Beat Factory
Beat Factory was a Canadian urban music management and production company, and later, an independent record label, based in Toronto, Ontario.
In 1982, Beat Factory was founded by Ivan Berry and songwriter Rupert Gayle. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Beat Factory managed the top urban music artists in Canada. In 1988, Berry signed Michie Mee to an international record deal with Atlantic Records, making her the first Canadian hip hop artist signed to a major label. Beat Factory's biggest success was the Dream Warriors, who sold 800,000 copies of their debut album And Now the Legacy Begins, released in 1991.
In 1996, Berry founded Beat Factory Music Inc., a record label division of Beat Factory, distributed by EMI Music Canada and BMG Music Canada. The label released a series of compilation albums, known as RapEssentials and GroovEssentials. These albums included the first singles by Kardinal Offishall and Glenn Lewis, both of whom became prominent artists in the 2000s.
