissey
Alex Morrissey is a talented 22-year-old looking to change the face of the music industry with fresh ideas about how to market Brand Jamaica. Not the typical young adult who wants to be onstage performing, Morrissey has ideas about marketing the Jamaican music industry internationally through his website, which should see him being part of the ‘Next Set’ of movers and shakers.
Where have you studied?
I attended The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where I completed a bachelor’s degree in industrial/product design.
Why this career path?
Music has always been a lifelong passion of mine and, more important, Jamaican music. More and more I found that I had a deep penchant for all genres of Jamaican music and so I sought to find a way in which I could fuse the talent I learned at college and my desire for Jamaican music. Here it is today, the Jamaicansmusic.comwebsite.
How was the process when you first started in this career field?
This was an intimate mix of gaining well-needed experience, challenge and juggling school to manage and develop the web development company that I started at age 17 in Miami. After gaining much experience from creating websites for clients, I decided to create my own music portal. Living abroad, I realised that it was increasingly difficult to find existing Jamaica music websites with the information and genres of music that I was looking for.
So I spent weeks doing extensive research and looking for content for my music site. I made mistakes along the way, but I also learnt a great deal that made me more business savvy and musically conscious of the type of content that people are looking for when they visit music sites.
What are you currently doing to further develop your ambitions for your career path?
The beauty about this field is that things are ever evolving and one has to adjust to keep up with the rapid advancements in cyberworld. For one, I know this is a very versatile, competitive and dynamic field, so I have several new and innovative ideas that I am working on to further entrench the Jamaican music brand and further propel my career advancement in Jamaica and, as a matter of fact, around the globe.
I have at least 10 things in the works that I am confident haven’t been done as yet, and won’t be done until I launch them. A perfect example would be the VDJ (Virtual Online Turntables for DJs) that was launched in July of this year. I took an existing product and created an online version, which mirrors one used in real life. Existing software is out there that you can download and add your songs to it and mix, but there is nowhere but Jamaicansmusic.com that you can mix 10,000 songs online for free.
Another is SongWrita, the first of its kind, a reggae/dancehall action game being launched on December 15th. These innovative ideas are what currently set me apart from anyone doing something similar.
What do you hope to achieve in 10 years?
Ten years, wow! I will be 32 years old in 10 years and I would hope to be retired by then. Being serious, though, I would like Jamaicansmusic.com to be the number one source for any and everything in Jamaican music around the globe, even to have more offices around the world and events. I want to branch out into every aspect of the music and entertainment industry and be heavily involved in helping established and upcoming artistes market and sell their music.
Also, with the current drive of using social media to leverage support for Jamaican music, I hope to have Jamaicans more appreciative of our music itself and the fantastic impact that it is having on other cultures around the world.
What drives and inspires your career path?
Truthfully, I drive myself, because I am pretty young, I always aspire to do great things. I know there is a great deal of pressure and different oppositions out there against young people, and that knowledge alone has always kept me on top of my game.
In addition, I get tons of support from my family, friends and fans on the site. My friends and family in particular always challenge and encourage me when I discuss a new idea with them. I would be out and randomly hear people talking about the site; I just smile and think to myself that I must be going in the right direction, and that pushes me more to keep current and to stay positive.
For the last three months, I was away in Asia on a ‘Reggae Tour’, basically visiting countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, to name a few, going to the reggae communities in the main cites, meeting the reggae artistes, doing interviews and promoting the site to a new audience, and the response to our music has been phenomenal. In Indonesia, I was invited to go on reggae shows on the radio and had my launch party, which was an incredible success. Only 200 persons were invited and 1,000 showed up! Police eventually locked it down because of the massive crowd of people pouring in.
What do you have to offer as the future of the next generation?
I hope I can be inspiration to the next generation. I am taking musical development to a fresh, new and exciting level in Jamaican history. It is being packaged for everyone, anywhere and at any time.
You can access Jamaican music the way you want it and have the option to mix it. My breakthrough has been online and I know without a doubt that the Internet and social media landscapes are changing daily, so the future generation can only improve on these existing technologies and utilise whatever existing framework I would have already laid to make Jamaican music more exciting to listeners all around the world.
Do you consider yourself to be revolutionary? How do you plan to change the game or your field?
I do consider myself revolutionary, because I have developed marketing techniques that have already shown incredible results. In less than six months I have seen the site grow to an outstanding 180,000 Facebook fans, and I continuously push out new ideas on prompting artistes and their music. So, in my eyes, I have already changed the game and now competition is going to increase and make it more challenging, but also drive me to make sure whatever they put out I can top.
In addition, the concept of the virtual turntable has not been utilised anywhere else in the world as yet, and within a few short months I have introduced this on my music site and it has been a huge hit among users. There are more revolutionary ideas to come.
Besides access to education, what do you think needs to be done in order to transform youth in Jamaica?
More access to technology, uplifting and positive lyrics. The youth in Jamaica are heavily influenced by entertainers. They can help by changing their style and bring more unity in the music biz.
Distinguish yourself from your peers.
Hmm … the major difference between me and my peers is that I never limit myself or my functional abilities to my age. I always think beyond the fact that I am 22.
Source: The Gleaner
