Dan Storper is the founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the record label

Putumayo World Music Putumayo World Music is a New Orleans-based record label that specializes in compilations of world music, jazz and blues. History Dan Storper founded Putumayo in 1975 as a retail store in New York City featuring handicrafts from around the wo ...

Early life

Storper grew up in

Great Neck, NY Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...

Education

Storper was a recipient of a New York State Regents Scholarship and also an athlete and musician. He started at third base for Great Neck South High School's varsity baseball team and played varsity tennis in college. Majoring in Latin American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, he graduated in 1973.

Business

The young Storper began to hone his entrepreneurial skills by trading coins and antiques while in junior high and high school. He also earned money by playing the piano at restaurants and other local venues. As a college student he set up a store in his dorm providing the usual necessities of dorm life such as toiletries and ordering LP's at substantial savings to his fellow dormmates. After graduating, he traveled to

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, Ecuador, Peru and

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to visit the countries he had studied.

, named after the valley of the Putumayo River in Colombia where he had visited, began as a hole-in the-wall retail store in New York City in 1975. The shop sold

handcrafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

and clothing collected in Latin America. It received considerable media attention and by 1985 Storper found himself designing ethnic-inspired contemporary clothing and supplying 600 other stores. Putumayo also had three successful New York stores.

Switch to music

In 1991, Storper was deeply impacted by world music when he happened upon a live concert of Kotoja, an African band led by Babá Ben Okulolo in the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

area and became involved with this compelling music, putting together Putumayo's first two world music collections in 1993. That same year, Storper was joined by his long-time friend Michael Kraus, who helped him launch the label. After selling the Putumayo stores in 1997, Storper was able to focus full-time on his goal of introducing people to other cultures through great world music. He now travels extensively and, with the support of ethnomusicologist

Jacob Edgar Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jac ...

(founder of

Cumbancha Cumbancha is a record label, booking agency and music publisher based in Charlotte, Vermont. The company was founded by ethnomusicologist and music producer Jacob Edgar in 2006. In 2007, Cumbancha Music Publishing was established to expand oppor ...

) pays attention to the music scenes in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, Johannesburg and other music centers. The opening of Putumayo Europe, in Hilversum, Holland in 2000 enabled the company to connect with the European music and retail scene. The expansion of the label's International division has also extended Putumayo's presence in South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. The company now has offices in 12 countries. Putumayo has sold more than 15 million CDs since it began, with 50 of its collections selling more than 100,000 copies each and several surpassing 300,000. Currently, more than 3500 specialty retailers in the U.S. and thousands more around the world sell Putumayo CDs. Storper was also a judge for the 5th, 10th, and 11th"11th Annual IMA Judges
Independent Music Awards. Retrieved on 4 Sept. 2013. annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Storper, Dan Living people Washington University in St. Louis alumni Year of birth missing (living people)