Our story
How it all started
Blackstory Entertainment originally started as ‘Rhino Records’ in the mid-90s by Mark Watson. His love for music came from a family of 3 brothers (who were all DJ’s including his Dad) and one sister. Growing up in the strong sound system era, it was soon apparent that his love for music would stem into something special.
At the beginning
Once started, It was mainly a label for DJ’s who took the time out to search for the ‘exclusive’ song on ‘white label’ vinyl’s as it was called back then. Rhino Records (as it was known back then) never had any official releases at that time but many DJ promos releases.
In 2000, the label decided to change the name to ‘Blackstory Records as it felt this match more what it represented. The name suited because there was always a story to be told somewhere in heritage.
Musical roots
Their music covered the UK DJ market as well as Japan, Germany, America, France and many more territories.
Although the music policy was mainly R&B, Hip Hop and Reggae, the label would sometimes venture into house music on some releases and gained some credible responses.
Media exposure
They’ve worked with local artists as well as established artists such as Tao Cruz, Sizzla, Luciano, Wayne Wonder, Kylie Minogue & Peter Andre’s producers and done business with labels such as Sony, EMI and Warner.
Some of our earlier artists included Hughie Crawford with a song called ‘Cars & Girls,’ Blackout JA, N.Q, ‘O Blit r-8’ was our first high budget music video which gained positions on some major T.V. networks such as MTV etc. Other artist include Yomi, Marley Dee, Difference, Flex to name but a few.
Music sales are dropping
From the period of around 2003, a strong digital wave was emerging with the likes of CD’s and mp3’s. This saw a major decline in vinyl sales and slowly but surely, it hit the labels as well as hundreds of record shops around the country.
Our last release hit the shops in 2006 on vinyl and this would mark a little break in the music industry for Blackstory Records and no more releases until 2012.
DJ Calling
During this break, Mark Watson went back to one of his gifted talents. The DJ booth and started playing in clubs around the county. Then in 2009, landed a contract with Zante’s (Greece) top urban club ‘Waikiki Club’ where he spent the next 9 years.
New artists
In 2011, the music industry was starting to make a comeback after many closures, loss of jobs and record companies going down the pan. It was a new era for digital music!
In 2012, we decided to go with our 1st single in 6 years by an artist called ‘Sasha Brown.’ Despite the fact of the song being good, the marketing strategies for music had taken a 360 turn and the major changes placed a strain on the single as well as the industry to trying to find its feet.
2013 saw a fresh change for Blackstory Records with a new name of ‘Blackstory Entertainment Ltd’ which was now considered a fresher updated name to meet the present climate as vinyl was pretty much gone. This would suggest that we have a ‘360’ approach to the music industry being involved in all areas.
With the like of new signings such as Fizzy Montana & Dinnall, this was going to be the start of our new face!
They have witness some success over the years including playlists on credible TV music stations such as MTV.
They continue on their journey with more releases due this year very soon.
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