Born in the suburb of Belmont in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobaga, Eugene Tam spent his youth as an avid vinyl collector. He travelled to Canada to study business, intending to return home afterwards. Instead, his whole family eventually migrated over to Toronto, and they never left. Due to Toronto becoming such a hotbed for emerging music, Tam started what became ‘Play De Record’ in an empty building space his father owned on Yonge Street behind a convenience store.

Tam is a natural-born salesperson, and he used that talent to make decisions that positively affect business. He expanded his staff to include DJ’s that knew how to sell records and equipment. His store sold mixtapes to promote radio DJ’s like Mastermind, Chris Shepard, and Hedley Jones. He established strong connections in Canada and the U.S. with DJ’s like Deko-ze to get records to his store before anyone else’s, unknowingly ushering in Thursday as being the day new records arrived at stores.

Tam also talked himself into obtaining Starsound Records. Play De Record found its identity by carrying unique, underground records that the heavy hitters Sam The Record Man and Starsound (fka Traxx) weren’t carrying. Business really lifted when local DJ’s had spread the word of the hip hop, drum and bass, house, techno, funk, Latin, electronic, jazz, soul, and dance they carried, which weren’t as widely popular during the 1990’s. Eugene Tam still heads up Play De Record to this day, and the purchases made from his store have influenced many household genres and artists from Toronto and Canada today.