Bed-Stuy since 1972. Calypso and soca, plus the studio upstairs.
- Shop
- Charlie's Calypso City
- Address
- 1273 Fulton Street
- Town
- Brooklyn, United States
- Established
- 1972
- Formats
- Vinyl, CDs, 7"
- Crates
- Reggae, Soul, Latin, World, Funk, Hip-hop
Rawlston Charles, from Tobago, opened on Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant in July 1972 largely because he could not find the calypso records he had grown up on. He moved next door in 1976 and renamed it Charlie's Calypso City, and it became the New York source for records coming straight out of Port of Spain. In the 1980s he opened a recording studio and a label upstairs, which pulled in not just calypso artists but Whodini and the Fat Boys. Between the shop, Charlie's Records and Rawlston Recording Studio, he did as much as anyone to carry calypso and soca in the United States.