The deejay-driven,  bangin’ the hits, standing-room-only sound of SLAM 101.1FM has taken the airwaves by storm.

BROADCASTING

Some people are lucky enough to launch into their dream job or career from the moment they enter the world of work. Some never achieve it, and for others, it can take a while. For Habib Elias, it took over three decades.

Two years ago, on January 10, 2010, Mr. Elias’ radio station, SLAM 101.1FM, went live on air, and quickly became one of the most popular stations in Barbados. It was as if all of Habib’s pent-up creativity and passion for deejaying and popular music had suddenly found its natural outlet, producing a soundscape that makes it stand out among its competitors.

From the moment you enter the reception area of SLAM’s studios, located in an unprepossessing building at Haggatt Hall, St. Michael, you feel as if you are in a different world: walls painted in solid reds, blacks and greys signal the modern approach. A quick tour of the on-air studio reveals a deejay swaying to the beat, his announcer sidekick beside him. Both are standing, to keep the energy level flowing. No sitting down when you’re on air at SLAM. Large monitors show what’s going on in the news, the music scene and in sports, allowing the on-air personalities to be aware of any breaking story in news or entertainment.

In Habib Elias’ small corner office, he explains how he gradually achieved his goal of translating his love of deejaying, which he acquired as a teenager, through two other signature businesses to his present million-dollar-plus investment.

It is a story with broader meaning in the overall economic context as it is one example of a family’s transition out of a dying sector in Barbados, textile retailing, into a new one, broadcasting, which is part of the growing creative industries sector. 

As was expected of him, a teenaged Habib Elias went to work for his father, Fauzi Elias, the founder and owner of Everybody’s Store on Swan Street. He worked there for twenty years, deejaying on the side.

It was a very difficult time, he recalls, when he had to tell his father that he would not be staying in the fabric business. “People were travelling more and buying ready-made clothes overseas, not pants’ lengths and going to their tailor,” he says. “The world was changing and I could see it was not going to happen for me in the textile business.”

At the time, Everybody’s Store had a second branch, on High Street in Bridgetown. “We closed that store  and went on and created Bubba’s Sports Bar & Restaurant” he recalls. That was in 1995.

Habib named the bar after his younger brother, whom he had nicknamed Bubba after a wrestler they used to watch on TV. Bubba’s set a new standard for local sports bars, introducing multiple large screens showing different sports. It was an instant hit with tourists and locals alike, a popularity it maintains to this day.

Despite Bubba’s Sports Bar’s outstanding success, Habib felt the pull elsewhere. “It wasn’t really what I wanted to do - I wanted get into the music business,” he says.

The Elias family had kept the Swan Street flagship store going even after Bubba’s opened, until Habib could see his dad was getting too old to be working every day, and he did not see the business growing any further. “I had spent my time in that business, I had put in 20 years.” The decision was taken to close Everybody’s, giving Habib the chance to pursue his passion for the music industry.

Habib says the textile (fabric) business will probably always remain part of Swan Street’s allure, but it won’t be “like in the old days, with cloth flying all over the place.”

After six years into Bubba’s, Habib then went on to launch Club Xtreme. He was getting another step closer to his dream. “More music,” he says. “People still say Club Xtreme was one of the most beautiful clubs in the Caribbean - pure hype.” But he always knew it was going to be a short-term investment, “because my goal was always to own a radio station.”

He applied for a license and his dream, after over thirty years, was about to become reality.

From his experience with Club Xtreme he selected his Programme Director, Keron Hector (a.k.a. Scratch Master, who works on the morning show with Alex Jordan) and Patrick Bellamy (a.k.a. Salt). Mr. Hector, a highly-qualified programme director for another station in the Caribbean, use to come to Barbados  to deejay at the club. “I needed a ‘no nonsense’ person who could control the deejays and their egos and someone well-experienced,” he says.

The team was built around that hire and that of Andrew Denny, Technical Director. Starting with fifteen people, SLAM 101.1FM now has 25 permanent staffers.

But what was the station going to do to get its share of audience? Habib decided it would play pop/urban music and be deejay-driven. “SLAM was and is projected to be a pop/urban radio station,” he says. “Pop first. That is how we managed to penetrate the market within the first two years. All we were hearing in Barbados was either dub, reggae or soca.”  But with the age of iPods and smartphones, young people, he says, have been exposed to much more than the region’s music, “but we were not hearing it on the radio. So I knew there was a market there.”

He adds that there are two types of radio in Barbados, and SLAM is a deejay-driven one. “The other stations don’t really have deejays, he claims. “They have announcers who just pick the music, but it is not presented like a club or party scene. You have to have the talent for that.” 

SLAM also re-established what Habib calls the old traditional radio set-up - announcer and deejay - to work in three-hour shifts. It makes life simpler. The average shift at the existing stations was four to five hours a day. “The deejays will tell you it is horrible, it is brain-racking.” He claims most of his competitors are now following suit. “I am flattered to know they want to be like me,” he quips.

People with less entrepreneurship running through their veins might ask, why did Habib Elias create SLAM in the middle of the worst global recession since the Great Depression? “I was told I was crazy to do it,” he admits, but “I took that gamble, because I felt there was a weakness, and bam!, SLAM came in and fulfilled that weakness.

Why call it SLAM? “I was focussed on my vision of the music coming at you all the time, deejay-driven. I considered Jamming, but it sounded too reggae, then my son, Adam a.k.a King Bubba, said, “let’s SLAM them” (the listeners). That’s how it came about and everybody loved it.”

 SLAM 101.1FM features Alex Jordan in its 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. morning segment.  Habib describes Ms. Jordan as a “brilliant announcer who attracts the corporate listeners with her segments like ‘What Drives You Crazy’ and ‘No, But Seriously’. Although the music is young, they listen because they like the shows.” 

Ms. Jordan is followed by Lady NV (Natasha Bynoe) from 9 a.m. to noon. The audience’s age for the two segments is probably between 30 and 45, he says. From there it gets younger and younger as the day progresses. 

The bottom line, says Habib, is the club-style format. “They hear the music being delivered in a club-style, they hear the deejays mixing, scratching - they like that, instead of having to listen to every tune for four minutes - song after song cutting in and out.”

On the sales side, says Habib, there aren’t many layers to go through to get a decision. “SLAM is Barbadian owned and independently operated. I’m the boss, that’s it.  That way, I can knock off 30 percent of the rates out there, because I have the (less complex) structure. So I have forced my competitors to drop their rates, because they couldn’t compete,” he claims.

Today, he says, information is coming at people rapidly from all directions, and that is why SLAM doesn’t do news, apart from reading the latest headlines. Waiting until 4:30 to hear the news is passé, he says, as “you know the news already.” The announcers working in the studio have three TV monitors in front of them and can alert listeners to any breaking story or piece of news as it happens. And while he is happy that other stations are producing news programmes, “I prefer to keep focussed on what I do - bangin the hits”.

Asked to provide an estimate of SLAM’s audience, Habib points out that  “On Facebook we have over 22,000 fans, double all the other stations combined. It’s unbelievable.” Based on that number of computer-owning followers, Habib says he thinks SLAM probably has an overall listenership of 50,000 or more. In addition, he says, “you can download an app for SLAM on your Blackberry or iPhone and plug it into you car radio anywhere in the world” and you can also listen online at www.slam101fm.com

SLAM has also contracted Richard Haynes, who runs South Central marketing company, to sell advertising time for the station. He says the idea of outsourcing the advertising has worked well, as the kinds of people Mr. Haynes targets comprise the same market SLAM wants to reach. 

Habib credits his wife of 28 years, Marian, for her support in all his endeavours.“I’m more the one that goes out there. From the time I come up with the idea, then she starts to work at it. ” Mrs. Elias oversees the administration for the company, as she did for Habib’s earlier ventures. Her official title is financial controller of HabMar investments, the name created by combining the first three letters of the couple’s first names.

The teenager who liked to deejay has thus become the adult who presides over a deejay-driven radio station, and Habib’s passion for presenting music as a party experience comes to the fore when he talks about wanting to develop the potential of those who work with his company. 

“When I bring in youngsters off the deejay circuit, I know they have the talent, but they have to learn how we do things here. I try to explain that when we are finished training you, you can go play anywhere in the world, you are not just a one-sided deejay. If you want to be one of us, you got to learn all kinds of music, reggae, back-in-time, whatever.”

Habib also notes that what the industry calls “imaging” - clever sounds bites, jingles, mock endorsements - are key to SLAM’s popularity. “They make your radio station sound more professional.” The imaging includes mock endorsements, which cleverly make famous people, including President Obama, sound as if they are directly plugging SLAM. “You can’t just play music. there are so many other things involved.”

But he says he thinks radio will pick up during the recession, because “when people have a limited budget to advertise and they realise that for fifty percent less they can get much more exposure on radio than on TV or in the print media, what makes more sense? You tell me.” •