PREPARING to make Bermuda the first stage in the "50th birthday of reggae", Jamaica-born Donovan McCoy is running all the time, from Dub City to multimedia studio and back again.

His Bermuda-based businesses, Dub City and Palm Rock Entertainment, keep music in the family, where it has been for generations, including his grandfather, Evan Hamilton, whom Mr. McCoy calls "a very talented guitarist" and his uncle, who first got him interested in music.

Mr. Donovan first came to Bermuda in 1986, and sees the island as a base for his future plans, including the start of a world-wide reggae jubilee, and starting a reggae television channel from Bermuda.

When photographer TAMELL SIMONS and reporter VICTORIA ROBERTS went to see him, he didn't just talk; he played music and made up some beats for the interview.

Q: How long have you been involved in music?

A: Music has always been my escape from everything. I can just put on a Bob Marley or Beres Hammond, put somebody on and just free my mind. Reggae music is an escape for a lot of people. I wondered why reggae music was so powerful, so what I've done is figure out my spirit, and write lyrics. I can arrange, I can edit . . .

My mama says I'm jack-of-all-trades, master of none, but I don't really want to master a trade. I want to scuffle around and find where my talent really lies.

Q: Do you play any instruments?

A: I don't play an instrument; I write. The first time I hear a record, I listen to the words before I listen to the beat. The beat means nothing to me, 'cause we make beats every day, like bm-ff-ba-ff-bm-ff-ba. That's a beat. You don't know; that can be a million-seller beat!

Q: How do you know it's the 50th birthday of reggae?

A: I've been researching it for the last ten years, but my uncle is a great music engineer in Jamaica, and he sort of brought me into the music business. Just before my grandfather died, we had a good conversation one day, and I asked him how this music really started.

In the late 1930s, when Jamaica used to be under Britain, they didn't have any instruments, so they made guitars and they started to beat drums. The African beat is one-two-three-bom. They would sit up in the hills and meditate and read the Bible, beat their drums and build a vibe. In the '50s, they started listening to a lot of old classics, like Pat Boone and jazz music, and they started to play a music called quadrille. It then led up to what you call ska. Ska is a fast-beat music similar to R&B, or hip-hop in modern music. Reggae never really came about until the music had been going through ska, then rock-steady from at least 1958 to 1962. In 1962, they started to tone it down a little bit and have it slow, and that's when reggae comes along.

Q: How did this music start to get organised?

A: Studio One was producing a lot of music. It still wasn't breaking because reggae could never be heard on the radio. They came up with this brilliant idea: let's build a big sound-system, speaker boxes, and an amplifier. That was in 1962 (the year of Jamaican Independence), 1963 . . .

They took these big speakers all over the island of Jamaica and started playing. It brought out a big crowd because Jamaica hadn't seen anything like this before. It was cultural change, social change; it was resistance to Britain.

Then, in 1964, Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, signed Bob Marley and the Wailers to do an album.

Eric Clapton sang over I Shot the Sheriff, and people started to listen and think, "Who was this great writer, Bob Marley?" and started to look into this group, the Wailers.

At the same time, Chris Blackwell dropped Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff album, and it flew through the roof. And that's where the music really took off. Some big early names were Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, Millie Small, Prince Buster and Elton Ellis.

Q: Who are some of the people you want to thank on this birthday?

A: Chris Blackwell does an excellent job. We want to honour him that night. One of the other main people I want to honour is Mr. Coxone Dodd, of Studio One. I really want to thank all the Europeans who helped make our music, all the Americans, the Bermudians.

I would love to meet Eric Clapton, 'cause he helped to make our music big. I would love to meet UB40. Anybody who tried to contribute to the music. Our family at Dub City and Palm Rock here is putting in the money. We work very hard to put this show together with American Airlines helping us, sponsoring us, getting Mr. Beres Hammond and his group here. They did a good job last year. But it's a challenge. We don't really get funding for this, but when you look at the history of reggae, it really deserves a birthday bash.

Q: What else are you going to do to celebrate the birthday?

A: As a matter of fact, the party is just starting in Bermuda. In October, we're going to England to celebrate it. We're teaming up with JetStar Records in England. The CEO, a gentleman by the name of Carl Palmer, is another Jamaican immigrant who has really helped reggae in England. Mr Richard Branson, of Virgin Records, did a lot for reggae music, back in the late '60s. Reggae music was one of his first loves, before he bought big planes and cola and all that.

We're going to look at New York in November, for Thanksgiving, and then Jamaica on December 22. The party ends in Jamaica. Basically, the party's going to start in Bermuda and go around the world. My Jamaican colleagues want to tie in their December party.

Q: So there's no competition from Jamaica? Some kinds of music have people fighting over the tradition.

A: Reggae doesn't give that fight. Reggae shows love.

Q: But why not start the celebrations in Jamaica? What's so special about Bermuda?

A: My energy tells me I should start it in Bermuda. I'm all over the place, but in the '80s, I came to Bermuda to do a show at Spinning Wheel, with a guy named Tiger and the White Mice, and we had a lot of fun. When I got back to Jamaica, I said, "You've go to come and see this island!" But even before I came, you had guys like Beres Hammond, Dennis Brown and Peter Tosh who came here.

My grandfather, Evan Hamilton, told me a lot of things about Bermuda. He said a lot of Jamaicans came here in the 18th century, and they never came back to Jamaica, so if people start to do their DNA, we've got to find a lot of reggae DNA 'round here!

Q: Is it necessary to be Rastafarian to appreciate reggae music?

A: Reggae is Rasta, and Rasta is reggae. Reggae music is a meditation of freeing your mind. Reggae music is like Woodstock, back in the days when America was seeing changes, and we need to identify something. Reggae music is non-political. That's how reggae music was originally. It was just to free the mind and tell the truth about reality, about the struggle in the ghetto.

Q: What role do money and business play in reggae?

A: Because I'm married to a Bermudian, legally, I can live here and do business here, but I don't just want to live here and do business here; I want to create something that - when I'm past and gone - I've left it in history. Reggae puts food on a lot of people's tables.

Q: How do you feel about piracy?

A: I think it's disgusting to know that you're going to the studio and spending thousands of dollars making music and somebody's going round selling the music for two dollars. It's really hard to handle it. We want to say Stop! Go there and support the music, 'cause when you support that music, you put food on another man's table. So coming to reggae's 50th birthday bash is not about making money; it's about putting something back into the community.

Q: Dub City and Palm Rock are a family business, but do you take in young people and help them along?

A: We're grooming a lot of young people right now, young college graduates with new minds, new ideas, and they're listening. The DJs are listening, the writers are listening, the actors are listening. You can put all that into reggae.

Q: How do you want to see reggae develop?

A: The main challenge at the moment is to see reggae get its own TV channel. I did film-making at school in London. I did that because I want to see if I can use visual to express my music, because hip-hop's done it, and won.

Q: Where do you think this channel might happen first?

A: I think it's going to happen in Bermuda. If it happens in Bermuda, it's definitely going to get syndication rights. I'm talking to a lot of people right now, entrepreneurs, and this week, I spoke to someone in America about a reggae channel, syndicated from Bermuda. He said, "It's an excellent idea. Because Shaggy just proved it." When I accomplish that, I will go to rest. Maybe I will complete it in the next ten years. That's my main dream, to get our reggae music to the wide majority of people.

q Reggae Music's 50th anniversary workshop will be held on Wednesday, July 24. The venue will be advertised in the press. This event is free. Reggae Music's 50th anniversary will be held on Saturday, July 27 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) at North Village football field. For tickets, call 292-6775 or visit Dub City Records or 27th Century Boutique. Tickets are $55 in advance, $65 on the gate and $25 for children under 12.