Fifteen years ago Root Wave was a Saturday-night sound system, not a label. The idea of pressing our own dubplates as proper releases came later, out of frustration more than ambition — too many singers doing session work for a handshake and never seeing a royalty statement.
The move
Moving to Federal Way in the early years could have ended the label. Instead it split it in two useful halves: voicing sessions stayed in Kingston, where the singers and the sound were, while mixing, mastering, and the business side set up shop in the Pacific Northwest.
That split turned out to be the whole advantage. One foot stayed in the source. The other found an audience that had never heard of Root Wave and didn't care where the label was headquartered — they just wanted the records.
Fifteen years later
The catalog has grown past a hundred releases, but the model hasn't changed: artists paid the same month a record sells, masters sold exactly as they left the studio, and no algorithm deciding what gets heard. Slower than the alternative. Still the right way to do it.