Ini Kamoze’s ‘Hotstepper’ Lands Verizon Campaign

More than three decades after topping the Billboard Hot 100, the Jamaican hit offers a timely lesson in the value of owning and managing music rights.

“Here Comes the Hotstepper” has found another stage. Ini Kamoze’s 1994 hit is being used in a new Verizon television advertising campaign in the United States, according to a September 28 report by The Gleaner. Thirty-two years after its chart run, the song is still doing what great pop records do: catching an audience’s attention almost instantly.

For Caribbean music, the placement tells a larger story. A recording’s commercial life need not end when it leaves the charts. Advertisers, filmmakers and television producers continue to seek songs that carry a recognizable sound and an immediate feeling. “Hotstepper” has already traveled this route: a remix was used in Evian’s “Baby & Me” campaign, while the song later featured in a Starbucks commercial.

The Verizon campaign also raises a question that matters to artists across the region: When a classic Caribbean song appears in an advertisement, who benefits?

How a song earns from a commercial

Putting music together with moving images is commonly called synchronization, or sync. If an advertiser wants to use an existing recording, it generally needs permission for two distinct works: the underlying song, including its music and lyrics, and the particular sound recording heard in the ad. Those rights may be controlled by different people or companies. Unlike some other music uses, there is no compulsory sync or master-use license that lets an advertiser bypass negotiations with the relevant rights holders.

That means a commercial placement can create income on both sides. The composition license may generate a fee for the song’s writers and publishers under their agreements. The master-use license may generate a separate fee for the recording’s owner, with any artist payment governed by the recording contract. Television broadcasts may also generate performance royalties for eligible songwriters and publishers, separate from the fees negotiated to make the ad. The exact recipients and amounts depend on ownership, contracts and where and how the campaign runs.

The terms of the Verizon placement, including its fee and the parties receiving payment, have not been publicly detailed in the reporting reviewed for this article. A prominent campaign signals the continuing market value of “Hotstepper”; it does not, by itself, establish what Kamoze personally earned.

The catalogue is an asset

That distinction is especially important for Caribbean artists whose songs have crossed borders, labels and generations. A familiar hook can open the door to a licensing deal, but collecting the full benefit requires a clear record of who wrote the song, who controls its publishing, who owns the recording and who is authorized to approve a new use.

An artist or estate reviewing a catalogue should be able to locate its recording and publishing agreements, confirm writer credits and ownership shares, check registrations and identifiers, and examine royalty statements against known uses. The U.S. Copyright Office identifies accurate information about both musical works and sound recordings as central to an efficient licensing system.

That work has become more urgent as the industry debates artificial intelligence. The questions around AI training and digital replicas are different from those involved in licensing a song for a television commercial. They share a practical concern, however: creators need to know which rights they control, which rights they have assigned and what permissions others can grant. The U.S. Copyright Office continues to examine those AI issues, including digital replicas and the use of copyrighted material in training.

“Here Comes the Hotstepper” reached No. 1 in 1994 and remains recognizable enough to carry a national advertising campaign in 2026. Its latest appearance is a reminder that Caribbean music is more than a stream of new releases. It is a growing catalogue of cultural work with continuing commercial value—and the people who created it need the records, representation and contractual clarity to participate when that value is realized.