Ron
Lammy was already studying engineering when he came from Guyana
to the Upper West Side to study at the School of General Studies
in 1975. Now, he is the proprietor of a Caribbean emporium in Jamaica
Plain, a neighborhood in Boston, as well as the associated Web site,
www.eCaroh.com. The emporium
and Web-site market and sell Caribbean products, mainly artwork,
music, literature, and magazines. Leaving the West Indies, land
of carnivals and steel drums, Ron entered gritty New York City.
Of his arrival at GS, Ron says he found Columbia “at first, a bit
intimidating and certainly humbling. There was so much to learn.”
A
Guyanese company sponsored Ron’s economics studies at Columbia.
At first, he spent his school holidays both studying as well as
working, but his employer valued a good education and allowed him
to study full-time through sponsorship. After graduating, Ron returned
to Guyana charged with the “romantic ideas and moral obligations”
to work for the Guyanese community armed with a degree from Columbia
University.
Fortunately
or unfortunately, Ron felt what many immigrants feel returning to
their homeland from America: “I experienced the challenge of ‘acquired
tastes.’” Leaving his work and life in the mainstream of New York
City’s Upper West Side for an “economically depressed” Guyana was
not easy, and he decided to return to the States. He has lived in
Boston for 12 years now. After working in the corporate world for
seven years, he left to begin a new chapter of his life: eCaroh.com
and the eCaroh Caribbean Emporium.
Already
having received press coverage from the Boston Herald and other
media sources, eCaroh.com, started in 1997, is a unique venture.
Ron asserts that eCaroh.com is “the first to market West Indian
music, magazines, and books, travel services, and fine art on the
Internet, as well as the first to open a brick-and-mortar store
with these same items.” ECaroh.com promotes and sells a variety
of music, including steel drums, calypso, soca, reggae, and others.
Ron does not support the Napster way of doing things: “Taking what
is not yours is stealing. It’s piracy. The artists and producers
[investors] of the music are the losers.” Instead, eCaroh.com has
a strategic alliance with www.StrumOn.com, where consumers can sample
the music that they can then buy at eCaroh.com. Together, the two
Web sites have the largest database of steel-band music in the world,
according to Ron.
The
eCaroh Caribbean Emporium is not an ordinary store, but more like
a cultural center where artists showcase their work and where people
enjoy “one-stop full service.” Ron saw the need for Boston to cater
to a sizable Caribbean community of roughly 60,000 to 70,000. The
Boston Caribbean scene has changed dramatically in the eyes of Ron.
When he arrived in 1988, he saw a strong need for Caribbean products
and services, but “there was only one record shop that had mostly
reggae music and some small part-time operators.” Ron began eCaroh
Caribbean Music as a “hobby” with the encouragement of his friends,
who would buy music items that he would purchase in New York City,
where there is a much larger Caribbean community. From a mail-order
business to Web-site service to a 4,000-square-feet store, eCaroh
has come a long way.
The
means of promoting eCaroh.com has an appropriately folk flavor.
Since Ron has limited resources, he relies on “word of mouth” methods
of advertising and building Web traffic. Even now, while lack of
funding is the biggest challenge to promoting his Web site, both
the actual store and the site have experienced growth. In fact,
Ron receives orders from England, Japan, and France. Younger people
are also visiting the Web site and buying soca music.
Soca
is a derivation of calypso, and the rhythms are faster. According
to one story, the inventor of soca, Lord Shorty, inverted the “ca”
and the “so” of calypso to create the term “soca.” (Pioneer musicians
such as Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow, and Lord Shorty, each used
monikers instead of real names.) The inventive nature of Caribbean
musicians is evident. While calypso had evolved from a storytelling
tradition of expressing the frustrations, humor, and political commentary
of the disadvantaged, the latest trends are a mix of traditional
African origins and recent Indian sounds of tabla and tassa drumming.
Steel-drum music has become more polished since its birth in the
1940s. In fact, a Trinidadian wrote the song “Who Let the Dogs Out”
two years before the sleek, popular version was released for mass
consumption.
Just
as Caribbean history speaks of the power of a people to invent positive,
creative forces out of negative ones, so too has Ron Lammy promoted
his roots and put them on the map in Boston and the Internet. Ron
speaks of the origin of Trinidad’s Carnival, “the greatest show
on earth,” as rooted in slavery: “Aristocrats would dress up at
street celebrations in costumes portraying the lower classes as
uncivilized and stupid. With the abolition of slavery, the African,
in role-reversal, imitated the elaborate dress styles of the former
masters. This was the forerunner of the current Carnival costumes.”
Ron helped promote the second largest Caribbean Carnival in the
United States (700,000 participants), in Boston in 1999.
Ron
was led to his success by strong family values of education and
ambition that, he says, are “innate to Guyanese culture.” Ron lives
in a Boston suburb with his wife, Judith, and two daughters, ages
8 and 14. His wife is vice president of the local Parent Teacher’s
Association, and was voted “Best Girl Scout Leader of the Year”
in 1999.
Ron
thanks Russell Reeder, an admissions officer at GS, for giving him
the chance to attend Columbia. Mr. Reeder said to him, “I think
there is a place for you here.”
