Calder started his first record company in 1971 in South Africa. By 1975 they had relocated to London and had begun Zomba as an artist and producer management company. By 1978 Zomba had expanded to include publishing, and opened offices in New York City. In 1981 they formed their first record label Jive and Calder began to create a name for Jive as an important outlet for hip hop and rap.

Jive’s success was followed by Silvertone Records in 1988 and countless others throughout the nineties. After an unspecified “ethical disagreement,” Calder bought Simon’s stake in Zomba and became the sole owner in 1990. In the late nineties, Jive expanded its success to include teen pop phenomenons such as Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC and Britney Spears, all of which topped the charts. In 2002 he sold Zomba for US$2.74 billion to the German-based media group Bertelsmann. Though he was offered a position within the BMG, he instead chose to stay on temporarily as an advisor during the integration period, but left the business in 2003. The Zomba Label Group, which had been founded by BMG as parent for all Zomba labels in 2004, was integrated with all its labels into BMG Label Group in 2007, while at the same time the Zomba brand ceased to exist. In 2009 the group was renamed as RCA/Jive Label Group under Sony Music, in October 2011 Jive Records, as well as the whole Jive brand, was discontinued, with their most artists being moved to RCA Records and partly to Epic Records.