Bajan Artists Who Signed With Major Record Labels

So many Barbadians signed contracts with major international record labels in the 00s that the phenomenon was dubbed the "Bajan Invasion". #246Represent!

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Vita Chambers – Universal Motown Records and Universal Republic (UMG)

Photo by Kobie Mercury-Clarke. CC BY 2.0.

Vita Chambers signed to Universal Motown Records in 2009, on her sixteenth birthday. The label celebrated its 50th anniversary that year. As such, Chambers took part in a few of its celebrations.

She performed in the Motown Music Moment at the 2009 Soul Train Awards and during the “A Motown 50th Anniversary Tribute” at the 2009 NFL Thanksgiving Day Half-time Show, along with Barbadian labelmate Hal Linton. In an interview with James Taylor for his Supercreativity Podcast, Chambers called the Half-time Show her first major live performance. She was also one of the artists who sang the Motown 50th Anniversary Medley. Her Barbadian labelmates, Shontelle and Hal Linton, were also featured on the medley.

Chamber released her debut EP, The Get Go, in 2010. Tracks on the EP included her 2009 debut single “Young Money” and her 2010 second single “Like Boom”. “Young Money” appeared in the pilot episode of the 2012 TV series GCB. “Like Boom” is on the Universal Motown Republic Group New Music Sampler: Spring 2010 compilation promo album.

She was one of the opening acts on Justin Beiber’s My World Tour in 2010.

Like Shontelle, Chambers was one of the Universal Motown Records artists transferred to Universal Republic after Motown was shut down. When she was nineteen Chambers left Universal Republic and went independent under her own company, Gold Note Productions.

In the James Taylor interview, she called her decision to go independent “daunting”, saying that she was “petrified”. She recounted going to Universal Republic, by herself, and saying that being signed with them wasn’t working. Chambers explained that she’d been signed to two labels, gone through ten managers, and listed some “really horrible” experiences that she had as a signed artist. She said that these experiences “definitely bruised me and…chipped away a piece of my soul…”

Chambers released her first single as an independent artist, “Fix You”, in December 2012. It was nominated for Dance Recording of the Year in the 2013 Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Grammy Awards). She was also nominated for Best New Group or Solo Artist: CHR and Best New Group or Solo Artist: Dance/Urban/Rhythmic at the 2014 Canadian Radio Music Awards.

In 2014 she released the song “El Camino” for the FIFA World Cup. She was on the cover of Bim Rock Magazine in 2015 and returned to the island to film the music video for her single “Ferrous”. Her most recent release is 2021’s “Promise Land”.

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K.F. Cumberbatch
K.F. Cumberbatch
An avid reader who accidentally discovered her love and talent for writing and has loved movies for as long as she has been watching them. Stumbled into film-making and found her second love because she decided to read for a degree in it on a whim - kind of. Creator and producer of ZEITGEIST!

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