Millions of dollars in royalties belonging to Jamaican artistes who have passed away are sitting unclaimed in record company accounts, and the Government is taking action to ensure those funds don’t go to waste. The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport has launched discussions with key stakeholders to track down unpaid earnings owed to songwriters, performers, and their estates.
Portfolio Minister Olivia Grange disclosed the initiative during the Music Mastery: Empowering The Sound Industry workshop in Kingston, noting that many of these royalties are essentially “lost” because companies cannot locate the rightful heirs. “The major record companies, they all have funds; they have royalties where they cannot find a number of Jamaicans who are entitled to those royalties and, in some instances, the artiste [and] songwriter, they have passed on and they don’t know who their estate is,” Grange explained.
In a move that could reshape how Jamaican music legacies are managed, the Ministry has partnered with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell to research what monies are being held. Once the information is gathered, the goal is to negotiate with record companies to create a central pool of funds, making it easier to identify and compensate families or estates.
Importantly, Grange emphasised that unclaimed royalties that are never recovered may still play a critical role in the music sector’s growth. “When we gather the information, we are going to negotiate where those funds can be put in a pool and we structure an arrangement where we find persons, we find their estate, or funds that are seen as unclaimed funds and will never be claimed, to see how it can be put back into the industry to assist in the development of Jamaican music,” she said.
This initiative signals a major step toward safeguarding the legacies of Jamaican artistes—ensuring that their creative contributions continue to provide for their families or, at minimum, fuel the sustainability of the very industry they helped to build. It’s a reminder that in music, the earnings don’t stop when the music does—and neither should the responsibility to honour those who created it.
