Granville Straker turned Brooklyn record shops into a production and distribution network for calypso and soca, carrying music between Caribbean artists and diaspora listeners. The Saint Vincent-born producer, promoter, and founder of Straker's Records died on August 27, 2026, at 86, according to Stuart Funeral Services.

Straker was born on September 12, 1939, to Irena and Clement Straker. His music business took shape amid Brooklyn's growing Caribbean community in the 1960s. He opened a record operation on Nostrand Avenue in 1966, then established the landmark Straker's Records World at 242 Utica Avenue. Searchlight reported that the Brooklyn shop was still operating under his ownership in 2014. His retail reach also extended to St. Vincent and Trinidad.

In 1971 he founded the Straker's Records label. The stores, label, and distribution business worked as one system: Caribbean performers gained access to professional recording and a route to listeners in New York, while diaspora customers found music from home. Straker moved through that system as producer, promoter, talent scout, distributor, and businessman, traveling the Caribbean in search of emerging performers. The family's St Vincent Times statement described the enterprise as a connection among artists, recordings, and audiences across the region and abroad.

The catalog gathered major voices from several generations, including Calypso Rose, Shadow, Black Stalin, Chalkdust, Lord Nelson, Lord Melody, Mighty Duke, Explainer, Winston Soso, Singing Francine, and Machel Montano. Straker estimated that over about three decades the label issued 600 to 700 albums, more than 1,000 twelve-inch records, and several thousand singles. Caribbean National Weekly noted both the scope of the roster and the way his operation joined regional performers to diaspora audiences. Shadow's 'Bassman' became one of that artist's signature recordings, while Black Stalin's 'Ah Feel to Party' later supplied the title for a retrospective of Straker's work.

A defining partnership began in 1978, when Straker invited fellow Vincentian Frankie McIntosh to arrange for the company. McIntosh became musical director, organized the house recording band, and arranged for dozens of the label's calypso artists, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported. McIntosh later told Brooklyn College that Straker directed newly signed performers to him and that he arranged virtually all of the label's music. The partnership lasted for decades and placed an arranger's musical craft inside Straker's wider production and distribution structure.

Recognition came from the community his work served. In 2009 he received the Martin's International/Inter-Culture Award of Honor at the International Reggae & World Music Awards. A Brooklyn gathering honored his worldwide music production in 2014. Straker told Searchlight of the latter tribute: 'I appreciated someone honouring me…'

The family story and the company story were intertwined. His family credited his first wife, Jean 'Patsy' Straker Jackson, with a foundational role in the early label. His wife Beverly shared the later decades of his life, and the family announcement named his children and grandchildren as the circle around him. His daughter, Dr. Suzanne Straker Greenidge-Hewitt, described his life's work as creating opportunities for Caribbean artists and preserving an important part of Caribbean history.

Straker's contribution remains concrete: the Straker's Records catalog, the artists who found a platform through it, the arrangements created in partnership with McIntosh, and the Brooklyn shops that placed those records in listeners' hands. Together they preserve the route he built between Caribbean performance, New York production, and communities that heard home in the music.