Corie Sheppard Podcast
Corie Sheppard Podcast
Episode 214 | Omari Ashby
This is a special episode as we are joined by a long time contributor and friend of the show Omari Ashby, a man who wears many crowns and wears them in style!
We get into the forming of Kindred and the origins of Kiskidee Caravan.
We also get to talk about his entrepreneurial side and his clothing line, Saga Boy Culture and why he decided to get into the academics as he pursues his Phd. while lecturing at UWI.
Omari shares stories about his experience in production, producing for giants like Super Blue and Shadow.
Of course it wouldn't be we if we didn't talk kaiso and calypso and get into his experience as a host and MC and his thoughts in the state of the culture today as a calypso historian in his own right.
Tune in and Enjoy!!!
So we're back again for the Shepherd Podcast. I have somebody here who you know I'm keeping all that in, right, connor, this is how it goes at Affordable Imports folks. It's live, it's live. But we're back again and I have somebody. I have a long intro to do. But before I do the intro I have to ask because all the things I'm going to talk about, I don't know what the hell gave him the credential to host Calypso Monarch. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. For a very long time I could say artist, entertainer, businessman, I meet you in doing production. So many different avenues. We finally have Omari Ashby on the show.
Speaker 2:Welcome my brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good to be here. You know long I've been going to come on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Long, long overdue.
Speaker 2:There is that one where I could talk about Kaiso too, you know.
Speaker 1:The man said, brother. The man said I know a little thing or two about kaiso, you know. So we have plenty kaiso to talk, but how? Everything? I see how they performed last night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was nice. That was a vibe, you know, Kiskeri, kiskeri, kind of eternal, in the sense that it was one of those watershed moments that lead to a kind of new energy and vibe it kind of make the music younger the people who doing it, younger, you know them thing that's going cycle.
Speaker 1:Of course. Well, I was a little fellow when Kiss Kitty come, I can't come out the house yet, but I feel the energy of Kiss Kitty Caravan at the time. It was something else. It was a real movement. What was the start of it? Was it performing? Was it production? It was really performing.
Speaker 2:Kiss Kitty and, strange enough, this is the subject of um, part of the subject of my phd right, um, and it really was like ozzy sang last night. This was about the boom generation, the children who was born in the oil boom in the 70s.
Speaker 1:So this is the first time I I had no boom generation. This is the term, so so boom generation is.
Speaker 2:Is them jiran, who was born in that 70s? Jaron, we had come of age around 1990, 92 man is 19, 20 starting to feel the self and also remember we just come out of the coup and somehow I don't know what happened. In that time a kind of local facing things started happening with fashion, so you had people like the cloth homo calva.
Speaker 2:TV thing, plenty of people. So it was a kind of way to wear yourself, and then we had a tv and them kind of things happening where people know you're seeing yourself, and then the sound happened too. So plenty at the caravan what people don't know. It's starting one place with bread drains, right? So like I tell people, last night kindred was really me, ozzy and akinde yeah, I found out that for the first time last night and we used to link up on the UWE campus by.
Speaker 2:Infinity Pub and had discussions. It had men doing things on the ground, so there was a kind of general thing with youth happening then, men performing, who doing dance, who doing hip hop, the raps, the things started coming, you know, and for some reason one of the nice things with that is that we were already performing, doing underground things. So by the time Kiss Kitty and our studios come along, men wasn't so experienced in recording but performing, we had that already. Yeah, so what happened is that and real circumstance. Real happenstance is Gage and them get signed. First get to Rihans. We used to hang out by the studio. He said come down in the studio. Now, same time I go down in the studio, they say but we're looking for Rapsaw, you know, and me and Akin they beat on the desk. Only come weekend and work with shell shock and we do this trinical floater weekend. Um, gage had write a song for sister run, sister run, I come. He was doing the chorus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was doing the black child, black child, father gage of course, and and he was doing the chorus and somehow we tell his.
Speaker 2:He said I find out he's not to do this course. We need somebody like a like a general grant and of course in them we had no phone to call him on anything. We leave a message on the drop ball. He come up in the studio, he do a chorus and then Shock started to play Music Fame, one of the songs he play he like, and he started to sing Shot Call on it and lo and behold, we and they were wondering what to do with it.
Speaker 2:And then they said well, let me put out a compilation.
Speaker 1:And that was the start. All right, that was the Kiss Kiddie record. So at that time you're performing, but not recording at all. Not recording. Because they're recording some professional recording artists.
Speaker 2:Well, what happened is that I don't remember, but we were prepared and everybody was new to the studio situation and it wasn't like nowhere.
Speaker 1:If you have a laptop, you have a studio, the barriers to entry was significant, so we couldn't.
Speaker 2:I remember we had a drum machine that we begged borrowed and steal together and we only used to build drum beat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to get something to flow over.
Speaker 2:Just to get something to perform to. But because of the amount of performances, every block go, everything school, any chance we get we jump in on the microphone. Sometimes we would do what the Utah name just call a cypher now for for on top of winky roofing. But I had, we would be there for sometimes four hours, from about 10 in the the night till about 2, 3 the next morning. Men just passing the the vocal, man to man to man, so the vocal.
Speaker 2:So by the time men, men season, you know so by the time it come to record was just alright, stand up here, do this. I always tell people. The first time I went in that studio first we wasn't ready to record. I expect him to see a band I know nothing about, no media and sequencer, and I expect I look in when I see the man sitting down, when Chuck sit down by himself in his room. Yeah, you're confused. My head you're like off.
Speaker 1:But Shel Chuck was a big part of that. A genius, yeah.
Speaker 2:Shel Chuck was the musical core. Shel Chuck was a genius, an absolute genius, right, and he was the sound. Right, him. And Ken Ken shorrock, right. Um, ken, ken holder. A lot of people don't know that ken holder was responsible for some of the early things too. And and ken is the man, if you like treason sound. Ken is the man behind that sound.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, gotcha right, yeah, so kendra, the first recording he did as he was there already. No, as he was as he was.
Speaker 2:By that time he had left the group, right, right because he was in ue and stuff. But how that worked out, is that, um, when we get through, we say, well, as the thing happening in studio we also had some other partners who end up on the cascading caravan f1 um, wrs, fm, some other hip-hop men, all of them, all of us was from like, the epicenter was Bataria, right, he was from down in the housing, 6th Avenue. Gage, the man who ended up doing all the videos, jason Riley, he from 6th Avenue, so it was a kind of Bataria thing and all of us started pulling with brethren and that formed the core, was a kind of battle, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, at that point in time, the energy once people doing that, because Cyphers will be going on, yeah, yeah and then also what the no Compromise, which is the first four songs Grant, kindred, gatorians and Sister and what that do is show a working concept. So I tell people it's not that we alone was doing, that we was the first to get recorded and when people say hey, but look who's on stage hey the gravity towards it right, look who he is, look who he is.
Speaker 1:We could do that. It's possible now. So people, yeah now. I see you last night before you perform, and it's something I see you do time you hail out brother resistance up front, first thing I hear, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're entering, going into kindred for the first time and you're not getting the pen and songs, your pen and songs would rap on your mind or rap.
Speaker 2:So the combination by the time, by the time I was kindred we was doing rap, so but before that I was a hip-hop man. I put in like I was telling them yo yo, yo right. And and although I firmly grounded in kaiso and things, I got youth so I like my hip hop right. So one of the things was happening was we was doing hip hop, but we was doing hip hop. But remember that time everybody had a medallion fight the power public enemy.
Speaker 2:So it was a kind of black conscious hip hop and I always was writing rap. So because brother Jesus used to come in school every carnival and I would write rap. So I just rested down Right and there was a competition for a big show. There was having youth fest. It was not the youth fest, we know Youth fest. I think Trinidad Express was doing youth fest, okay, and they was bringing down CNC Music Factory, which was the biggest group at the time.
Speaker 2:And an R&B group called the Boys and there was this competition to see who will open for them.
Speaker 1:That's the Shoney Stadium.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so Gage was going in the competition. He said, well, let's come down and watch now. And so we went down and we watched Gage. But Gage was always bad. Gage was bad, bad, bad, bad in everything. And when we started to hear the rest of men rap, I look at my partner, my partner look at me. I say, nah, man. I say, brother, lend me a beat there. And I go on and we rap and we get in the competition. So now time to do competition. I say, well, here, what's happening? Well, how we could separate ourselves. I say you know what? All you do the normal hip hop thing. And I go do the chorus and rap, right, right, you done, had that already Right. And so, strangely enough, I don't know if you know Shine's story. Yeah, shine's is a local YouTuber Right Out of the LVT out of Lavanty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and he does be very popular, but them days he was a dj, so shine stories with dj and we pull a little break beat. That had a kind of right. So when you think, come them, fellas, start up, this is a brand new type of jam, just get up and now they're doing the normal house rap which was popular at the time. And then I come in. It's the music of the motherland. We're rocking the nation radio station to radio station.
Speaker 2:Jam your song, brother madness in the place, the place, the place, flattened On top of which two of the judges, two of the four judges here who know Peter Ray Blood and Lutaluma Simba brother.
Speaker 1:Oh man, yes, and we know that eh so of course we win and we end up opening Again.
Speaker 2:What that do for me was proof of concept, of course. So in that moment, moment, I turned to my partners and I said, well, what's going on? I got with the hip-hop. You know, from no one I do any rap. So, because it is something that was bubbling in me, but I wasn't sure if it would be accepted. And when I see what I do, I say, ah, there's one, this confirmation that what I'm feeling is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you feel like you find yourself yeah and so I tell them I doing that.
Speaker 2:And, strange enough, when I tell them that men start to laugh, boy, where you going with that? Boy, that's nonsense. Nobody taking on that. You better stick to the hip hop. And is that what inspired this trinical flow? Right, is it possible? What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Well, like Oli was in my voice.
Speaker 2:And so that is what makes me right now, me and Akin. They went up and wrote this Trinical Flow as a kind of answer to that sentiment. Didn't you know that, this Trinical Flow, we could damn well flow, we could talk like we said and mash up our dance.
Speaker 1:Well, listen. I wonder if sometimes you all know the influence they had on the generation session generation, the negative list generation.
Speaker 2:I find something that catchy negative list, but we sit on home.
Speaker 1:I remember being in Laventier when the first time I heard this train it could flow. We couldn't believe what we hear. It was so strange and, like you, I rooted in Calypso. I love soccer. Them time I started to love dance all them. I love dancehall and things. To hear a Trinidadian voice and slangs and just singing. It's almost like, while you're finding yourself, we find ourselves too. It's like wait, Because I think before then urban and hip and young was sold as fast foreign.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and so for us, that was part of the jam to show people and to show yourself at the same time, like you said too, right, right that, yeah, jam, to show people and to show yourself at the same time. Like I said to right that, yeah, you could go in a space and mash up just like a dance hall man, just like a hip-hop man, using your own voice, and and so that was that was the key, and and listen to me, it was more bravado than anything else. The success of it now was crazy it. I was telling somebody we appeared on dateline with allison nc right, peace be upon her. And when we done that, we coming up the road. I used to spend a lot of time up by a kinder and he was more up. I was on the other side, uh, barteria, he was up more sour side. So I walking up to the avenue with him and a man come across let me get your autograph now. And I started to bend on the man because I say his mama guy thing.
Speaker 2:And then the man started to say how are you moving? And then I started to realize the man really want my autograph. So I didn't even know what to do, because in Trinidad somebody want your autograph. It was like, and it's only then I realized where this thing have impact, because I rarely see the man coming to the mama guy where I rarely see him. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But no, the influence real. And when I compare it like I look, I look today, right, because I watch a Zest movement or Steam or Zest Steam, trini Bad, whichever one you want, and I see so much parallels between that movement, then, whether it be kiskide caravan or the younger rapso movement at the time, and these youths know, because I could imagine being 12, 13, can I come out my house and hearing somebody singing about wee problems and re-issues and wee accents on them kind of thing, and you could see why youths for me, where I latch on to you or either rank, you know fellows were singing versions of songs that just sing it. It's me, you're seeing you, it's now following that and I, I I could draw the parallel is something that you see like a similarity between now and that is why I do in the phd.
Speaker 2:I do in right, because zess and trini, bar and steam is we without the benefit of mentorship? It's all the same impulses, all the same inputs. You're not getting a voice. Nobody is listening to what you want to say, right? The difference is because it had so many barriers to entry. By the time we, angst and anger, get to the public, it gets filtered through people who are experienced, people who say come on, I know what you want to say and sit down, come come, come on, come on, mary.
Speaker 2:We're saying right and so we start to get mentored in how to treat with certain things them, fellas and them because because, remember, you could sit down with your thing home in your bedroom and put out a song without anybody telling you x, y, z. So again, the raw energy, but the energy is the same. Um, one of the things I hope in my thesis could help with is to see how what we do could impact what they're doing, and not so much to change what they're saying and how they're saying it or not, but to give them a perspective that perhaps will make them see things from a different angle. Right, and then them will come to that, one of the things I used to do.
Speaker 2:I used to do workshops in Rapsu and most of the people who come in used to be from dance hall, used to be from hip hop, and I wouldn't try to change their accent. I would tell them express what you want to express first, right, right. And when they get comfortable doing that, I say well, when you go home later, work that over in the way that you would tell your partner on the block, right, and then, by the time they've done them, come back doing rap. So, of course, because now I fight them right because that's what they want to say.
Speaker 2:And it's the same thing with these youths want a voice, they want a space, yeah, and as a back, they want to say and it's the same thing with these youths want a voice, they want a space, yeah, and as a back, they want it again. They get it and they take it right.
Speaker 2:So so but but the reality is um, nobody want that. The success mean they could dead. Nobody mean care how frivolous, how thing, how fully done, says nobody want a. I had the opportunity to fly to a place and make 10, 20 000 us dollars, but I was dead.
Speaker 1:That can't be that equation ain't making sense for nobody, so therefore something had to fix. Yeah well, I think it's what you're saying is defining of itself, and that's why I like the idea a space for youth, youth, youth will always be rebellious as a normal thing. I don't know, I par for the course, and they have to be because things are to change and they're evolving. It's not talking about ai and them thing before and I know fighting not to be left behind yeah, and it's the same way I feel when I listen or when I look at lady lava as example.
Speaker 1:Right, I see her doing something in performances that I don't know if people understand how hard that is to go. Experience with Start with a beat, cut the beat, clean out and a fat woman and tighten it. Yeah and jam and rap. Yeah For eight, 16 bars.
Speaker 2:And then catch back Lady LaVey LaBosse yeah she a genius. Labosse, you know we have some performers. I hear you talk about Young Brother. I was saying the same thing. I the exact thing you say. I was telling I say listen, this brother has so much vibes, he had the energy, he thing in the right place. I say I want him to get a song. I said the day he get a song unstoppable back on, and so said so done because he had, I remember, my PhD supervisor.
Speaker 2:Right, we're talking, we're talking. I said come and see this and that was the clip he had with Ben. Ben like, become Ben like. Listen, she must have spent the next six hours going down the rabbit hole, Our young brother you know she could not believe this thing.
Speaker 2:And I said yeah, the energy, believe this thing. And I said, yeah, the energy, the thing and the craziness they're doing. And I said and it's so engaging. I said but what happens is that at some point you need more, you know you need to have something people could connect with and they find it. I always tell people, I always remember when Garland and this accent.
Speaker 2:I say relax, yeah, relax, let Garland be Garland. I say he will come home. Just now, this accent on your ass, he will come home just now. I say love him, I say the man at Express where you had expressed it. Lo and behold. Yeah, you understand. I live to see Garland doing personal commentary on Calypso Fiesta online. Online personally writing and he's going on every song, every Calypsonian that come on and gain proper analysis.
Speaker 2:So I just tell people, I say you have to give people space. I say we have our way, right. Sometimes, if we move how we want to move, we will never let Malcolm Little become Malcolm X. No, no, sometimes we, if we move how we want to move, we will never let Malcolm Little become Malcolm X, you know? No, no, no, right he?
Speaker 2:go stay a criminal in jail, you know we go give him a chance to develop into something of value. And sometimes, yes, I just always tell people. I say do you remember when you was young the kind of madness you do? We only fortunate we didn't have people filming every one of them that would be bad, yeah, because because the chuppetness we do, yeah, right, so.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you had to give youth a a chance to express yourself, let them spread their wings. And then you say hey, watch this, eh, dig this, and you give them a long and you leave them with that right, and then you come back two weeks later and say hey, check.
Speaker 1:It's exposure but it saves the mentorship missing. I see it in hip-hop a lot right Younger hip-hop artists I remember Kodak Black as an example Bad, bad, bad rapper and they're so disconnected. It's just the time they're born, it's not that they're deliberately ignorant. Or not knowing.
Speaker 2:They're just born long after, so they don't see Biggie and Tupac the way somebody from the 90s would have seen.
Speaker 1:So sometimes the statements they make about them, the older generation, turn against the younger generation and they're seeing that in hip-hop now. But the more I listen to youths now You're seeing that they feel Okay. I hear you say Rapsomando died in Multiply and that, like the Zest movement, I keep hearing that song over and over when I watch it, because it's a multiplication Rapsomovement, if you ask me. But you have a part there that says you tell the radio station don't play with. You tell the crowd don't rave with. That's the only greatest line.
Speaker 2:I ever heard.
Speaker 1:You tell the crowd don't rave with. You understand. So or fight down or hold back as you. So that also normal.
Speaker 2:Normal, like you say, you had to get used to them you had less swan, maybe swan, yeah, but the dying, yeah, right and so so. So that is that it does each other some part and again we had the benefit. One of the greatest things carriegan and resistance do for we is that they never fight we, yeah, they welcome, welcome you in a kind of way. I tell people I say we used to be doing performances and getting paid and feeling the promoter paying you and that time it's money out of them pocket they gave you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they make it so good yeah.
Speaker 2:And we know that they get on like if the promoter gave you a thing. Yeah, right, that is how much they encourage you and they never. And, as a matter of fact, them used to be defending. We be cool people used to be coming to them and saying, boy them, you turn them spoiling the rap. So, boy, where they going with the set of stupidness? Bam, bam, bam bam and resistance and say leave them, boy, and them let them fellas and them spread the wings.
Speaker 2:But while resistance and them was telling me, oli, spread all the wings and let them spread the wings, there was also on the other side now and simple things sometimes and big things. I always remember, remember me and Akin, the energy. Like rain, we run on the stage Bam. Like rain, we run on the stage bam. Here on that side of the thing, we bang, bam, bam. That's it All of you. Go, get all your pictures in the papers.
Speaker 2:All of you never coming together. I see you have to get the photographer a little chance to capture it all here. Come together at some point in the song. You see a whole song can't be updated. You see it. You want to get in waves bill peak. Come back down. I see your whole song up there. It's making sense and simple, simple things you know what I mean and even critical things. We get advice about life, about women, about groupies, about everything, them fellas and them cool cool, without the sense of lecturing.
Speaker 2:And one of the reasons we was open to listening is because we see how much there was in we corner in the first place yeah, yeah yeah, the invitee Right, and so them, fellas and them need some of that Because, like I say, it can't make sense for you to be making life-changing money and deading all your friends. You understand? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It can't be right. But I wonder sometimes right Because I always talk about this on the podcast too I remember being stuck on something at night and I say you already know that boy. I say I say messaging boy, I like to bother people, you know, and I message on Facebook within a minute. You didn't just tell me what it was right, you tell me anything, you need't know, I have always been.
Speaker 2:I come from the school of abundance. I ask anybody who I mentor? And I mentor some people. I mentor Shaft Shaft about 19 songs that play in the carnival. Now we have a road match across the Caribbean Shaft lives with me and I always who do I mentor?
Speaker 2:I mentor Sharlan Bailey. One of the first things I tell Sharl, of a road march across the caribbean shaft live with me. And and I always who I just meant I meant to charlotte bailey. One of the first thing I tell charlotte i's a producer, i's a musician. One of the first thing I tell charlotte is I say, charlotte, you will be by far a better musician than I could ever hope to be. It's taking nothing for me to say that to you, because I go, still go in the corner and play my little bass and enjoy myself and strum my guitar.
Speaker 1:It's not taking anything away from you.
Speaker 2:You're right, and a lot of people feel that when you give you're emptying. I don't believe in that at all. I believe it has more song, it has more music, it has more yeah, yeah, yeah. So when somebody want to know something, I willing to give yeah, and I just offer that to everybody, my students. I say, just message me. I say, even if you hear from me one time, sure I go hit you back and you go get in, I know everything. If I don't know it, I will tell you I don't know, and then I will go and start to look too, because I want to know.
Speaker 1:but one of the things I see now right and something I hear youths complaining about, because one of the things you talk about resistance day is like the the public face when they had to talk about about Kiskeli Caravan or the youths they mentor, and the public faces that leave them alone but behind closed down they sell a photographer but now I find that and maybe it's because of social media- maybe it's no ill intent.
Speaker 2:Men getting corrected in public. Yeah, social media could reach out. You could reach out to top men, so I'm not sure there must be people. Who is this grey-beard man telling me things? There are men, artists and things. Now must you know me by?
Speaker 2:just go up to them and tell them bum, bum, bum and press on right In person Of Listen, me ain't going to talk that talk right, Right, that's what I mean, because it has certain artists I'm watching and I know and I'm in the business long enough to know I say right, maybe the management reached the plateau, here's what they need to do. You know what I mean. This is something and everything else. Sometimes you're watching the kind of sponsorships they're taking, the kind of thing that's not aligning with what. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:All you're joining and the art of dialogue and reaching out to a man, and it doesn't like I say, I just wait until I see them. You know what I mean. Sometimes it's and it's not always a hard money. Sometimes it's a a big up.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean I say, bro, I find your real consistency, you know the consistency for the last so much years thing. Thing my man, I go on right, so you reach out to the man who tell you he know what you could say about calypso and thing. You reach out to that man. You're doing any mental in there or anything I but he had. He had to come to me, you know, because one of the things he upset me about that and like I tell people I say I, I is a normal guy like everybody else. I do expect everybody to know who omari ashby is so.
Speaker 2:So my consternation is not that he don't know who omari is, of course. My problem is that you decide to attack Omari Ashby without checking out who Omari Ashby is, which would be easy to do, right, right. And so for me, if I go in and do a criticism like that, which is not a criticism, like hey, look at the shirt he have on you are saying what is my right to comment on Calypso? Right, the first thing I go say, I go say that to myself who he feel he is.
Speaker 2:And then I go say you know what, let me see who he feel he is, check him out, and that my issue so, like I tell people, I say nobody have to know me, but if you're going on this site to criticize me, the least you could do, according to me, do the googles yeah, yeah, yeah and do embarrass yourself, yeah right, because at the end of the day, I don't talk thing me know about I. I steeped in this culture. My, I love this culture. No, no joke. Before we start the pod, I tell you, since I was 7 years old, I go into the Calypso tent and you say, not junior Calypso tent not junior.
Speaker 2:The tent tent.
Speaker 1:I go in hard, hard nodding off 1 o'clock in the tent.
Speaker 2:Tent I'm going hard, hard nodding off one o'clock in the morning hard laughing at little rude joke that I had no clue what it really mean, but everybody laughing so I laugh too right and and so I I used to stand up in between men like, sprang along on them right and could talk, yeah with them, because I didn't only know things from when I was born, I went back, I had catalog. You understand, I work with men, right. So the idea that me have a right to talk about Calypso is madness, because that is me.
Speaker 1:But the nice thing is that it was so. You just look lost when you say something like that. It makes you wonder, because if these are the men, who is the premier station?
Speaker 2:And he's a tastemaker, of course, a tastemaker.
Speaker 1:It would be hard to understand why you're not spending time to just understand or taking the correction. If men tell you well, you well hey, you can't say that about this man. I would think that when you look now, you say good, I should not say that which I never heard. I never hear him say anything after that no and and again one.
Speaker 2:For me, that is part of the core problem we're dealing with with airplay and thing, is a kind of hubris that men just get when they come in the thing and they get big right, I always used to tell people one of the things I had bodyguard, I used to get picked up in limousine and me and I can used to constantly watch one another laugh and say you know, this is not real.
Speaker 1:Right, this is not real yeah, this is not a real thing, so you can't let that go.
Speaker 2:And what I used to mean is stay, understand that this is not real one, it's not going to last forever. Two is not a real thing. So you can't let that go. And what I used to mean is stay, understand that this is not one, it's not going to last forever. Two is not a real thing. I said this is my work, just like how the man who going in the office is, he worked people just seeing my work and a lot of time people just get caught up in this. The, the trappings are stardom, the idea that you, you're bigger than somebody else and and and so. So as a dj or somebody on the radio, you feel you have, say, over a man career, or you feel you could play this one or not play that one. And like I tell people I say the reality is all. The tune can't play everybody's especially.
Speaker 1:No, it's really a song, because everybody's a producer.
Speaker 2:Right, so everybody. But at the same time it is wrong to just let 10 play.
Speaker 1:Right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So there has to be a balance where either you are right we know the prime time and the thing will get jammed up with promoter who will dis some play and in the little more down time, in a little more downtime, you expand your playlist so that perhaps the people who are not in the party or who think playing it can't just be those 10 songs. On the other hand, as an artist, you have to be honest with yourself and your team have to be honest with you and your team goes beyond the people who are managing you and who are doing your music. Right, if you're singing shit, you're supposed to know that early. Yeah, somebody had to tell you.
Speaker 1:Your brethren and them are supposed to tell you that. Don, if you're singing shit, you're supposed to know that early.
Speaker 2:Yeah, somebody your brethren and them supposed to tell you that don't gas up your brethren to go there and carry no shit sung by the radio and plenty people doing that. So there's a balance. As an artist, you really have to be honest. No, and people doesn't understand. No, I just tell people, if you put me and chris brown in a room and we're going on the stage, I feel like like it's the baddest thing, of course. Right, I feel like it's the baddest thing.
Speaker 1:Objectively, it might be true but I feel like it's the baddest thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:But at the same time there's a portion of reality in me that when I sing a piece of shit, I say yeah, boy, that song was shit. Yeah, it can't only 10 songs, that is not shit, Of course.
Speaker 2:Right, so there has to be a balance where these fellas know right, okay, we have these, maybe sponsor responsibilities and this dance train and these are the five artists in the dance who will be promoting that for this hour, but beyond that, you had to free up the thing. You know what I mean, and excuses like that is what the people want. I just often tell people when you go into a grocery, right, and there's only one brand of corned beef on the thing that is the corned beef you're going to take, right, it's true.
Speaker 2:So you had to kind of free up the thing and them fellas, they had to see the responsibility as breaking the music too. You can't only play hits, so how the hit go become a hit, you have to know to break the music too. And that is a problem with DJs and it's a problem with the artists. And all Artists just run from their own song. I never see them pour their song and free to perform it.
Speaker 1:Well, this is what I want to ask you too I don't want to stray too far thing that people come out to see that people sing along with these songs, and so and I start wondering, okay, if, if akins and them salute to them in raise bar, if they're doing that every wednesday, how much young artists passing through with this song, with a catalog, to say let me build it from there?
Speaker 2:and there's an opportunity for that right, because we just put aside a portion of course, for for men to come. So not much people doing that. Well, men, I will tell you something. We again part of that. Performing in Blocko as young men and performing anything is learning to work. A song, that again no radio play. One of the things we just pride ourselves on is the fact that we could take a stage and entertain people with them, never having heard the song before.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people do understand that. They do understand the concept of coming on a stage and billing and selling your tune although nobody will hear it. That takes a kind of work and we didn't invent that. It had been doing that years before. I used to always say this about one man in particular. I used to say if you're gay, ronnie McIntosh, half a song, half a song. He want a whole song. He mash up the place. So when I watch at Ronnie I would take all right what he doing, how we looking, how we just think. How we think Bam bam bam. How he billing that Ronnie was a master. All Ronnie want is a piece of song. He had to give him a whole thing and he gone billing one of the things with rap.
Speaker 2:So, men, and thing is that we work underground so that it has song that never play on the radio, but when we come on stage you're billing the song and artists now do have that um in them. I don't know what it is. This is your song, if you will like it enough to perform it.
Speaker 1:You want me like it. Well, I think just what you say is part of a contribution to that. You know, you see the going, the publishing your song immediately. As you're done with a song, you could put it out.
Speaker 2:It does give you the opportunity to even try a song before you finish recording and see how people respond.
Speaker 1:It's lacking a little bit, but the DJ going back to the DJ and the idea of a DJ breaking a song Going back to the days when a DJ had to buy records. Then you had to choose what you like, because your budget is unlimited, not like now.
Speaker 2:Now your budget for tune unlimited you can just play anything and also your space not unlimited. It's true, you have one crate or two.
Speaker 1:So if you don't have that, where men had to actually go. I remember being a young fella going in Crosby's on the main road in St James and I just used to go there to see djs and things, man like he and the goose and he pick up thing and he listen and he said no, no that yeah, and I did it before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have to be able to hear, basically because that djs are brand, you want to go there, so you have to listen to enough so that I pleasing people as they play, but it force you to know if you had to be different from the next dj.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't come on yeah, you have to break them fellas and them a doing that? No, and again, is a level of laziness right? And sometimes they maybe just don't know how right? And and one of the hardest things to admit sometimes is that you don't know. I do have a skill and so therefore you want to go and learn it. And I always tell people I say you know the beautiful thing about these spaces, you could do that. There are examples. All the time I always tell people I say you know who? I just look at Comedians. I like comedians because a comedian will go and work his head Work the material.
Speaker 1:Right work the.
Speaker 2:Material until you perfect it, and then so you're working it in smaller thing and then time you get it, big, perfection, yeah you beat. See, I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing work your song yeah, well boy, it lacking on both sides so you could see why. And then the other thing too is like when you go as a fet goer, the best come out of Carnival at a carnival, for me for years is the FETs. And when you go FETs now and you have the big band, fets it's very few, they're dying, happening much again. So you're depending on DJs. And boy I have to tell you, when you see the 60 Cent song in a FET, it rough it.
Speaker 1:It, rough it, rough it. I remember going to Soka Brainwash Private Ryan at a carnival Saturday and me and my wife said, no boy, we care, that year they sing Rokshanan. They do me a favor Not to say there's not good songs.
Speaker 2:But over and over, and over and over, and I'll tell you something One of the things we had to understand is, when you bring people to that space and you're doing them that, right, so you're going, bam you hear that, bam you hear that by the time. It's one of the reasons why we music by after carnival. Sometimes you ain't want to hear what what was playing. It's a. It's a thing that is deep with music too, and and and one of the Trini performers and when I say performers, I'm including DJs and artists freed.
Speaker 2:Here we're freed, right here we're freed. They're freed to not see frenzy.
Speaker 2:Yes, and not everything deserves frenzy. Yeah, got you Right. Sometimes in your performance people will stand up and look at you. Nothing wrong with that if that is what the song is demanding from them. And we're afraid that we must have a hand in the air whole time, we must sing for them whole time, because it means that in their mind you're not engaged and so they are afraid of what they may see as lulls. Right, and this boy is suffering from it a little bit, you know, young Brother.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, young Brother lulls right and this this boy's suffering from it a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know young brother, you know okay. Okay, young brother, no, but young brother has a sweet song right, he's not allowing it to be sweet. There are parts of it that he could hype but he's not allowing it to be sweet, yeah in the moments.
Speaker 2:Yes, so so you could, you could think, you know, but everything can't be up yet. So when you say, when you say that thing and how you sing that, because when I hear him sing I say, oh God, that's sweet. So you give the people some sweet and let them think sometimes my man will hold on to you, man Right.
Speaker 1:And that would make you remember songs forever.
Speaker 2:Hold on to you, man, and then now you do this, but we have thing where we want up here all the time and and and that is what has caused people to want to play the songs that mashing up do the thing that much because they're afraid that our people, people instead of so right and on your road it was and on your road it was.
Speaker 1:I remember walking home. I kind of, on your tuesday, just leave poison yeah, that same thing just play the road match from a hospital. You know you stick the lung yeah and they just beat that road. It's feel like like punishment madness madness that kind of but they're parallel to comedians is a good one, because when you let me use chapelle as an example, right, chapelle is taking long between laughs. Yeah, he's built up a lot of tension when he's telling that story and then he tell you something and you laugh.
Speaker 2:So he's feel comfortable in his space where you say, you know, people just kind of sitting down and watching it, yeah, and that's how, again, I just look at my two comedians so I do a bit of emceeing right, and the people I look at, for that really, I like Sprung Along. Right In my mind Sprung Along better than Chopper right, yeah. Sprung is good and it's similar in the sense that sometimes sprang will tell a joke, but most times serious, like a judge.
Speaker 1:Most times he will tell you a story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, about a serious thing and get funny moments yeah of course, of course, you know, and for me that is the real genius, and so, like I kept bringing it back to to artisan performing, you had to be able to play to your strengths and and there's a there's a thing when I was performing all the time that I started to understand. Right, you want to be able to have a symbiotic relationship with your audience. Very quickly, very quickly, and there's a way you do it right, so you come and you engage with them. However, that is, you understand different people do it differently, right? Red man had different powers. Red man have different powers.
Speaker 2:Handsome man have different powers if you're a thing if you're a dancer, different thing, but somehow you endear yourself to them, right. And once you endear yourself to that crowd, now they just feel like they need to give you back something, right? And so when you endear yourself to that audience and they give you back something, you reward them with a little nice and you think and your mama guide them a little bit, right you give them a little sweet talk, bam, bam, bam, and they feel good about that, and so now they feel a responsibility to make you feel good and it's that kind of conversation that be happening.
Speaker 2:But you have to know me and that's how it goes. The next thing plenty artists I seen they don't understand is leave your audience wanting more. I always tell people I say good, he gone already. Boy, is is a million times better than, oh god, when he go, come off right. So leave people saying by I could have done that in 10 more minutes and I'm thinking rather than oh God, boy, he think and he drag it out and he think. So you have to have that sense.
Speaker 1:But you don't feel we're missing things like the tent because the fet now is such a run-on run-off kind of thing.
Speaker 2:For most artists the tent had to be retooled, and they're trying, but they're going too extreme. The tent is a simple thing to fix. The tent is a simple thing to fix, one you have to change with the times. Most tent too long right now.
Speaker 1:Most performance. Everything too long, Too long right now, right For my age.
Speaker 2:Specifically for the tent, because the tent is old, so you say your age and that most of the people going to tend to older than you. Yeah right, so them want to be, them want to be done by anything by about 12, 12 is pushing it right so if you could wrap a 10 by 11, 30 quarter to 12, that is your sweet spot.
Speaker 2:What that means is a lot less performance. Right and now. A tent is an incubation space, so you have to know, know that you're taking away that incubation space, so use what they already does. Have this carnival village going on right farm a lot of people across there. Give them things and let that be the incubation and let them hone their craft across there yeah, right because when you go there, as an so you're holding your craft across the in the tent.
Speaker 2:I say had two things with the tent. You have the veterans right, men who are doing no new music and don't need to do no new music because the catalog is long so you have a couple of them every night.
Speaker 2:you feature one or two, so a part of the show is a man like valentino or johnny king coming and do four or five songs. Right, a nice little mini thing, and then you pick the best, maybe eight or 10. Right, and that is your 10 day. Mm-hmm, the best of the best Some humor, some things.
Speaker 2:Some things bam Tight, tight, tight show. People know when they come they get in the thing. They bam bam who would be in the tent? As a kind of scrubbing the bench or maybe making up time. You put them in a next area to kind of incubate while they could come. And what it means is that only the most entertaining, most thoughtful, best commentary everything will be there, then you're getting a little vintage. Everybody enjoy a little vintage.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean Bam, bam bam.
Speaker 2:You get the men and them who put the thing on the shoulder the chance to shine right and you end the show early. It's simple. You ain't have to think, we ain't have to look for no, we ain't have to create no cabaret we ain't have to go. Vegas.
Speaker 1:We ain't have to simple a tent is a tent is a tent and it's end the night making a man feel like yeah boy I could do it more. I could do it a little bit, because sometimes the show is gone for a long time and it's not.
Speaker 2:And because you have so many veterans you could get, you could get repeat people because, hey, it's who? Tonight, of course I will come back but you can hear they having scrunter, scrunter thing, and then right and you're getting. We're going to last you here. Crapo Revolution from.
Speaker 1:Scantor right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be nice to help the if the artists could curate the songs yes, if you could help them curate it, yeah, so that thing that, because you know right, you're always in this, you're always in that? That would be nice you start to hear he pull out the will or something you know what them is the kind of things you need to revamp the tent.
Speaker 2:And when people hear, revamp the tender, all right, make it younger, make it this, make it that, do this, you think, make it at this way, yeah no, I like the idea of, because I think when people one of the things that people do here is they feel like quantity is what is it just put plenty artists to the whole night.
Speaker 1:but I talk to you as we're talking calypso credentials, right about that. You talk about building that rapport with your audience. You, you give them something, they give you something back. Skinner Park Listen, one of the hardest audiences Everybody yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Even as an MC, it is, I see you doing two work.
Speaker 1:last year I see you MCing and you went to do commentary halfway. Yeah it is.
Speaker 2:It's an amazing thing. I'm very comfortable on stage MCing a tent is nice because I gain it easy to build a rapport with a couple hundred people. A couple thousand people requires a bit more because you can't be intimate with them and also you have to be large because the man down in the back is a challenge and that's just for the MC, much less for the artists who come in to face people who want a reason to show you toilet paper?
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course they want a reason.
Speaker 2:We bring toilet paper, so we want to use it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Right so, but at the same time as well is a kind of testing ground. You come through Skinner Park you understand. You could do anything. Just today I was reading a Facebook memory where Gypsy was performing a tune and they started to get Gypsy paper. Not too long ago, maybe two, three years ago, right Started to get Gypsy toilet paper, toilet paper like rain.
Speaker 2:So I say the comment I made was hmm, Venezuelan must be jealous with that among the toilet paper we're seeing. But as the performance went along, they start to see Gypsy win over people. He win over people. By the time the third verse, all toilet paper are gone and people waving, waving and clapping and eating, and so again, that is a testimony of an artist who understands how to build a song. The people come prepared to dislike him because of some political thing, of course.
Speaker 2:Right, he's been through that right but he knew what he have to say and he come and he deliver his song through that. And the people was forced now to the yeah boy, there's a good song begrudgingly yeah boy. Oh god boy. Yeah he good, he good, he good, he good. All right, all right yeah, yeah, yeah right and so so.
Speaker 2:So them is the kind of things that I see down there. You know I mean it. Skinner park is an amazing experience and a space for artists. You know I mean for the audience too, because you know I mean it's one of the last and and the festival, and last year to me was one of the best skinner packs we have had in years in terms of how they pick and stuff, because generally I've found that the Calypso judges have been giving us a kind of type of music over the years that kind of, to me was stifling, the kind of breadth of Kaizo.
Speaker 1:it have you know, we was getting a very narrow monarch calypso in inverted commas right.
Speaker 2:And last year I found that they kind of moved away from that.
Speaker 1:In terms of who they select for the final.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get kind of well, not so much the final, but who reached kind of back was wide, you know, and varied and different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find the final went back to that type castle. Yeah, yeah, yeah and and and.
Speaker 2:It is because people don't understand what a monarch, a so-called monoclepso, is. Right, people has not. Have no typecast, that and for some reason a humorous song cow in the morning. But but a humor is just a tool. Yeah, right, there's just a device that. So you so. So people are saying but there's a, there's put humorous as a category. Humorous is not a category, it's a device, because you could have a humorous party song and a humorous social commentary or humorous political commentary right.
Speaker 2:So humor is a device. So when you say humor, as a category. It's not a category, and so, for whatever reason, a humorous song does always be disadvantaged in the monarch competition why because? They don't know what category is, because somehow in the mind they find that this is a humor like if it's a category and it's not a monarch song. There's this idea of a monarch song. Right the tempo must be if you go too fast yeah, and I always tell people I say I remember dancing to monarch to dimash gara songs dancing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that time change yeah, you could have.
Speaker 2:You could have remember melody and sing. Yeah, I remember when, when duke come on stage singing harps of gold.
Speaker 1:That's real steel band music. Harps of gold Skinner.
Speaker 2:Park movie. So but somehow over the years we kind of started. But last year I was kind of really really surprised and I'm hopeful that maybe this year it continues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the humorous songs that stood out to me last year was Bruce Hammond. Yeah, yeah, the humorous songs that stood out to me last year was Bruce Harmon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, when he do the badang bang. He performed really early.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but boy and he have a style and he build an audience on social media.
Speaker 2:He quick boy, quick, quick, quick. When anything happen, he has something coming to him.
Speaker 1:So I hope people like him, stick with him.
Speaker 2:Personalities yeah, yeah, personally, everybody. You know a thing you're right. You could expect any minute crazy to be swinging from something or riding a horse in tongue or some kind of right is you can imagine crazy.
Speaker 1:And then we were talking last week I was recording with keegan taylor and he was asking me about trinidad killer and he online kind of thing. He said who would it be that in calypso? I said boy crook room and like crazy you can imagine that man in life.
Speaker 2:In calypso I said boy crook room and, like crazy, you can imagine that man in life. You can ride a horse and tongue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, going live, it'll be wild yeah, but let me ask you this about the calypso monarch entry. Now the judging. The initial preliminary judging was the tent, the tent and then the bullpen so the tent is still the unattached calypso so if you don't get in a tent, yeah, there's a day you could go and go before the judges.
Speaker 2:I got you Right. But every tent will get a judges night, right? So that's happening now. Okay, right, the judges will pass and the tents on that night will prioritize people who want to enter the competition. So sometimes there are calypso in the business. Some of them might still perform, but some of them might just sit it out so that the artists who are trying to enter could get a little, could get a putty in their foot for Sunday, all them kind of things right.
Speaker 1:So the unattached man. Now, how do they find him?
Speaker 2:The bullpen, the bullpen you register and you know they will tell you. Well, the bullpen is Sunday, the wherever, but it's always better in the tent, because the tent is a band, the bullpen. You go out, you come with your tracks, so maybe you get that.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the tracks men do and you listen to them on YouTube.
Speaker 2:The band is what you need.
Speaker 1:But you're feeling still effective today, in this era, is there merit in submitting songs? So, for instance, if I just submit the song and the judges hear it, or is it too important? No, you have to go and perform. Yeah, you have to go, and perform.
Speaker 2:You can't stop me Because remember, it's something that Zeno said to me when they did the first independence competition and this guy won. I always forget his name right, he won over Sparrow, right, and I hear Sparrow's song and I heard his song. I said you know how this man beat Sparrow? He said well, when you hear the recording of the night on the night, he was better than sparrow. So the recording of a song is one thing, but how you perform it, because you're being judged not on the song but on the performance of the song, right?
Speaker 1:you could break down that before that. That rubric what? What is this they're looking for?
Speaker 2:well, it has several things. Let me see my memory bad, right, but there will be lyrics, melody, melody, rendition, and I think I'm missing one. Right Presentation, okay, right Presentation to me has become a distraction, right, but people don't make joke with that. Sometimes it's a whole Best Village production.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2:Right. Some people keep it simple Gypsies and man no bother with too much of a thing.
Speaker 1:How much are you getting for presentation? I don't know.
Speaker 2:And then there are some people who are extreme and some people who right. So the presentation you're coming to that. Then the lyrics. You can't do much about lyrics unless you're adding a verse or something, right, melody. You're looking to see if it's a unique melody, if it's something that rehashed rendition, how you execute the song really, um, in terms of you know you're hitting your notes, how you use your stage, or your fullness of the gotcha editing, right, um, and so you have, and, and what they do is they take all the highest and the lowest mark the kind of gear that bias, okay, okay, right, so every. So you, if you like like somebody.
Speaker 1:You're an average, yeah, if you like.
Speaker 2:Like somebody, you could put how high you want that going right if you dislike them. Or you could put a whole higher one that going. If you dislike someone, you put a whole other that going. But I think it is in the training of the judges where we lack in. I think we have to start to do a wider kind of assessment of our judges in terms of letting them see the fullness of Calypso, because we still have this idea of what fullness of calypso because we still.
Speaker 2:We still have this idea of what a monarch calypso is you know, and for me it is not necessarily that one thing. It could be that right, but it has that and it have other things too, right, um, and that in now, where the reason soca monarch exists is because super blue had some of the best calypsos in the world and you say get me last all and they say, look, we had to figure out a combination where super blue could get yeah and that's how soca mona kind of come into being it, it, but it shouldn't be that way if you listen to shadow enough in here, it's over many, many years where you feel I mean, look, he probably going now as one of the greatest, greatest of all time yeah, yeah, but but still Still right.
Speaker 2:And I mean, you could imagine the year of poverty is hell here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to imagine, like what are you looking for, but they said that there was not no Calypso.
Speaker 2:I remember the year that yeah but they also said that about Calypso music. Yeah right, they said that about every time something new come on when sparrow first come on the scene. They want to know who is this thing, what he doing.
Speaker 2:That's a real thing right, so it's not new, but but we our our art forms right. Everything in carnival are not museum pieces. Our artists are living art. Everything does change right all the time, so so when you listen to Calypso, calypso is a music that has adopted whatever is the pop music at the time into it. Of course, that has been happening from time immemorial. So if you listen back to old Calypso you could know when Big Bang song was sung.
Speaker 2:You could know when soul was in. You could know when funk was in, you could know when it was breakdance, when when music is electronic.
Speaker 1:Yes, the fullness.
Speaker 2:So so that is Calypso. Calypso has been doing that. Nothing new in that. That is we. That is we. We just we just absorb things and when it come back out we make it totally unique. Yeah, that is, we give, yeah, right, and sometimes it just take the judges a little longer to recognize the change that happening. You know what I mean. Watch out for the bomb, for the explosion. That is one of the greatest social commentary ever sung.
Speaker 1:Why he wasn't in it. He got away with doing that Right. I'm not sure if people pay attention to how much social commentary.
Speaker 2:Bungie does Lego social commentary on me regularly.
Speaker 1:Which is what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that song because the man gave me a, and what happened when that was. You remember how they had a bomb in the?
Speaker 1:dustbin and the woman's foot get. And all of that.
Speaker 2:The man give you that we want again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, but the judges and them. That is not a monarch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we might not even listen to what he's saying.
Speaker 2:in that case, and so those things are things we need to remedy. For people to see the breadth of the thing, the idea of the large separation between Soka and Calypso To me that is yes, there's a difference. Of course there's a difference, but is it enough of a difference to treat it like how we treat it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean Groovy versus power. Yeah, groovy versus power I don't know what the point of that is, that is nonsense because when you look at earliest forms of soccer, it was groovy. Right, I suppose All of them yeah, all of them was groovy.
Speaker 2:Right and so so. So we have the other thing, too. That we're lacking now is songs that speak about things other than carnival.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Teja doing that, teja does do that Free time collective Free time, you know, but Teja doing that Teja does that Free time collective. Free time, you know. But we need more of that. I just tell people, shadow sing a song about an alien invasion in the carnival Right. They wanted to make a soup with my brain. They wanted to barbecue me for dinner. They wanted me to tumble down. They want me to to barbecue me for dinner. They wanted to have dinner. They want me to tumble down.
Speaker 1:They want me to tumble.
Speaker 2:You see, I'm an alien ship on a hunting trip. Da da, da, da Right, so I ran. Oh, yes, I ran. They want me to tumble down in the drain, they wanted to make a soup with my brain dinner they want to have in the heart of the carnival the most absurd thing. But that is the niceness about Calypso you could sing about love, you could sing about what and put it in the thing. It doesn't mean that everything had to be about the carnival and the festival and the bacchanal yeah it doesn't have to.
Speaker 2:It's like it's the same thing used to happen. After a while with pan songs.
Speaker 1:People start to assume pan songs are songs that mention pan or mention pan Right, so you're hearing sweet melody in all kind of music but you're waiting for something that's referencing a tenor or a double second, or something.
Speaker 2:That is not what a pan song is. That's a song about pan, and so a lot of times we just get caught up in those kind of things and fail to see the wider expanse of what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's something I look at over the years. You're right, shadow, whatever the topic was, and not just Shadow, but great storytellers, yeah a lot of them.
Speaker 2:When you go back to Super Blue and Blue Boy Catalogue, when you listen to songs Super Blue and Blue Boy catalog yeah. When you listen to songs like Asylum, yeah Right, the Unknown Band.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean Rebecca, rebecca, all them things.
Speaker 1:When you listen to all the width and breadth of the man catalog Duke thing I mean Merchant is stories about various things right and the other way of pulling you into the compositions too yeah so even Shadow, the song has always come to mind where I was always fascinated with how a writer has decided to open my song yeah and when you listen to Shadow, shadow ain't telling nothing, but he just say she said she has been gone away.
Speaker 2:Shadow gift his gift. Apart from it, how he looks at things is economy awards he and super blue sick with that. Yes, right shadow says right economy, and he will create a whole idea like that. Right the man say she tell me she lost she shoe, so take off your shoe too. That immediately a bond, make the right. Our next one is is a little boy named Corduroy. That is the most absurd. A little boy named Corduroy, that is the most absurd. A little boy named Corduroy, right, but immediately you're locked in right.
Speaker 2:Check out how Superblue chose to tell the story of the coup right and get something on wave right In two words right, or two names.
Speaker 2:He told the entire story. He say Prime Minister Abubakar no, goofy, it is amazing, but you got the entire. So then there was a way he treated with Robinson's, how we Got Voted Out After. That song used to blow my mind. People take it on, but I say but this man, it is the most. It's like the man say neighbor, neighbor scandal, neighbor scandal, y'all have on a hell. Aye, neighbor, neighbor scandal, neighbor scandal, y'all have no hell. Aye, aye, aye. Broken promises, more rags than riches. The people rebel. Aye, aye, aye. Guess who end up in Tobago Sucking Julie Mango. For you to be in Tobago as the last president sucking Julie Mango, it mean you have absolutely nothing to do. And so he created this situation Neighbor, neighbor scandal, broken promises, more rags than riches. The people rebel and send him to Tobago to suck Julie Mango, something like he's a good man now.
Speaker 1:You understand.
Speaker 2:So he's saying I say but you understand, so he's saying. He's saying I say but this man say, and he call her name this man in Tobago sucking. That is the most casual thing. You want nothing else to do. You was just running the affairs of our entire nation. Relaxing you know Tobago at Tobago starch, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Enjoying life, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, enjoying life, and so so there's a way that those guys, the guys who understand less is more, now, sometimes you just need people who could think like Rudder right, rudder is almost the opposite of that where he creates magic with the amount of words.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. But then that economy and language, yeah, is so beautiful you see to know lots of Kitchener writing too.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, but sometimes melodies is nice. You know intricate melodies and things. But then he just he have an economy of words, yeah, yeah and.
Speaker 2:Kitchener, like I tell people, people just complain about artists, right you singing the same thing? I say Kitchener used to sing people with. And when I say the same thing, same melody same time. Kitchener, that style, yeah, your style. Right, I say. But what used to make it beautiful is Kitchener is a musician, so when he Lego music on here, right, but you could sing certain Kitchener tune one into the next right.
Speaker 2:Kakarot in the pet you could ask me to, of how he approached it, right and and and so so. So I see people say that about voice sometimes, right, but voice themes, you know I mean because of what he writes about. So so I tell people I said don't get people say same thing same thing. I said don't get mixed up with style. Right, yes, people, let's have a style and sometimes, sometimes we just punish people for having a style.
Speaker 1:I find voices, get punished for his voice yeah, he Do you have a voice. I used to tell my wife. Sometimes voices sound like you're crying right through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the songs on them you can't deny voice music and then some of the sentiment. I was in class with voice. I was in that very at the time. We had a. He was in university same time I went back. I went back to university, man, right so voice is in a class and we were tasked with writing a midnight rubber speech for one of our classes, I think, was a class called mass history, meaning and development. Strangely, that class I just teach now. Right so we were. We were tasked with writing a midnight rubber speech and I come with like bad eyes, midnight rubber. I see a man in this class. Listen voice.
Speaker 1:Come with that thing here in this class will not turn me out thing, right thing, and I get on listen voice.
Speaker 2:Come with that thing there, pack up everybody if you watch. My wish I had that. Midnight robber is one of the most creative things. One of the lines I remember is that you know, midnight robber is about badness. One of the lines he says I am so bad I just take two months salary and turn it into a carnival costume. Right, that's one of the lines the man has.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So he was always bad with lyrics and putting things there and the way how just that song where he says you ain't staying long, just show your face, that's such a Trinidad yeah, of course, very, very true.
Speaker 1:Just show your face.
Speaker 2:I know I'm drunk in the people place.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying? Bad, bad song. When I hear he's on here, he capture the essence of some of them to me.
Speaker 2:Nadia is our next one. Let's do that, nadia have. Nadia, have a visceral connection to us. I don't know how. It's something else.
Speaker 1:I tell my wife all the time too, because when she had sang that Kula Fett song, you're wondering how you tap into exactly what it is, feel like.
Speaker 2:You're lining up your hole in your Kula.
Speaker 1:It's something else.
Speaker 2:But so long as she is one of the greatest lessons in Caribbean mamagaya ever heard.
Speaker 1:The only thing she didn't say is your quantum size.
Speaker 2:You know she was missing from it, so so so like money running good is a kind of tapping into we that some artists have, and she is one of them. She's one of for me she's one of our greatest modern day writers. Now, they're not easy when coming to that kind of visceral part that we serve and that to me them is the thing I just live for.
Speaker 1:Them thing I like the beauty in them thing I like the language I like you know you'd love it like voice on them, like Nadia, and them, the people who current Well Bungie doing it already, but you think there's a space for them to do the same thing in terms of putting the social commentary into the soca and have people fit into song again, or we?
Speaker 2:stuck in our Roman collection. Yeah, man, yeah, and sometimes they just do it. Sometimes they just do it To me, to me, so long, because, based on what she's singing about, and and and voices do it all the time, voice, voice says he is, he is the man sing a song about obeying your parents. How he does do that. What song is this song? I say papa, I know I work hard for sure, right, I know my thing is in the country to country. The man sing a song about his mother. Tell him, well, son, just you know you have to work hard for it. And he say mama, so you singing a song that I just listen to my mother, I listen to my father, that is the most uncool thing you can tell a youth, of course, and your youth is not going to grip, but the way how he brings it across.
Speaker 2:And that is a social commentary. That is to me a nation building song, because you are advising these youth and them. You could have this if you follow your parents' advice.
Speaker 1:Right right Without being yeah.
Speaker 2:well, that's as nation building as it gets. Yeah, without being corny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's different from what Curt Allen sang last year.
Speaker 2:Right. So we have the things there, but we don't recognize it as such, because we have this idea of what it's supposed to be Pampani, nidai and again nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:That is one version of it, that is one version of it, but don't throw the baby People will suffer Like even when I look at Karin Ashi or Mr Shaq, they have a different style, very, very different in terms of how they compose and things, and sometimes I just wonder if it's working against them.
Speaker 2:Definitely Shaq suffers from that sometimes, but he's an artist and he knows that. He understands when you're doing a song that different, sometimes you'll say, oh Mario, it's different, yeah, you're getting the band trouble, yeah, it's different, and he's a musician a musician that like chords and it's sweet and and so we want to undo that so that them fellas go be comfortable, so he doesn't know, sometimes eating for a hard time with a musician.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people are looking for him. He understand that as a artist, but because he is a slave to what must be done and what needs to be done, he will go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1:I guess if it's coming through. You had to do it. You had to do it, going back to that night, whether it's Skinner Park or the finals. Before I come back to focus on you, the artists who put themselves out there from the stage or the tent or the bullpen get to semifinals and then get to the final Back in the day. Was it a common thing where the Skinner Park person go in there to hear songs for the first time or was it more like when I come Skinner Park to take in the show? I know most of the songs Because I get the sense now that most of the people who go Skinner Park hearing most of them songs for the first time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't used to hear all before, but they would have heard a significant amount.
Speaker 1:So you're coming in with your favorites.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you would have heard a significant amount what you might not have heard because, remember, in those days it was two songs, so you may not have been familiar with the second song from the artist Right, sure, but a lot of the songs would have songs, but the tent was more full too.
Speaker 1:Five, six days a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the tent was rammed.
Speaker 1:In them days the tent was rammed All over the country. It had a roving tent, roving tent clash. Remember tent clash?
Speaker 2:Yeah sometimes you know. So it was more vibrant and people would have been more tuned in, because that was what the radio was playing. Got you Right. So when you're getting radio, airplay, everybody listening.
Speaker 1:So I feel like today it makes it more difficult for either a complicated song or a song that might be unfamiliar to the melody or even the topic.
Speaker 2:But all I wrong you know, which is why in Pan they went back to, you could use any song from any year. Because a lot of times it was bands coming in with songs that nobody knew, so it was hard to judge if they did anything real with the song.
Speaker 1:I suppose Right, but as a resurgent, I think because of that decision to when you're going to a panyard now, the amount of youth is still playing pan, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, I tell people of all our forms, steel pan is where we will. That is where the rescue mission will launch from. Steelpan is critical and important because the young people gravitate into it and once you get into that and I've often told people that we are waiting for somebody to come some business. Maybe this is your area. I firmly believe that there's an entrepreneurial. Maybe this is your area. I firmly believe that there's an entrepreneurial slash management method in steel pan. I think you could use the steel pan to develop a system of, maybe change management, all those things, because the steel pan has certain things and somebody, some white man, will come down and write a book and sell me back it. Right, because when you look at it, we are taking the most claim to be indiscipline, rowdy, sector, the population, the youth.
Speaker 1:But when the man say yeah, I see it up to last night.
Speaker 2:Cyclance immediately immediate, and then also you're breaking out into your various departments, your sections, with us, with our, with our drill master. Do anything, then, coming back together and ensuring that it was, and what, what, what is significant about it, in a very short space of time. So it is a rapid development, a a rapid learning.
Speaker 2:That's what the business world calls for, and so you could take that as a model, extrapolate from it, call it the steel pan method. However, however, and men will be coming from all over the world to see a seminar, but we go wait until somebody do that Boy listen.
Speaker 1:We got to do it Because when you say it's dead right, like when you see youths in our, in our pannier, and maybe it could solve a lot of problems that we talk about here too. Yeah, of course, Because that disconnect we're talking about in mentorship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in there, it's in there, it's in there, it's in there.
Speaker 1:And the discipline of it. Yeah, clive Bradley talking about their approach to arranging yeah, and Bradley said why don't write music? You know, he said. But I mean like Pellermill. He said when I come out here and I come up with a melody in my head, if I tell all that when I come back I can't remember the melody. He said me telling my brother to play on this. He said I can't do that. A panyard full of people who might be able to play music outside of playing the panel, play by route, not play by sight and and and when they come together on the night I always do lecturing like me right now. I'll talk about some of your time in university as well, but when I talk about maslow's hierarchy of needs, I reach self-actualization. Pan man is the example of self-actualization for me, because at that point it don't matter your physiological needs if of them don't matter when you're on that stage and you play, or even as a fan, when you're on that drag or you hear your side play.
Speaker 2:It is steel pan, is it is where it's at right and for me again, that's where we will launch the rescue mission from Steel pan. Is it? Share numbers right? Music good and all, but music is one-on-one. How much are 100? And?
Speaker 2:some people 80-something people, youth, right. So you have share numbers, right. It is a captive environment and you could also now use that steel pan. And then again, from this point of view, it's nothing new. I'm talking this brother, talk about it, right? This brilliant UEE economist who passed, I feel I know his name yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's an institute on Tunapuna Road.
Speaker 1:What's the name of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, but he often expressed the importance of steel pan and the steel pan yard as a way of being a way of living, a way of being a way of living, a way of intervention. And, of course, many steel pans have been doing it. There are plenty of them. You see how they operate, how they think the things that they do, right. So to me, that is where it's at, because they have all the ingredients there. Got you All the ingredients.
Speaker 1:I would love to see that and it answers plenty of questions to me because I always watch in the panniers. Now how young it gets. Yeah, and that's inspiring too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to me, listen. That will just give me hope, other than that I will be sulking somewhere. Yeah, you're tired, yeah.
Speaker 1:But as we touch on the academics, I want to talk about that because I remember the days of Kindred as as a child and I remember now getting into the corporate world. Now we're all business site up, we do marketing and them kind of thing. We had a sponsorship, uh thing to execute for a company for digital right, yeah, I bounced back up. Oh, marie doing audio visual work and things so from a business standpoint you already established in the artist world.
Speaker 1:You're doing your business as an entrepreneur and working on thing what you decide to go back to school for. What was that? Well, first of, all.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't know I was into television production before I was into music. Oh yeah, my first. I worked for TSTT for a while and my first job after that was AVM television.
Speaker 1:Okay, I used to do audio and master control and things like AVM, right, right.
Speaker 2:And my name right, right, um, and then I got in to to kiskady and right and and I have. I have never, from the moment I left school, I've never stopped learning right and in a formal way. Um, and that's just a channel challenge I gave myself. When I left school I went and I do a ham radio course. After that I do cim, marketing and right. Always, all, always, I would be on tour. Sometimes I would beg my classmates to take the notes for me. I'm here this week. I don't think I'll send it Right but you're always in it.
Speaker 2:Always in it in some form or fashion, because for me learning is exciting. I really like to learn and that's a credit to my mother. She used to buy this book called, I think, it's no power, knowledge power.
Speaker 2:It's a tick book with just random facts, so up to now, people just call me for oh, not just culture, all kind of thing, because I, I just know, right, I just know thing because I like that. So what end up happening now is that I started to get called to give lectures. There will be schools, exchange students coming in this one, you, we all over the world, to anywhere I come and give a lecture. So I'll be giving these lectures, doing this thing and then I say when I'm done here on paper.
Speaker 2:These students will be more qualified to talk about what I am talking about on paper because me I have nothing.
Speaker 1:it's one of those things they say whoever gets the first degree gets it from a man who didn't have a degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I say well, look at that.
Speaker 1:I say we need to fix that.
Speaker 2:And so I went back. All while I was doing things, I didn't know how, I just played fast. I went back and I was frightened at first because I could have been man in the class. I was them parents, contemporary, of course, of course. So I said boy, I wonder if I could remember how to do that. And then boom, dr Water. And it was easy for me because life experience yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I realized I'm a thing and I pass in everything thing, mashing up everything, winning awards, shocking myself to everybody because I'm here. I said, but like I have things and so that made me enjoy it more. And so when I was done the undergrad they called me to lecture some courses.
Speaker 1:I said but if I lecture in.
Speaker 2:yeah, let me do things. So I do my postgrad and I was pretty cool there. I was writing postgrad and doing some lecture and it allowed me enough time to run my business do my thing.
Speaker 2:Right. And then the COVID hit and my supervisor she was one of my lecturers in the thing, dr Burke, one of the most brilliant people you could come across she said oh, mari, come on and I breaks, I breaks, I breaks, that's for the PhD, yeah. And then she, she, yeah, started to study. But it's COVID. You know how long we inside for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2:You know it's not like you, yeah them time.
Speaker 1:We didn't know we would have been here, right?
Speaker 2:So so I say look, while I and you know, I thankful that I COVID, so time COVID was done. Now I'm into the research, Right? So you know, and my thing is, I am looking at RAPSO as youth culture in the 1990s, right, so I'm looking at youth culture identity based on the RAPSO movement, the boom generation RAPSO movement according to Ozzy, in the 1990s. Why? Because that moment was a kind of seminal moment of Trinidadian identity for young people seeking self. It was a kind of, you know, a whole thing was happening and I am examining it with the hope of understanding it better. To kind of extrapolate something that could possibly be used in this time now, and I hope, when.
Speaker 1:So, and I hope.
Speaker 2:When I'm finished and what I'm. So I've interviewed a whole lot of people artists from that time thing and then I'm trying to do I've been doing it a little bit, but I'm going to do some audience interviews now People who how it affected them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how it impacted them.
Speaker 2:Tell them when they're coming them yeah, and so how I want to do that is as I want to show thing, I want to do it. I want to show things on facebook and have people yeah, and then I want to do. I want to do uh I don't know if it's a podcast I want to do kind of almost a autobiographical sit down while I'm telling people my whole experience through that. Yeah, put it out and look at the comments as data.
Speaker 1:I see it's feedback really as data.
Speaker 2:So when I extrapolate and the nice thing about this is that part of my PhD has to have an artifact- and that artifact will be an album Gotcha Right, led by the findings Nice. So whatever I find it will be the input of the music and the lyrics. That's right and things so that will be so when I'm done I'll have a written thesis as well as this artifact that is music.
Speaker 1:Boy. We're looking forward to that. That is something else, and I like I'd never thought of the audience feedback being data points, because, um, I suppose when you're on stage and as I do more interviews, that's something I learned in because when you're on stage and you're in it, your crowd response is not something that you could really you can't, you can't, you can't add it up, you're just.
Speaker 1:I also credit the Rapsa movement or Kiskeady in particular for the reason man is talking like this on the radio. Now you know what I mean. You start to feel comfortable in what you call an urban or young or popular space, just talking like how he is talking.
Speaker 2:It's doing a little bit more Jamaican now, but I'd rather that it has been that for a while, Jamaica, and so much so that we have to accept that certain Jamaican slangs are now Trinidad.
Speaker 1:Part of the Trinidadian lexicon right, of course. Of course it is what it is there.
Speaker 2:Things just change. I just tell people that is how we end up, where we end up. You know language. I witness jab turn from whip jab to now. Jab for us means the same thing it means in Grenada. It didn't used to be that some years ago, maybe 10 years ago, when we speak to our jab, we were talking about the whip jab. Now, if you say jab, there's a full understanding that this is the jab malassi right and that.
Speaker 2:So all that is part of it and that is part of the beauty of it. One of the things that I have that has come out so far in the research is that there's this hybridity in our survival. For us to survive, we had to take the European things, we had to take the African things. We had to take the Indian things. We had to take the African things, we had to take the Indian things. We had to take everything that we got and it wasn't always pleasant. Like the European things.
Speaker 1:It's not something nice. It was, yes, but it's input yeah of course.
Speaker 2:Right and it's input. And even in pushing back against it it's input. Like I tell people I said, I always say that people will say but I'm not on Carnival. I say but you are, I say the very reason that you might go Miami or your church camp. I say that is Carnival right Influencing you, of course, everybody in Carnival.
Speaker 1:Once you hear it, you're immersed in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that hybridity is what led us to Kaiso, what led us to Soka, what led us to rap. So it is the coming together. And a lot of times people think hybrid only in terms of what was European, what was African, what was Indian, asian, right, and not think about what is one, indigenous, what is Jamaican, because there's a kind of intra-imperialism Jamaica, the US all those things impacted on us, I mean even in our way of production.
Speaker 2:One of the things that separate us from resistance and them in terms of rap is our production style. We was into turntable-ism scratching, sampling, right that was. We think them was more drums right.
Speaker 2:And where that come from, that come from an American influence. You had to take all them things into consideration in the mix when analyzing how we come up with this thing. Of course, and there's beauty in that when you realize, hey boy, we just, you know, I mean we just take, you know, all these things in and just kind of You're reflecting society back to itself.
Speaker 1:You know you had to continue to do that, but I encourage you to do that with your thesis at the time when the time right, Because once you have the work done with your cohorts, at that point in time time it's important to take it to this group of youths now who seem to not, yeah, yeah yeah, I can't blame them, but they seem to not appreciate that they've been here before and again, if they don't know, they don't know.
Speaker 2:And I often tell people even long before the Zest thing I used to say. When people talk about young people not having appreciation for Calypso, I say who fault is that they don't run no radio station? They don't. They don't control the means of of distribution and none of them things.
Speaker 1:So if they're not hearing it, how they gonna know? Well? But I encourage to hear how much young people 20 something years has told me to go out and reach and say but I didn't know. A simple thing that I take for granted is that when I hear voice it and then pass the rum, I immediately know it's bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it just connects.
Speaker 1:But I guess if you don't know, you don't know, and somebody has to be in this space to help them A thesis. Sometimes the university could seem disconnected from the society, but a thesis like my thesis when I was in Lockjack is the business I run today. Right, and I know you were telling me about.
Speaker 2:Saga Boy Culture. Saga Boy Culture was my thesis for my master's Right, you know, and those kind of programs for me is what needed now, right, because it forces you to deal with the reality of the space. There's theory and then there's the reality of the space, and sometimes it don't meet, you know, right, theory is like I tell people, theory come like literally music theory. So in order for a man like Jimi Hendrix to do what he did, he had to first understand theory Clearly and then say you know what, hold theory ass, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then so then what he do become theory Right.
Speaker 2:So that is how you had to look at theory, especially when you're dealing with a practical thing. So we had all of this, we do this, we do that, we bam, bam, bam, bam bam. And then you come outside now and that feedback and you start a thing and you start to live it. Right, you start to live it and I tell people I say we don't understand when we're in business, is that we get attached to our business, right? Like I often tell people when you understand a brand like Coats, right?
Speaker 2:you know what it is. People think it's a furniture store, but Coats, essentially, is a bank.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, it's a financing house. Right, exactly right.
Speaker 2:And so I tell people you have to know what your core business is. And a lot of people don't understand that. And even now I tell my students I say what? Because sometimes I do supervision for the ACM right, and so that is. They would come to me with again a business idea and one question what problem are you solving?
Speaker 1:And a lot of times a lot of times they don't understand. People start with the product a lot of times yes, the product.
Speaker 2:a lot of times they don't understand right, people start with the product a lot of times. Yes, the product a lot of times, and nothing wrong with that. But at some point in time you have to say hey, because sometimes, when your product is working, no more the problem might still be there. Go back to the core right and I often tell people, I say sometimes all you're selling is convenience, right? No matter how good your soup tastes, it's because a man don't want to cook on a Saturday or something.
Speaker 1:You must come out there in a lecture and I tell people that all doubles is the same. You located us. We're selling you doubles more than it tastes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so them kind of things right. And so having that understanding and giving people that, even like I just have an issue sometimes and thank God again for my supervisor and the people around me because they does be in my corner but sometimes people just want me to use more academic language and I tell them.
Speaker 2:No, what? Because what I write in is not for academics. What I write in is for the, for the community I dealing with. Right, I don't, I'm not interested in other academics telling me how great this and wonderful this is. I I could care less. I want people to be able to pick it up, understand it easily. It's not a jargon and a thing. You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean it's the same thing as saying efficiency awards in college? You don't write like if you're writing for a man who can't read.
Speaker 2:And there's the audience you're trying to reach and so that's the tension I get all the time.
Speaker 2:You know. I know that anybody who ever hear me talking I used to get problems from that. People used to say but you're so intelligent, why do you speak like that? Yeah, that's crazy, it's like, but we're mean there, what is your mean? And so, and I tell people, I say I just revel in how I look, how I appear to people, because people all the time and this is me from morning yeah, you know, what you see is what you get. And and I I revel in that because a lot of times people not expecting who they see and walking through the door now, I kind of like that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Don't be surprised, don't be surprised by it, but Sangamoy culture is going, yeah, yeah yeah, because initially I started seeing.
Speaker 2:I see a son who had designed to us and people see that he's a strong art in the ring as well. He's a brilliant artist.
Speaker 1:I could do a little thing, but he's not brilliant at it, but like most youths, yeah um, you don't know what you want to do, but how I encourage him? I just tell him.
Speaker 2:I say, listen, the money you have is my money, as if you want your money. But it's true, yeah, I say your money. How to do things? You have to do things. I say, and you don't have to wait until the school to start your business, right? I say I am willing to facilitate it. Um, you just tell me what you want to do and start your business, right? I say I am willing to facilitate it. Um, you just tell me what you want to do and start your business. There's. No, you don't have to wait on nothing, right? Um, and and and. To his credit, he does. He continues to draw. You know he's shy and things sometimes, but he have. And so I tell him, I challenge him, I say, listen, if you set that money I spending on art supplies here?
Speaker 1:sell something now, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So he think he design it. I sell it, I charge him to print.
Speaker 1:I charge him to take the t-shirt and I gave him.
Speaker 2:I said it's your profit and it was wonderful because it was at that point in time. He go in the mall he make a thousand. That's important right he go in there, he think, when he turn.
Speaker 1:I want to do this.
Speaker 2:I wanted to do this. I wanted when he turned around and he buy what he had to buy and he look at it. He said where's the money going? I said yes. I said yes, that's what you just do every day. I said yes. I said yes, see you now. I said so, but it was beautiful. It was beautiful for him to have your own money to spend. It was beautiful for him to see how quick and so he said yeah, boy daddy, that's expensive.
Speaker 2:And, like I tell people, I say I have the best problems with my son, and my son is make up your bed, clean your room. I see no worries at all. Yeah, no worries. And he's the most understanding. I don't know where he get that from.
Speaker 1:He's the most understanding youth in the sense.
Speaker 2:I will say, well, you can't get that now. Alright, daddy, cool, yeah, you move it up. And he pressed on because you know, whenever you could get, you go get right and and so so.
Speaker 1:So I know I maybe I do something right maybe I was blessed, and it's an important thing too, because we, as a people, I I always admire people like, if you look at the chinese business people whether they come from here, whatever generation they are. You're no-transcript. They try and work in there. I remember one on the main road where a little girl used to come from convent. She installed a uniform and she cashed it. And the same thing with somebody before. So you start to learn now little customer service and customer interaction.
Speaker 2:Stop taking invoicing important money.
Speaker 1:So we had to do the same thing when we have businesses like that and I always.
Speaker 2:I always remember, you see, but I just always say every generation is the bill right. So my parents and them know nothing about that. So when I got older and had to face the bank, I remember going for my first car loan. I'm scared, of course, I'm hoping that I get through and things. So I went by the first bank and they tell me something. And then I went by the second bank and they say well, yes you could get a loan and you could get a credit card.
Speaker 2:And then the next bank called me and said get through. And I said well, this bank gave me a credit card. Well, we will give you a credit card.
Speaker 1:And then something I said wait, I am not going for a loan. Them trying to sell me a loan. They're giving you business. You're giving them business.
Speaker 2:I said them trying to sell me a loan and then it hit me, wait, and then it flipped, and so then I started to understand. I said, you know if I had this knowledge coming into the thing? So I tried that. You know, I always tell people take a turn on them, let them see you're paying the bills, guide them, watch the transaction, let them get accustomed to financial things so that it's not intimidating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, bring them into the business. You don't have to punish them with it, but bring them in. And I just do that for everything. Right, I just do it as a charity thing. I just do it has to be there, be there. I say, hey, we're gonna do so, so so we just do a bag drive every august right.
Speaker 2:I say you're not everybody could have bag and thing like you, right, let me go, we go, we go, we buy the things I said. I say tuesday we pack in, and me and he in my fee thing bam bam bam. So he kind of got a sense of life now, yeah, and it's not a way we do give them life. No, no you know, we do, give them life and everything, even women and things. I tell them alright, you got people out of this way, you're doing an exam now you can't talk to nobody.
Speaker 1:You have a little girlfriend. I say, oh, you have a woman.
Speaker 2:I said I part of life. I say what. I just tell him. I say why people discourage that is when you get out of the bank you just can study and all them kind of thing. Right, your heart break and you don't know how to read now. So so you kind of make sure that you could talk to make sure your children could talk. Communication that communication is important. Spend that time. Um, there's a point in time I in that point right now where you you're not as cool anymore every now and then you just see people and then you see you know so and you think I just got a little bit of coolness again until the next half an hour and then you're not cool anymore. Then he say you know so and so and just get a little bit of coolness again until the next half an hour and then you're not cool anymore.
Speaker 2:As a parent, you can't take that personal. There's a way we just take it personal and distance yourself from each other because each other, they just seem like they don't like you. It's just that the friends now become more important, that's the face of life and you, as a parent, have to always let them know you're there, you want me there, you know, but there, yeah, regardless.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I just tell my son that almost once a month. I say let me tell you something no matter where you're going through, no matter where you feel I might get vexed for, no matter how, know that first and foremost I'm and foremost I hear. Right, I see how you tell me how you go get vexed, you know. But under all of the anger I hear it have nothing you could do. I see if you do something bad, it consequences it. But I hear you know what I mean. Don't ever feel you have to face nothing by yourself. You have to deal with nothing by yourself. I hear Because I always remember as a child, sometimes and it's nothing my parents do, but sometimes you know, as a youth, you're working something out in your head of course, but you can't tell nobody this, and I'm going through this and anything and them thing that's forced you to make some stupid decisions yeah
Speaker 1:yeah, but if you know you could go and say boy daddy you know I mean, and daddy might still think you know, but he was all right, yeah, what's going on? Let me yeah, we generation didn't always have that right, so it's important for we to get this next generation so I just kind of make sure, and I think, generally for youth, bringing it wider for youth.
Speaker 2:We had to let them know we here, yeah, not only for we youth, yeah, but for youth.
Speaker 1:It's critical for you, but how do you make it? I can't let you leave without making you uncool again. Right? How do you carry you back down Calypso road? Right we can't put you on the spot a little bit. My father always here and we debating in terms of where the top 5 Calypsos is, who is the top 5 Calypsonian? So I just want to put you on the spot a little bit top five calypso on your own boys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me hear calypso?
Speaker 1:and if you had to run down, who is your top five?
Speaker 2:I have a holy trinity calypso. My holy trinity calypso is super blue right shadow and David Reda yeah, that's the holy trinity.
Speaker 1:Right peace be upon them. Yeah, that's the holy trinity. Calyp eternity.
Speaker 2:In any order in any order gotcha most of the time shadow leading right right, yeah, shadow after that for the sheer scope of his catalog Sparrow you know, mineral produced boy yeah, sparrow, sparrow, have a catalog that, no matter what the occasion, he could pull a song from it, right.
Speaker 2:So, for the sheer scope of it, right, him who could be the fifth boy, the fifth heart? There are so many people that I enjoy, right? But Brigo, yeah, and here's why Brigo's catalogue is immaculate. Yeah, boy, when you listen to Brigo's catalog and there's a hard five there because it has so much thing I love, and we're now driving when we're down here your five go change. Them three stay but the two could rotate.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so Brigo catalog to you Brigo catalog.
Speaker 2:And you know, I just tell people Brigo is the master of the paws Right Back in all in the country. Oh boy, oh boy, a ball like a cow. That paw, you see, that paw, is beautiful.
Speaker 1:Bad, bad style boy Right.
Speaker 2:And then things like after carnival, after carnival, brigo to me Brigo have a beautiful catalog.
Speaker 1:I really yeah for Brigo. For me I go in down, I go in down with them with favorite songs. You see me for Brigo, you see Mama Popo, yeah, and maybe Long Ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just his style, the way he's singing. That turn out to been up every word he say.
Speaker 2:But boy, listen, brigo was that boy. Brigo was that, that man was bad, bad boy. Brigo was wicked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Calypso's. If you had to pull them out every time I ask a man this, he tell me sniper If you had to pick a top three in Calypso's Three of the three million.
Speaker 2:All right, most impactful to you, most impactful to me Stranger, but here it is. What's that royal song that's bubbling out your ghetto blaster, that crazy island music, that turning the slave into the master? You see, that tune. I want permission to mash up the place that to me. And why I pick that is because it captures what the music does so perfectly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's another one used to do that Right. And it gives a history lesson that turns the slave into the master Right. And it gives a history lesson that turns the slave into the master Right.
Speaker 1:It tells you something about what kind of all this right, Everything one time, so that is that it is very difficult for me to pick a shadow.
Speaker 2:But I'm picking music Again because of what it does. It kind of describes right, even in the dark in a park a blind man could find a melody.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you something, guys the first Calypso I think I really ever listened to. I started to realize, wait, no, he's been singing about something as a little child, it's a vibe. And when I hear that man say every little joke oh no, I started to realize wait, no, he's been singing about something as a little child, it's a vibe.
Speaker 2:And when I hear that man say every little joke oh no, hell, he's not struck. I said who is this? Who?
Speaker 1:he come up with that and the third one is well, I carry down in the back of the alley only me and she, I get the lyrics and I charge you the first bar.
Speaker 2:Honda she bellyeli. I could have picked anything from Zandu but, here. I like that here. I will put that in there because to me that is the best of Kaizo and what it could do tell a story, be humorous, you understand. And he have so many gems in that. Zandu say he back you on a bacchanal fencing. Now, if you know bacchanal we're dealing with wood right, I'm not pushing it. A bacchanal wood is the fastest thing to break. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:It's the easiest thing, so he bringing bacchanal in there and in the context of that, not by chance. So he bringing back and in the context of that not by chance. So so to me, and I kinda how I how I pick these songs is that if we had to put this, put some kaiso in a pod and send it out in space for people to know that's what I said it could be a better space.
Speaker 1:It could be a better space because I'm one of the greatest storytellers for me of all time and I want to let the audience know too. First, thanks for coming on. This was a pleasure I enjoyed this, and I want to let people know too, that I didn't send you in advance to prepare for Calypso. They're not Calypso.
Speaker 2:Who is their top five?
Speaker 1:Nah, nah, nah. That's deliberate, because I know you can't come up with it on the spot, so that mean you got to come back.
Speaker 2:When you change your mind and when you're driving and you think through what you really wanted to say side of you are ready to come back again.
Speaker 1:This is my thing self, listen, I hope. I hope by that time I know your thesis go advanced. Congratulations on that in advance. Congratulations on the season. I know I will see any commentary throughout the season. Well, I'm hoping so.
Speaker 2:They tell me I can't go because of some conflict of interest, but we're gonna talk that off. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to hear about that because if it's not conflict of interest last year, next tempo and in california final, I want to know conflict of interest last year, next tempo and in Calypso final. That wouldn't all conflict our interest either. Talk about next time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thanks, brother, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:This was nice. Thanks, man.
Speaker 1:Thank you.