World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Federal Records

Studio. Ska, rocksteady

Active
1954-1968

Federal Records on Marcus Garvey Drive was Jamaica's first proper recording studio and pressing plant, and without it, Bradley says, the new industry "would probably have been stillborn."

Ken Khouri, a Jamaican of Lebanese descent, got into the business, as he told David Katz, "just by accident in Miami," buying a disc recorder there in the late 1940s while taking his father for treatment. He recorded calypso singers in nightclubs, built a studio on King Street with his wife Gloria, and built the operation from there, adding a pressing plant that meant records no longer had to be pressed abroad. Producers with no studio of their own, which in the early years meant nearly all of them, booked time at Federal. Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, Leslie Kong, and Prince Buster all cut records there before they had premises.

Federal's other claim is to the invention of rocksteady. In 1966 Lynn Taitt and the Jets were recording Hopeton Lewis's "Take It Easy" at Federal, a session Winston Blake's Merritone label released, and Lewis could not fit the words into the ska tempo. He asked the band to slow it down. Gladstone Anderson, at the piano, is credited by several accounts with remarking that the new feel was rock steady.

Bob Marley bought the plant in 1981, shortly before his sunset, and it became Tuff Gong International, which still operates on the site.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Bradley says that without Khouri, his brother Richard, and Federal, "a music factory with everything from recording to label printing to high-capacity presses" under one roof (mastering aside), "this new industry would probably have been stillborn." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 45-46. The Rough Guide says Khouri launched Federal at 129 King Street in 1954. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 18. Bradley places Federal on Marcus Garvey Drive by 1957; Khouri himself dated the Marcus Garvey Drive studio and factory to 1961. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 41; Balford Henry, "Ken Khouri: Pioneer of Jamaican Recording Industry," Jamaica Gleaner, September 28, 2003, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20030928/ent/ent3.html.
  2. Khouri told the Gleaner he bought the machine for US$350 from a stranger at a Miami car-rental agency while his father was in hospital there. Henry, "Ken Khouri." Bradley dates the purchase of the secondhand equipment to 1949 and says Khouri moved it from his house to a St. Andrew nightclub and then to his King Street furniture store, where he launched the Times label. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 23-24. Graeme Goodall told Augustyn that he "threw a studio together" for Khouri "in the back of Ken Khouri's furniture store" on King Street, and that Khouri and his wife, Gloria, were Federal's principal owners. Heather Augustyn, "Goodbye Mr. Goody," SkaBook (blog), December 4, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/12/04/goodbye-mr-goody/. David Katz, "Ken Khouri: 'I Am Complete Pioneer in Everything,'" Caribbean Beat, no. 67, May 2004, https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-67/ken-khouri-i-am-complete-pioneer-everything.
  3. Bradley says that by 1954 Khouri had imported two record presses from America, but that local recordings still had to go to Miami, New York, or London for mastering, the step Bradley calls "the real key to record manufacture." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 24, 46. Khouri said he had first had records made from his discs by Decca in London, then bought presses from California and set them up at 129 King Street. Henry, "Ken Khouri."
  4. Bradley says "anyone who had a tune in his head could come to Ken to record it," and that Khouri extended credit to customers who could not pay up front. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 46. Edward Seaga told Katz that Khouri, who started "two years before me," was at first "more interested in calypsos and mentos," manufacturing "for the tourist market." Seaga, quoted in Heather Augustyn, "Ska Supporter Seaga Dies," SkaBook (blog), May 29, 2019, https://skabook.com/2019/05/29/ska-supporter-seaga-dies/.
  5. Bradley says Duke Reid began producing his own sessions at Federal in 1957, that Prince Buster's first sessions were at Federal, and that Leslie Kong took Bob Marley to Federal to cut "Judge Not." He adds that the engineer Graeme Goodall, during his long stay at Federal, "engineered practically all of Coxsone's recording before he opened the Brentford Road studios." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 41, 58, 129, 400.
  6. The Rough Guide says that when Lewis recorded "Take It Easy" at Federal in late 1966 for Winston Blake's Merritone label, "he asked the band led by Lynn Taitt to play the rhythm slower, because he was having difficulty fitting the lyrics over the ska-style rhythm." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 63.
  7. The Rough Guide says the pianist Gladstone "Gladdy" Anderson "remarked on the 'rock steady' nature of the slowed-down rhythm" and that "the new name stuck." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 63. In Bradley, Bunny Lee says the dance was already being called the rocksteady in the dancehalls in 1963 or 1964, "long time before they start making records called themselves 'rocksteady'," and Derrick Harriott credits Lewis's Merritone records with bringing the new beat to wider notice in 1966. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 161-62.
  8. Khouri said he returned from Miami in 1980 to get the company out of debt and decided to sell in 1981. Henry, "Ken Khouri." The Gleaner reported in 2026 that "Rita Marley completed the purchase of Federal Records" in 1981 (Bob Marley died that May) and that Tuff Gong continues to operate at 220 Marcus Garvey Drive. "Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowatt Hail New Era at Tuff Gong," Jamaica Gleaner, March 8, 2026, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20260308/marcia-griffiths-judy-mowatt-hail-new-era-tuff-gong.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map