Marie “Driven” Theodore is working to ensure that more of the Caribbean’s music and cultural products are being seen and heard as more of the world is exposed to it.

The Haitian/American entrepreneur and publicist is doing so through her companies, Marie Driven PR and PlayBook MG. She is the co-founder and managing partner of Playbook MG along with partner, Jean Jones.

Playbook MG started in 2012 and Marie Driven PR in 2009.

She has worked with Jamaican acts like Spice, Mr Vegas, Jr Reid, Serani, Lexxus, Yellowman, Demarco, Future Fambo and Marion Hall and now hopes to work with soca artistes. During her years in fashion, she worked with people like US Rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.

She is currently working with soca star Patrice Roberts and wants to make her “an example of what soca artistes can be.”

[caption id="attachment_1009320" align="alignnone" width="757"] Marie Driven has been working with Roberts for about five months now in the US market: managing her image, branding, creating brand exposure and deals. - Angelo Marcelle[/caption]

Driven has been working with Roberts for about five months now in the US market: managing her image, branding, creating brand exposure and deals.

While Driven would love to work with artistes like Nailah Blackman and Nessa Preppy, she ideally prefers to work with someone, “that is bubbling in their space but does not have representation and needs Playbook to offset them.

“That is what I am looking for,” she said.

One of the first soca artistes she worked with was Melissa “Melly Rose” St Rose and got her on Black Entertainment Television (BET).

She also has plans to connect with artistes in other Caribbean islands as well as partnering with the islands themselves to host “major conferences that would bring eyeballs to the islands and bring money.”

[caption id="attachment_1009319" align="alignnone" width="610"] Melissa “Melly Rose” St Rose was one of the first soca artistes that Marie Driven worked with. -[/caption]

“It is about creating something to have people feed into it and people pour into it.”One of her goals is to create resources to help soca artistes reach their full potential. That means contacting bodies like the tourist boards across the region and pairing them with other people and organisations that can help assist and propel them.

“I want to bring these artistes to the forefront by helping them with better distribution channels, helping them with label deals and bringing these people that don’t know they exist.”

She was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in a strict Haitian household.

Initially, Driven began her career in the fashion industry as a salesperson and “learning how to manoeuvre that world led me to work with other entities/people.”

It was not easy to introduce new styles and brands of fashion to particular markets and doing so taught her that she could get into any industry using her sales skills.

Her concept was to sell people’s brands to others.

“A lot of people did not understand the Caribbean brand. You se