On the way to attending “East of Flatbush, North of Love” event at the Caribbeing House, we were able to interview Karlene, the owner of Golden 7 Music Enterprise at the Flatbush Caton Market in Brooklyn. As someone who sells Caribbean music CDs, she was able to tell us about her business, the role of the music she plays in her shop in bringing outsiders to the market, and a bit about the history or Caribbean music’s entrance to New York City.

Note: This transcript is based on notes taken from the interview and an audio recording of a part of the interview. Some parts were inaudible over the loud music in the background, so they are loosely transcribed from memory. The audio clip of the interview can be found below the transcription.                                             ‘[…]’ is used to denote parts of the audio that I could not understand well enough to transcribe. The audio can be found below the transcript.

Ahalya: What genres do most people who come here buy?

Karlene: Reggae and soca. Soca is from Trinidad, it’s played every Carnival around February. We sell gospel, R&B, chutney. It brings all kinds of people.

Ken Williams, the man in red [referring to a photo displayed in the shop], is the one who brought reggae to New York City. Then from there other islands came. [Ken Williams] lives in New Rochelle now. My husband was friends with him, he was just a young boy. He passed away two years ago.

Ahalya: Is it mostly people from Brooklyn who come here?

Karlene: No, people come here from all over the tri-state area. I have clients from upstate, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

Ahalya: Do lots of non-Caribbean people come here for music too?

Karlene: Yes, all kinds of people come here. They hear the music from the islands and then they come buy. Bob Marley especially, everyone knows him. There was a [Chase] commercial with Mr. Lover, Lover, Shaggy. My husband knew him, but he never got to hear Shaggy’s music playing on TV.

Ahalya: How does music play a role in bringing people together in the Caribbean?

Karlene: Music plays a very important role, music is universal, it brings people together. People hear the music from outside and come to the market.

[Karlene begins to tell the history of the market place]

Una Clarke, she was the council member and she came with up with the idea to have a space for small business people. She got [the market] going. Her name is on the building. She was council member for this district, Dr. Una Clarke. Her daughter who is congresswoman Yvette Clarke, so they really did help. We have a diverse business vendors from the Caribbean, you know.  And if you walk around you will see around there Little Haiti […] I am the one with music and the car accesories because in the Caribbean, you know the Caribbean people, they love to see their cars really nice in the summertimes. So we have covers from different Caribbean islands, Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, Panama, and of course the mats […] So music helps all of us here because the way how it’s built you really can’t see, so people here the music and they come in. And from coming in they will say “wow”, you know? They see a lot of different thing. And you see we have restaurant here so we have a barber shop, We have children clothing, we have of course amazing spices from Haiti so there’s really a diverse business being represented. […] It’s all under one roof. We can dress you, we can feed you, hear some music, and you’re on you way.

An audio clip from the interview: