Savage Entertainment CEO shares his journey into dancehall
Published:Friday | June 16, 2023 | 1:24 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
Last Tuesday, dancehall artiste Suspense signed a three-year album and management deal with Savage Entertainment at the ROK Hotel in downtown Kingston.
While the lyrically competent Suspense is well known, having been crowned Magnum Queen in 2017, and then making further headlines when she briefly embraced Christianity and then returned to the dancehall, Savage Entertainment CEO Michael Midkiff, by comparison, is an unknown element. But Midkiff, too, has an interesting story.
In an interview at the signing, Midkiff was introduced as a US-based entrepreneur who started investing in dancehall music last October. He has so far assembled a group of talented, up-and-coming artistes for his label and is still scouting. Supreme Promotion’s Isaiah Laing is the outfit’s musical director.
Midkiff shared that he has been coming to Jamaica for a long time and really loves reggae music but he never had any intention of getting involved at this level until a chance meeting with a barber named Jah Chief last October while staying at Tryall. He was walking through Montego Bay when Jah Chief saw him and said, “You need a hair cut.” Midkiff agreed.
“He was cutting my hair, and we got talking. He told me that he was a great football player here in Jamaica and he had gotten a scholarship to attend the University of Tennessee to play football, but he got injured, so they renounced the scholarship. But he didn’t give up. He was resilient, and he got involved in music. Hi story just resonated with me. “One year ago today I had a stroke. I couldn’t use my left arm, left leg, or anything. I couldn’t talk very well either ... my face was drooping. When he told me his story in October, I was on the comeback myself, and I just felt it. I told myself that I just had to help this young man. And that’s how I got into the music business,” he explained.
Midkiff is talking the good talk, sharing that the contracts that he has signed with the artistes are “transparent” and that he wants to see them all attaining their optimum.
“Their success is my success.”
His foray into the entertainment business up until now had been at the level of investing in some independent films in the United States.
“I have always loved entertainment. I had always loved the business, but I did not ever envisage myself standing here today talking with you about being the CEO of Savage Entertainment.
“Part of it is that when I had the stroke and I lay in that hospital bed and I couldn’t walk and could barely talk and I couldn’t use my arm, it gave me a new perspective upon my life. And I was never one to waste time to begin with, and I am not wasting any time. I am going to go for their dreams, and we are going to do everything I can to win.”
Midkiff shared why he has signed Suspense, who is so far the only female in the camp.
“The one thing that really impresses me about Suspense is that she is an educated woman, and she is very humble, and her work ethic is second to none. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke. She just wants to work, and she wants to be a winner, and that’s what we are about at Savage Entertainment,” Midkiff said.