Corie Sheppard Podcast
Corie Sheppard Podcast
Episode 233 | Kurt Allen
This week we welcome the ever-relevant, ever-fierce Kurt Allen — calypsonian, social commentator, and one of only three people who have won both Calypso and Soca Monarch.
From his early days as a teen composer to leading Roy Cape All Stars and shaking up Skinner Park with hard-hitting commentary, “The Last Badjohn of Calypso” holds nothing back.
We talk competition politics, getting toilet paper in Skinner Park, and the fine art of saying what the people feel — without fear or favour. Kurt breaks down the discipline behind his performances, his years shaping young talent, his experiences in band culture, and his daughter Chocolate’s journey from homeschool to international performance stages.
We also get into the rise and fall of calypso tents, his work with Caribbean Vision, living with the Marley family in Jamaica and his commitment to using calypso as a real-time tool for social and political truth-telling.
This one is about legacy, purpose, and lyrical duty.
🎧 Tap in and click the link in my bio for the full episode
#coriesheppardpodcast
So, folks, I like to introduce people as royalty and I enjoy when I have royalty in the building. Mr Alunoye going to Hi, good man, how are you Nice to be here? Listen, I want people to know that we nearly recorded a whole podcast before we started recording For real. I'm looking forward to talking to you for a long time. I want to start with this year. How was your competition and everything this year?
Kurt:Second place. Yeah, it was good, Nice season. You know have to be thankful for all the blessings and this year was really nice.
Corie:Yeah, this year was one of them. You get rid of Dr Roboy Roboy well, that's part of it.
Kurt:That's part of what the Calypsoians represent. You know, we tend to feed off of the people and translate the vibrations coming from the people, and this song was just one of those translations, in terms of what I was feeling on the ground, and I just translated it into lyrics yeah, somebody were wrong.
Corie:I, I feel you're captured perfectly. Yeah, man, like I remember these statements when, um, when he was initially talking about retiring or stepping away from political arena and one of the things he say was too much vitriol, it get, too nasty, it gets and I remember thinking at the time, but it's been that way. I feel like that is something that every prime minister everybody in public life is dealing with. Not just politicians either.
Kurt:And he had it nice he had it nice for 10 years, compared to some others right, oh yes, compared to A&R Robinson Pandey, even Chambers Kamla, you know just as the song said. You call Chambers Duncy, you beat A&R like a bubbly. We call Manning Emperor, we call Kamla Drunker. Nobody said anything about this man for 10 years.
Corie:You had a little bit of an easy road to be covered, oh very yes, but the man stepped aside and I tell myself, like I was telling you come and I watch your competition, I just feel Kurt Allen cannot lose. I say he can't lose, he can't lose, and this was one of them years for me too, because one of your first wins was also when, or your Monarch win, 2010. 2010. Yeah, was that transition year too?
Kurt:Yes, exactly. Well, no, as a matter of fact, the government had three more years, so nobody was expecting. Well, okay, an election is going to be called this year and within two months after the competition change of government and the same, similar situation, but the change of the same government after, so you're kind of lost.
Corie:I say you're kind of lost. The thing lined back up right down your alley again and you had a. You had a piece of political commentary. It's powerful. It's powerful. I had to ask you about skinner park this year before you go back into the history, because see, when you come out I see toilet paper like, yeah, you know I was I was disappointed.
Kurt:disappointed not because of the toilet paper I mean, I've seen that with many artists before but disappointed to know that I've given all I could give over the years to skinner park in terms of delivering my messages and this, this message, was no different. But they saw it as an anti-PNM song and you know that was disappointing because Skinner Park is the place that you look forward to for understanding Kaiso, understanding what is true, Kaiso, and I thought they would have been bigger than that. But when you look at the tape and from my experience in front, there was just a handful of people in front with the toilet paper and some of them were reluctant. They're looking at me and smiling and you can see they're doing this because probably they have to do it or some. You know they were under some kind of pressure to do it. But when you look at previous toilet paper issues with people like Gypsy or Sugar Hallows, you will see the entire park.
Kurt:So I knew that it was a respectful toilet paper wave, but I found that, hey, you all should know better. This is Kurt. This is not somebody who has ever chosen a political side or somebody who is noted to be aggressive towards political politicians. I just say it as I see it and it came from them. They are the people that feed me to sing what I sing, so that was a disappointment, yeah but you never waver, you never falter.
Corie:I was looking for it. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Kurt:Nothing like that can intimidate me.
Kurt:I mean, you see his experience as well, not just from the Calypso stage, but I was a former lead singer of Roy Cape All Stars, and sometimes you go into a fit where the bigger bands and the people, when it's time for you to sing, nobody can come to the front of the stage or they stand up looking at you. So well, they're telling you, go now, we're waiting to hear somebody else. Or you're coming after a big, big gun and you know nobody ain't taking you on. So I think that experience prepared me for dealing with any type of audience.
Corie:Yeah, yeah stand and deliver you, yeah man?
Kurt:yeah, I know it's a message I came to deliver. I know I wasn't going to be attacking anybody or attacking any individual. It's a message and how you take the message. If you want to shoot the messenger, then that's part of the job as far as I see you say, it's a great obligation. Yeah, it is, it is, it is Seriously it is. Yeah, it's something you take seriously, Very seriously, yeah.
Corie:So you went to the final again and I was saying that I saw a lot of it was almost like technical difficulties in the final this year, not something we are accustomed to seeing in that manner. Yes, yes, A lot of technical difficulties. Yeah, some of the initial performers you could hear that they were. To me it was something like they're not hearing, you know.
Kurt:Well, what was happening from a drum machine? Because a lot of the artists, so some of the artists, were using drum machine and once the drum machine came on, it was conflicting with the sound. It was getting a kind of a feedback, a bounce back. So you're hearing one thing in the monitor and you're hearing another thing coming at you from outside that's dead far before. Yeah, so you have to decide which one of these beats picked the one from outside where the people were hearing, and after about just about, I just experienced 10 seconds of it because my wife, who is not any technical person, right, but she picked up that the people with the drum machines were having problems, so she instructed the drummer take that drum machine off. And that is what I think saved my performance.
Corie:Yeah, yeah yeah, because I was looking at it now and I'm watching later performers and I'm saying, all right, well, what kind of competition we're gonna have? No, god, don't pick my horses. I say I know now you're not sure. Yeah, yeah and um, but by the time you came on it seemed to be that it was flawless again stand and deliver. Yes, definitely how you felt about the result the result.
Kurt:I mean when you, once you enter yourself in a competition, you have to be prepared for anything. I mean I've come've come as low as 8th, 9th, so that when you're waiting for the result, you know your number, can call at any point, you know.
Corie:So when you're backstage, you're waiting, you're not sure, you're never very sure, you're not sure, you're not sure of anything.
Kurt:You're not sure of anything because I mean you might want cater for that. You always have to cater for it. The result for me while I accept the results, but information coming after the competition, what suggests that the results could have been different?
Corie:Let's put it that way it will suggest that, based on the evidence that we have, but that's part of the competition.
Kurt:It will suggest that, based on the evidence that we have but that's part of the competition we're not taking away anything from the reigning Calypso monarch.
Corie:Eli Francis yeah, he was good on it. He ran a good race and he did what he had to do.
Kurt:He is the monarch without question yeah, I respect that.
Corie:Yeah, I respect that.
Kurt:Yeah, it's well. This song was similar I guess similar vein, because they was looking at the outgoing prime minister. One was in your face and one was diplomatic. I wrote you a letter and one was saying tear up the letter, I can't even let you talk. So it was a different approach and I guess they went with the softer touch. So I have no problem with it. So you plan to soften your touch? No, but is that about me planning to soften or not soften? It's whatever is dictated by the people. I will give you a okay.
Kurt:If you look at my 2016 recording, which was a song talking about rainbow, and it was saying you know, the new government is now coming and settle. I see a rainbow, I see a beautiful rainbow. That song was written at the same time with this song, the same date 2015. Because if you look, if you examine the lyrics properly, it was saying, okay, you now come, but it's your turn now. It's your turn as prime minister in terms of when you're coming for your first term. We call Eric this and we call this your turn now. But I didn't feel in the climate it was the appropriate song to sing then, so I chose the other one, which is called Pot of Gold, but these two songs were written at the same period for the same reason.
Corie:Yeah, so it's just update and go.
Kurt:Yeah, the last verse is only one verse I added. If you listen to the lyrics, all the information in that song took place between the years 2010, 2015. The email gate, the section 34, everything. Just listen to the lyrics Everything. The last verse is what mentioned Stuart Young and that was the new verse.
Kurt:If you look at, my computer you will see the date of that song, same lyrics, everything that is mind-blowing. It was the right time. Timing is everything. A good calypso is not just about the lyrics, it's about being relevant and timely. There are songs that won Calypso Monarch probably if you look at Sparrow's song Education, which is a timeless song but wouldn't have won a Calypso Monarch in 2000. Or coming up against Black Stalin with Bundems, you know at that time. So it's about being relevant and timely.
Corie:You see many songs like that. Like when I look back at I was comparing this year and last year in Tombs of the Monarch to 86, 87, which would have been totally strong this year.
Kurt:Rudder and Stalin yeah strong.
Corie:You know where I always watch this Carnival Institute. It's so hard to find the information sometimes, but Carnival Institute, I always say salute to them when you, if I email them, they will give me the full rundown of the competition, semis and everything Right. And when you see these songs at loss, you see, you see Exactly, man, the way, captain, the ship is sinking.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ninth Explainer had many, many songs. You couldn't call it.
Corie:So when you're writing songs, you enter the competitions all the time. Yes, you're conscious of how long the music lasts after the competition. Yes, yes, definitely.
Kurt:Definitely In this era where you find that the songs are not most of the songs are not recorded or received the airplay in terms of the people knowing the songs, no, but back then everybody was singing, word for word, you know, and back then now you would know that this one have a party song. So you're waiting to see if you have a strong social commentary to go with that for the finals. And you know it was, it was like that. But now you don't find calypsoonians releasing recordings no, in october and getting that. That for people, for the nation, to say, okay, I like this song, I'm hearing this song. No, we basically operate with you coming to the tent. If you do, yeah, and if you're in a tent as well.
Corie:A lot of times people, the fans or the fringe fans, let me say you're hearing it skin up because it's your first time hearing some of the songs. Attention exactly. Only are too excited to talk to kids I don't know, forget to get water and all them things.
Corie:I've taken a pause, right. I'm glad we get that sorted out. You know, I mean I'm not a young man. In my memory I was gonna ask you as well with the popular songs, because we come from a time where the crowd would have known the songs going into the competition. The indie tends a lot you're playing on your radio and I've seen a resurgence now now where, because most of the music is on YouTube or it's accessible like I could find all your songs over the years on YouTube you still feel as though people are not listening to it on the socials and that kind of thing. Yeah, a lot of people no, a lot of people.
Kurt:that's where they get it, as a matter of fact, because they're not getting it on the radio stations. So obviously now the focus for a lot of the artists, such as myself, is to get that social media presence. Youtube is the main source or the main hub for getting the music and that in itself, when an artist knows that he's not going to get airplay, it changes the type of compositions because he's not going to be really focusing much on the dancing and part of it is more like lyrics, lyrics, lyrics. That's the focus. If you look at the Calypso Mona competition in terms of this new era, as in comparison to before, you would always get a hardcore social commentary, but then the second song would be something like Me, me.
Corie:Drunk and.
Kurt:Disorderly Soulfish. You know these kind of songs, yeah, which is kind of songs which is not, you know, not considered hardcore social commentaries, even when Black Stalin would have won the crown with a serious composition.
Corie:and then Sundar Sundar was a serious lyrical song, but it had that vibration to make it dance.
Kurt:Black man feeling the party. You know serious lyrics, but then the music. Because he knew at that time Calypso still got an airplay so he could still cater for it. But now you're not getting any airplay, except for WAC radio.
Corie:Of course Kenny. I see you and Kenny have a hell of a relationship. Yeah, man I study him now, I say all right, this man coming in, I was booked to do it earlier. And when I'm watching you and Kenny as you pull up, kenny says man, I lost again, kenny.
Kurt:Kenny, kenny, kenny, can you have a license to tell me anything? It seems so.
Corie:It seems so like when watching sports teams. You know when you talk to sportsmen and they go in a final and they're lost.
Kurt:You know you stay with them for a long time.
Corie:That's the experience with you too, you hold on to it. No, no, not me.
Kurt:I move on yeah, because you're laughing. When you tell him you're lost, yeah, I move on, I'm moving for a long time. You know, yeah, nice man, he can do things like that. He lost too because he produces songs. But he lost too.
Corie:I tell him I'm going to go buy somebody else next year. I'm winning producer, but I like the little series Oli is doing. Before we go back in the day, oli is working on a series yeah, we're still doing it.
Kurt:That's ongoing we paused for because of the election, but it's on again. Actually, right now we are doing it with a St Lucian artist by the name of Solange. She is attempting to do well in the Calypso Mona competition in St Lucia, so we are working with her and that series is ongoing. We already did some of the filming for it.
Corie:Oh good, so that should be out by next week. Yeah, I feel like some of them things and I like the initiative you're taking on that that might be what replaces a radio player.
Kurt:Yeah, especially in a period where people say that after Carnival you don't hear anything. Calypso, you don't hear anything. Soca. This is our way of keeping calypso relevant and alive during the year, of course, because it's something that we're going to be doing like every two weeks, you know.
Corie:I really like it For the election.
Kurt:you know and I'm encouraging other calypsonians as well to start releasing music during the year to cater for different seasons and different occasions. We don't always have to wait until Carnival season to focus on the competitive side of things, so you're bringing your lyrics for competition All. Now is a nice time to release lighter songs.
Corie:Yeah, I like the point that you make. I never thought of it that way because I suppose there's no payoff as a musician for going into a party song or a borderline song if you're not going to play anyway. I do find as well that one of my critiques of the Calypsonian these days is that you find that the quality of the music that they put up on YouTube, even though the lyrics might be strong, where you get a lot of schoolboy synthesizer music, I understand that carefully.
Kurt:No, there's a reason for that the artists. They are the ones producing themselves and sometimes financially it's an investment and they know fully well they're not going to get back that investment. It's just to keep yourself relevant and out there. When you talk about all the hits from the Sparrows, come Up the Road, they were being produced by people like Strakers Record, by Charlie's and by different people who were investing to produce the music so that you found that the quality and the standard of the musicianship, the sound, everything is well taken care of. It's live music and it's a big studio. Because somebody's investing. They never had to take that money out of their pockets Now the artist has to fund their own things because that market has dried up.
Kurt:The people who are producing they're producing the soaker artists, they're not producing the calypso artists. So you're going to always find that standard a bit lower. I am fortunate to be working with people like Kenny. Phillip and people like Garrett Sawyer from based in the US, so I'm always working with live musicians and bring a full team together, but not everyone has that luxury.
Corie:I understand, I understand it makes sense. So Do Paka Rong. Are they really right now? So far, yeah, well, that was you know that was a quick one.
Kurt:I mean once the concept of an idea came. You know, do Paka Rong, it was exciting us. It was easy to flow from there and it's a serious issue when you're dealing with foreign relations and that kind of um, that big brother, but big brother bully attitude towards the Caribbean in particular. And you know we have to, we have to say something. This is the land of Calypso. We must defend ourselves and Calypso as well. So I use Calypso as a means of getting that message across Don't poke around when it comes to our sovereignty.
Corie:Boy, listen. I our sovereignty Boy, listen. I see it. And again, I just like this series that I'm always doing because you know who I always remember Like I watch this fella Hammond Bruce and how he stays on social media.
Kurt:You know what I'm talking about that issue, and he's funny.
Corie:But it makes it good for the competition because now when you're watching Skinner Park, you ain and he contributes to that show a lot. So when you take an issue, that is so live, and it's like that's how social media works. Now, at that time we used to wait for the news the next morning that's itself we always wait for.
Kurt:We, the Calipso Nails, always wait for the carnival season. So sometimes things happen all during the year and you're not hearing about it. And then Carnival you get saturated with everybody singing about the same thing. No, if it's happening, we could bring this thing in real time, and that's the purpose of that series. We're going to be bringing the issues in real time. As I said, we paused because of the election, but within two weeks you're going to be seeing us.
Corie:I love it, I love it. I encourage people to go and listen to that song at Dope Ockerung Because saw that video come out. It must be the week after Carnival. It wasn't long after Carnival. Yeah, exactly, but watch how that issue escalates from then till now.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody had to say it. You thought the Dragon Deal could be included in that issue as well. It's almost like this song every time you listen to it because I listen to it.
Corie:Then, and before we come today, I still have my tickets here, and it's something else. And then you're touching on a song, too, from Crookro, one of the most controversial songs.
Kurt:Crookro ever sang. Again, you know, again, people were commenting during the election season that a black man, once you're black and you vote for that is how they put it and you vote for the UNC, you're a Lick Bottom African. And again, I think I was asked to represent to say something about it, right. And while I have nothing Crookro, I think I was asked to represent it to say something about it, correct. And while I have nothing I've been. Kroko might be here in this but let me use KroKo.
Corie:I imagine we're using KroKo, so me, I think, with you everyone.
Kurt:It might be the last matchup, but he's one of the first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, to comment on the issue, you know that, okay, you're suffering and you're going to be put in a race in terms of how you're eating, how you're living, how you're surviving. No, we need to grow up and move beyond the race politics. That's what the song was really about, because, again, it did not choose sides, it didn't tell you to go left or to go right. It just laid the issue and the message on the table.
Corie:Yeah, controversial song when Krookroos sing it, but I mean I like it because it's just his perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Calypso Neon must give the perspective Exactly. And you know, the Calypso Neon must stay fresh to me because when you gave a perspective, our next man will get his own. Listen to it. Listen to that song now and watch how the issue unfold, because I watch his social media campaign and they say one party was paying social media influencers. Yes, yes. And it's the same thing that was being said about these youth men who have a platform. Youth men build a platform. You have 100,000 views. He side with a political party. Maybe it's because he's interested in it, maybe it's because pay, but part of his job is to get paid.
Corie:He's our influence yes, yes, yes and they say all kind of like, bottom and sell yeah, yeah not the same race as the people who might be supported. Yeah, so again, I love this series. I think I didn't realize that that's what you had in mind. Yeah, man, in terms of dealing with the issues as they flow as they come we deal with it. I love it, I love it. So talking about balance, right, one of the things that I notice about you is when you sing a song, you are that till they sell your next one.
Kurt:You feel that yeah definitely that's my laugh, because some people they sing a song, they get married to that song, you know. So next year they're still that and the following year they're still that, until you know. But I, because again it's like a lawyer. A lawyer doesn't really I mean it's sad in some cases care if the client is guilty or not guilty. His job is to provide the representation, the best representation, for his client, and when he goes home to his wife or he goes home to his family, the case stays in the office, same with me.
Kurt:My job is, as a calypso, is to provide the best representation to the people, without bias, without fear or favor. So when I'm done with the issue, and the issue is done with, I move on because I know somebody else is going to continue that conversation. I mean, if you hear a song about violence today and you listen to song about violence 10 years ago, it's the same conversation. It's just that we are carrying it out in a different space at a different time. But the essence of the lyrics and the, the, what it represents, is the same. So I'm not going to get married to a concept or get married to a issue when I know that my job is to represent all the issues in our brother, in our brother's scheme of things, I see.
Corie:So you're the issue first for you. Yeah, definitely, and voice of the people? Yeah, I mean there.
Kurt:Sometimes you have some issues that are personal to me that I don't even sing about, or you know, like some people, as a composer. Now I'll just use an example. Somebody might ask me to write a song about Allah, and I might be a Buddhist or I might be a Christian or something, but I have to show that Allah is God and they ask me to write that song.
Corie:I have to write the song yeah, allah is God. And they ask me to write that song.
Kurt:I have to write the song. Yeah, even though I may have a conflicting view and that goes across the board, whether it's politics, sexuality, anything, I have to deal with it from a withdrawn perspective and not too involved in the issue itself.
Corie:Yes, in terms of composing for people.
Kurt:Yeah, man.
Corie:Now you bring up Crooker, right. You remember when he say a Vigo and piece of land in St Madeleine? You were talking about Sugar Hallows going on singing in the next party.
Kurt:Remember, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:It's something you would do as a, but it's dub plates or whatever Something you would do up here on platform six songs.
Kurt:I have been approached just recently in the last election to perform for the two major parties.
Corie:I was going to ask if it was Kizel Jackson. No, the two major parties, the two major parties, and I declined.
Kurt:And they will be here in this interview and they will understand the reason I declined, as I told them directly. I'm a Calypsoanian. First I represent calypso, first I represent I. Yellow is not my code, red is not my code. You see my, my code is red, white and black and, as a calypso, and that is what I do and what I what I say, I'm not going to try and influence my audience to go left or right. My my job is to listen to my audience and understand what they're saying and put across a message, not to direct them. So you would never find me on a political platform. You, you would. You would have never find me on a political platform. You, you would. You would have never seen me on a political platform, because that is not who and what I represent. I understand, and that is clear, although I see my other colleagues dancing and doing their thing that is fine too, I suppose condemn them.
Corie:That's what they want to do and that's what they feel comfortable doing go right ahead, right, so you're comfortable going on stage and tell dr raw what it is, because I guess you're just balanced. I've done it. I've done it I've done it.
Kurt:I've told me and this is patrick manning what it is. I've told the present prime minister what it is listen to political symphony and all those songs because they were in power at the time, during the period between 2010 to 2015. I was singing political commentary on who was in power.
Kurt:Before that I was singing political commentary on who was in power, so it doesn't matter who is in power. As a matter of fact, once you are a government, you represent all of us, of course. So from the time you become the government of Trinidad and Tobago, you're going to get my commentaries coming.
Corie:I appreciate that. As a lover of the art form, I appreciate it. But the audience treats you the same way you approach it. Because sometimes if you sing a song and you bad talk the current prime minister they go say happy and then, until you sing a song, bad talking, that's a mute and that's all the same bad talking. But it's not bad talking.
Kurt:Okay if you could identify anything that I'm saying in a song that is not already in public domain, or is something that I sit down and made up. You know I say you know I mean make up this about something, about somebody. Everything I've said it's in public domain or it has been said by the people. Now, sometimes it's a difference between what is facts and what you put out there. Right Example is it factual that Chambers was Dunsey? Is it factual that Manning was a dictator? No, but that was said and people were saying it, so it's not factual. Anything I'm singing. It may not be factual that Dr Rowley is this or anybody is that, but bet your life what I'm saying has been said before and some people believe it.
Corie:So I just repeat it. I will too, I will too.
Kurt:You know and, for example, are lines in in all my composition. There would be, you'll notice that some lines will make you. That is done intentionally. There are lines that I place in a song to get your attention, even though you're not listening. When I say that, I know you will jump and then that will force you know, to listen to the other things I'm saying. So sometimes I put in that low blow that I myself think to myself God, are you really saying that? What do you mean? But say what you know, because I know I don't mean it. I know I have to say it for emphasis and to get the attention.
Corie:Right, so you ever have issues with politicians, like when you see them on the road.
Kurt:That's the nice thing about it, right, because they understand, even though their supporters may feel a how, they understand where I'm coming from and they know there's no malice, there's no ill will, there's no ill intent, and I could look them in the eye and have that relationship with many of them, not just politicians in Trinidad and Tobago, the politicians Saudi Caribbean that I'm very close with yes, including prime ministers present prime ministers that I'm very close with, yeah.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I stayed by their homes.
Kurt:You know, when I'm visiting their country, I stay at their home, really.
Corie:They frighten you right Something about them. No, they know who I am.
Kurt:They know who I am and they know my purpose.
Corie:I'll wait till you get a little bit of who to it. But there's a song you have where you turn the spotlight on us, on all of us. That first investigation Powerful to me. I want to get back to that. But let me go back into some of the history. You know, because I was telling you that I feel you know, I myself as a Curt Allen fan, you know what I mean. I know this man, I know him from back in the day. So my plan to start this thing when we go to the history was bees and roy cape. But then I hear you started talking about 1989 and saying, yo, you were as early as that in calypso.
Kurt:And yes, I am, I started in 1983, in 83 83, as a junior calypsoan, and then I created a bit of a history in that area. In that area in 1988 I composed for six finalists in the junior calypso Mona competition yeah, including the eventual winner, roger George. So I was noted as a composer for young artists at that time?
Corie:What age were you at?
Kurt:that time I was about 16, 17 at that time yeah.
Kurt:So people come into your supremacist then Well, I would go to a lot of people too. If I see you have a little Kaizo, I'll write it for you, you know, because that's part of my duty, as well as a Calypso. And then I joined the New Wave Calypso Tent in 1988. That's when I became friends with people like Tigris Manchild, al Ronda, who was the head of the tent, and that was my first experience into the Calypso tent world. I made well.
Kurt:During that period I was singing in what you call the junior young Kings, the NJAC competition, so I was performing well. They usually come in second or third. And in 1991, that's when my wife said, hey, you doing all this, but like you ain't taking it too serious, because it was like that's fun for me to say I don't get serious, now you do this and be serious about what you're doing. And within a year, the following year, I became the junior young king. And then in 1993, I became young kings. I see that is when I was founded, I should say, or discovered by not Christopher, I'm going to say Christopher Columbus.
Kurt:Oh well Of sorts by Lord Kitchener. Oh, okay, At the, strange enough at the semifinals of the Calypso Mona competition.
Corie:So those times you still were all wrong. The 10s yes, I was still with New Wave Calypso for the three years.
Kurt:And then Kitchener. I was standing backstage looking at Gypsy's performance. By the way, that same year Gypsy faced a lot of toilet paper for a song called Yesterday's Children. You know one of my favourite compositions. I'm standing backstage seeing what's happening.
Kurt:And Kitchener came to me he said young fella, you're singing with me next year. Yeah, this is in Skinner Park. In Skinner Park I stood next to him for the rest of the show until he dropped me home not directly, he dropped me in Cribb Junction to get a taxi. So I was able to talk to him. And you know, you know he was telling me he was the one who said Kurt Allen, after this, you will never have to audition for another Calypso 10. Once you're with the review, you do ever have to audition for another Calypso 10. And I became a singer of the review Calypso 10. But before all that took place, I want to must mention in 1989, I made my first tour to Europe as lead singer of the band Roy Cape All Stars. I made my first tour to Europe as lead singer of the band Roy Cape All Stars and from 1989 to 1992, I was his lead vocalist.
Corie:Until.
Kurt:I joined Atlantic, which was the band in the party, but Roy Cape was still called the Roy Cape Kaiso.
Corie:All Stars Back in the band right at that time.
Kurt:Yeah, it was considered a backing band and they were called Roy Cape Kaiso All Stars, not Roy Cape All Stars. They dropped the kaiso when they got into the fence.
Corie:That would have been the time when they were Spectacular's band yes. I used to open the show in.
Kurt:Spectacular as lead singer of the band the guinea pig, the testy song system but you won that because you won that audience to see you. You're looking for a break, so you're taking that as the opening act big for you at the time you know and people might remember.
Corie:I don't know if people remember what the tent was like then, because the tent was nice, sellout every night Sellout. Every night Clash the tent used to go on tour. It was at the front, at the front side, if your tent didn't get come back for you in the way it was then it could you know it?
Kurt:definitely could it, because, if you notice, this is not a knockoff, but I just talk in place. Those days the tents were operated by independent promoters, people who knew how to bring people to a show. Calypsoans may know how to entertain you, but they may not know how to bring you to a show. If you look at that setup from back then, when you had all these independent tents, almost every Calypsoanian would have had a tent of their own at the time to know where the tent structure is operated by Tuko and the Tuko members and the membership running the tent. I don't think that they know how to promote, to bring people out. We can entertain. So I think that is one of the things that we could restructure to leave the promotion of the promoters, Because if you look at the spectacular shows that happens right now, people come out Right and that's because of their credibility and stuff as promoters.
Corie:People know spectacular promotions yeah you're going to get a good show.
Kurt:When you had Jazzy Panton running Kitchener's 10, even though it's Kitchener's 10, you had Jazzy Panton and Sonny Woodley, business people yeah, the Young Brigade and Sparrow, so that they had that management structure who also promote us to bring the people out. We don't have that anymore.
Corie:The Calypsonians are promoting themselves. Of course, yeah, tricky, tricky, tricky. So how did?
Kurt:you end up on the right cape. I was singing with the band called Afsak, another legendary, I'm sure you're not familiar with Manu Maslin. He was one Brassarama for a number of years. In those years it was Brassarama and Manu Maslin was the main. You know one of the top people who's winning it every year His son, curtis Maslin. And he has another son right now called Bert Maslin, who has the band Brass to the Will. Okay, right, so it's that same connection.
Kurt:I was singing with him at the time when I did a video on. Roy Cabe saw the video and called me and we never looked back. Now, being with Roy Cabe, being Roy Cabe lead singer is one thing, but because of the institution that Roy Cabe represented, black Stalin was the lead vocalist with Roy Cabe. All says so that when you're going on tour, you're essentially going on tour with Black Stalin, you're essentially going on tour with Baron, bali, david Rudder, because it's a backing band so that in my experience there, when you're sitting there you're meeting every Calypsoan in the planet will have to come to that band room to rehearse.
Kurt:I am 17 years old, youngest person in the band, witnessing all this and hearing all the history of Calypso, hearing all the backstage and behind the scenes stuff that happens in Calypso, hearing all the backstage and behind the scenes stuff that happens in Calypso.
Kurt:I was a I was an attentive student, so I learned basically from behind the microphone, of singing chorus. When we went to that European tour, I was singing chorus for half of the show for David Rudder, for for Baron, for Black Stalin, and then myself and Alan Wells will have a half an hour to sometimes open the show or, if there's enough time, we get a chance to close the show. Sometimes you wonder these Calipers students are staying long on the stage. Are you looking at time? Are you looking for your? Yeah, people come to see you too, because you make little friends, of course, and sometimes they ain't get to see you perform because the promoter say your show ends Right and you now ain't get to. So those are the things that I would call the university that I passed through to graduate into the performer that I am today. Of course, without Roy K Walsas I don't think I would have been the performer that I am today, even though if I was singing Calypso in a tent, no way Hosey gotcha, no way that experience is yeah, I would imagine.
Corie:I mean those people you would idol, idolized. You get to see shoulder to shoulder. Yeah man, yeah man, I'm with you. So you're already composing calypso, but you're on tour with them singing soca. You're singing compositions yeah so when? When is really? When your wife's tell you and you go on with your own compositions?
Kurt:that's when I really got serious about it in terms of like focusing what you will say to be a star, right before I was just doing it for fun and you know, helping out others, right, yeah, but probably she knew well, okay, wife means, you know, you have to get, you have to support a wife, you have to support a child. So hey, of course you have to start to make some money from this thing.
Corie:Then, of course, yeah, when my wife hears this, I go, hey, it's the same thing, it's the All Stars.
Kurt:All Stars with Nigel and Marvin. That is history in itself. And then, in 1996, I was called again to be part of that makeup.
Corie:Gotcha. So between 93 and 96, you're singing Calypso alone or you take a band.
Kurt:No, I was more or less as a band singer, so I was singing with Atlantic.
Corie:I did a stick with Blue Ventures as well. So when you were Atlantic, who was there? Who else was the lead singer of Atlantic?
Kurt:Anselm Douglas, tony Prescott, steve Seeley. So you see again and I'm the youngest in that lot. So again, it's another learning experience, learning from these guys who has been doing it.
Corie:So when Atlantic Band Room was in St James, there you were there.
Kurt:I was there, man, yeah, and then we moved into opposite TTT that same road.
Corie:I can't remember the name of the street Marava Road.
Kurt:Yeah, like Bon and Gros Rides, as a matter of fact when we were in St James, destro was going to school at St James. So every day after school, me and Destrell we're looking up there and carrying out conversations you know, because we are good friends, you know.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's historical times. So what was that like with Atlantic?
Kurt:at that point, atlantic was a super occasion and you know sometimes only when, when you're out of a situation and years pass, you get to understand and appreciate what you were involved in. Cliff Harris, again a promoter, you know a big, big promoter, brass Festival Firefet.
Corie:Wassal, all these things.
Kurt:So you're in, you're not just there as a singer. You're getting a chance now to see a top event promoter at work, of course, because you'll be having these conversations. You're seeing people coming in and out of the office and he's talking to you as a musician. You're in the company of some seasoned musicians, people like Panky Boynes, and you know it was a learning experience. Now I could say that was my university education for who I am as an artist today. Yeah, that was my UTT.
Corie:Yeah, of course, because we didn't have UTT at the time. It's true, it's true. Now I have a few band singers, lead singers here, and Now I have a few band singers, lead singers here, and I always ask the level of competitiveness, because that would be Atlantic traffic, oh boy.
Kurt:I mean come on man. You know that was the days.
Corie:That's when everybody was cutting.
Kurt:you know, personally for me, I've never seen another lead vocalist of a band like Ronnie McIntosh.
Corie:That was he was like, if you tell you I don't know if people understand. Yeah, I don't know if people understand.
Kurt:If it wasn't there, you wouldn't understand now, because you're just saying Ronnie McIntyre, ronnie and Caro, but you don't know.
Corie:You know where I saw a glimpse of it before you go on. In Stalin's they had a memorial thing for him on the promenade it's in San Fernando Harris Promenade and Ronnie went and sang there and you see a glimpse like people get to see what's his role.
Kurt:That was magic man, kv Charles. Um Russell Cadogan. Yeah, even the late Hintel Dazzle Tony Prescott. That is a force by itself. I performed with him, so I know what I'm saying. That is a force by itself, you know? Um just name them man, um Adrian Philbert, who was with Blue Ventures at the time.
Corie:Blacks who I?
Kurt:brought into Roy Cape All Stars. Really. Yeah, I used to say I did a stint with Blue Ventures so I saw what he could do. So when I became lead singer of Roy Cape All Stars and there was a vacancy, I went for Blacks. You know Derek Seals, look at Derek Seals and say, wow, I want to be like that. Then I brought Derek Seals to the band as well with Roy Cape. So, you know, it was my opportunity not only to admire these people, but it was a chance to perform with them as well, of course.
Kurt:Of course, with all the names I call there, the one that I pay special homage to is the late Alan Welch, because in that trip I talked about in 1989 with Roy Cape, he was also the lead singer. That trip I talked about in 1989 with Roy Cape, he was also the lead singer. He was older than me, with more experience, and he was the one who really taught me how to deal with a party audience. I was a Calypsonian. He taught me how to deal with a party audience. And Juice man, juice man, steve Sly, and all of you will laugh at this one the first gig I did with Roy Cape, I was singing Calypso before Right. So when I came back in 1997 to do the first gig with Roy Cape, I dressed like a calypsonian, so they called it a kite outfit and boy them fellas laughed their belly full because he had this low eye. But Roy Cape was and looked like a calypsonian. That was the first and last time that happened.
Kurt:Yeah, I repented and was saved after that. So I started to become, you know, embody the fashion and everything of a soccer artist after that. So they taught me that as well, you know. So it was, everything was a learning experience.
Corie:I understand, yeah hell of a university. Yeah, man, real, real history. So those days, like I remember two in particular Brass and Customs. I mean, they don't get any heat of the carnival season and they have bands them time Square One all of them.
Kurt:Everybody Crossfire.
Corie:Byron, lees, everybody, yeah man Performing in them spaces. It started to get. It's almost like it was still the era where Brass used to go on forever.
Kurt:All morning time Brass still going on.
Corie:So how are you so whole out for seasons at that point in time, seasons that are pointing to him, because all the performing on the road truck going on the road, that's part of it, that's part of the life and you enjoy doing it.
Kurt:It was part of that became part of me. Um, it will be noteworthy to know that in 90s, 1997, when I joined work in 96, right I, my final year in calypso was 97 because because of that rigorous schedule, I had to choose and I chose the Soka Right Because it was something new and it was something exciting that I really wanted to do Right. So, yeah, it was part of the job and the excitement of meeting all these people and coming up on the stage with them. Your hours change from you're going home, sometimes 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock you're not looking to go home, or sometimes you're not looking to go on the stage. So your whole lifestyle and everything would have been changing and that was one of the reasons I exited the soccer industry. For the same reason, for that same schedule and stuff I, my daughter, chocolate Allen.
Kurt:we decided as a family to homeschool her rather than send her to public schooling Right, and that in itself meant that I had to make a personal sacrifice to be a different type of father, to be a different type of, to have a different schedule, different everything. So I gave up everything to focus on homeschooling and developing my daughter's education.
Corie:How's she going?
Kurt:She's excellent, still singing and things still Still singing. It's important to know that for somebody who has never been to school. She's now a teacher in a high school in the United States and she's teaching physics and math.
Corie:Look at her and she never went to school.
Kurt:When she went to school, she went to school as a university math teacher and her mom told me you know both parents were involved in that aspect of education and we got some external help from the late Mr Elton Nelson, also Dr Phage Vapier, who is also her godmother. She was instrumental in shaping her curriculum and stuff like that.
Corie:Structuring education. Oh yes, there's plenty of work here. So sometimes you say homeschooling. I got a partner who during COVID he always used to remind me when I'm on the podcast. He say stop going there and say homeschool, not homeschool. He used to homeschool his kids too. Right, but I used to say that when Trent was home during COVID.
Kurt:I call it home education. Yeah, because schooling gives you a sense of a uniform and when you go in a particular way you have to follow certain rules, of course. But home education is wider. I would imagine you have to do things differently.
Corie:I would imagine accuracy that you deliver with on that semifinal and that final night it's hard to match. You'll find that there are other people who come in the competition on them kind of things and they might struggle to deliver. Sometimes man slip up on lyrics, forget the lyrics, but you seem to be just in a pocket for the whole performance, like 99% of the time. So I'd always be like you can't lose. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you're saying, you know, just do it better. But it's just. It's just the muscle develop over time.
Kurt:Yeah, over time, over time and the experience. I remember back in the 80s someone was saying I wouldn't call it the Calypsoians name to devalue anything, but they were saying that Marshall Montano had more experience than a because of his involvement in the art form, the number of places he had performed when he was up to 10 years old. The senior Calypso had never even done that amount of shows in his entire lifetime. So they were saying that sometimes you don't look at somebody at their age or you have to look at their level of involvement or the years or the quality of their involvement. And I think I've been involved deeply in the art form so that what you're seeing there is a manifestation of not me saying, hey, I could do this, like it's just a natural flow of what I experience began to to um, to blossom into fruits of accomplishment now, yeah, I appreciate you for saying that, because there's they have some names.
Corie:Could call with that too, because when they say marshall for instance, I was talking to um when I had a brother here, I'm talking about 1986 people forget Marshall was in that competition and he beat a couple people too, of course.
Kurt:I will go on record as saying I saw Marshall Montano's first performance as a junior Calypso, because I was in the same competition and it annoyed some of my friends who were including the defending junior, calabasas, moonock Kern Applewhite. When I say nobody can beat that fella, you know, but you in the competition we can see that it wasn't just saying nobody could beat that fella, I was saying greatness. So I have no problems with always saying when people talk about Marshall, marshall, marshall was great in my eyes from day one. I got you and he maintained his greatness.
Corie:Of course, greatest recognized greatest is what reminds me of a time Jordan was talking, there was an all-star game and Jordan in the locker room bandaging up and thing before the all-star game and he's telling them.
Kurt:He said hey, kobe you know what he has to say. He's like boy. What happened?
Corie:He do, he go and and kill everybody.
Kurt:It's going to be great.
Corie:He's always recognizing it, it's going to be great. So, at that time, being a band singer. When did it go from being a band singer to composing your own soca, to do it yourself?
Kurt:But again as a member of Roy Cape.
Corie:Oh, you've been doing it since then.
Kurt:Yeah, but he's singing soca now. Oh, the second stint in Roy people's calypso or other people's soca oh, you was always yeah, always composed it for myself.
Kurt:So in 1999, juice man came with a song called the Bees that was written by Campbell Regault. So the first thing you're gonna sing a man's song. Boy. When he played the song, I said, ah yeah, yeah, right, it was missing some, some elements and components that I am as a composer Now added To the sound the chorus and the stampede vibes and brought it Into a different zone, and you know that experience In itself Was something very special, yeah. Then in the following, two years later, sexy Buddy Came from Christopher Morris as a member I was a member Of Atlantic at the time, okay, christopher Morris as a member, I was a member of Atlantic at the time, okay. And we brought in the producer from Edwin Edwards producer Nicholas Branca from Barbados, to produce produce a song at Caribbean Songbass. So those were my two. That explains the feel of the song yeah, yeah man.
Kurt:Yeah man, you know, because he was responsible for Crossfire and it's got that same kind of vibe, same energy. Yeah, so those two, two Soca hits were collaborative, collaborative efforts in terms of composing gotcha, gotcha.
Corie:So Bees was a monster. Yeah, people remember there was a stampede on them. Yeah, when that's what Bunji and them begging to bring back. Yeah, I know when I hear them talking about hardfet that.
Kurt:Yeah, there was a little joke with that, because the year before 1998, roy Cape was in the finals of the Soka Muna competition with his song Jammy Jammy. Mr Cape, oh, he was in the, of course. Yeah, man, because Nigel and Marvin had just left the band Right and we needed something to bring back some attention and, being myself and Derek Seals, we weren't the attractive ones to say, well, okay, the crowd going to come at you guys. Now we needed something. And we all went at Roy Keep and say, hey, you're going to sing this.
Corie:Yeah, man, that's how the song came about.
Kurt:That's how the song came about and Roy Keep went all the way to the finals of the Soka Monarch, coming off the stage or backstage. I'll call the names. I'll call one name, although Ronnie McIntosh is one, but Tony Prescott in particular, that man Pong. He started laughing. He said Oli is lead singer and Oli is singing for us, for Roy Cape, and you know the general kicks because we're using lead singers. And Roy Cape now in front and that registered because he had a way of watching it and laughing and pointing Say, all right, brother, we had Derek talk about it. We said, boy, it's true, you know he's saying it's true, he can't let that happen again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So by the following year, 1999, that's when the bees came down.
Kurt:I ended up in the finals and I won the competitions. When I saw Tony he had a name for BMC, big man on Campus. He said Big man on Campus, boy, big man on Campus. He'll still call me that up to now. But that stepped out of that, that interaction of not you know of singing chorus for Roy in the finals serious. So the next year our mindset was different. It's like I can imagine you're going at this.
Corie:I have a memory of it where, in Brass Festival, and he would tell me this, because sometimes my memories be so murky, but I remember going to PSA Grounds, and I mean PSA Grounds are blurred at times because, it's bands, it's hits everybody them days. Marshall, still with X-Static. You see any monsters, any fit a beer's youth.
Kurt:As youths come in, eddie and Eric will go on you still have with Chandelier playing.
Corie:Ronnie might have been with Chandelier at that point.
Kurt:Burning Flames sometimes used to come in. Burning Flames.
Corie:I forget this other band who was with at one point, joining when I was playing guitar with them. One thing too. Second Image, second. Image one of those bad, bad, bad and, if I remember right, we were at there's a very keep still right with Beez. Yes, yes, and I remember the lock off Brass, because that time it started to change from when Brass used to go till morning, till it started to put time off and it was trouble getting bands off a stage and if I remember Beez, I remember Fred Dunn, and they tell me we had to come out of PSV and head into the gate.
Corie:You remember that I was there and you run on see, I don't know what has happened.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, we just hear stamping. You say yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and boy, when that's a big man run back from outside again.
Kurt:Yeah, the fed was locked off. So they said tell us that we have, we're already on stage setting up and tell us, well, we can't go on. So we said, no, we're on stage already. We said we had to do these 10 minutes, so we just start up. We cut the set. Normally we'd start with an intro and all that kind of stuff. We said the hell with that, just start up.
Kurt:And I brought Super Blow on the stage as well with me that night, because Super was the defending soccer monarch and I know, coming up against Super, he was playing a little head game as well too. Super, come on stage and hugging you up and trying to soft you. You know, because he's Super, I've been looking to destroy you, right, but that is good, that is good thing for me, because he is Super Blue and I and hugging me up and giving me that kind of respect, you know. So he go in. But I know in his mind he testing out certain things, he testing to see how he can defeat this man, because he know well, okay, there's a song probably he has to look at because he's that smart and we perform on stage together. And then I look at him too. I say, all right.
Kurt:I'm coming at you too. You know, of course, the respect was always there in terms of that is super blue, so you can't go in and take anything for granted. Then you had Sinhal with River. Everybody was saying was going to take everything. So you know, it took a lot from us in terms of planning, a lot of planning. We brought those bees balloons Ian Small brought it from New York for us and Roy Cape the machine to pump up the this is serious, the machine to pump up the air in the balloons. That was malfunctioning. And Roy Cape blow those things, some of them. I'm telling you, start to blow and blow up some of those balloons, because that's how serious he took it as well, of course, yeah, man.
Kurt:So when we were in that stage, it was Kurt Allen didn't win the Soka Mona. Can you? Roy Cape and the All-Stars featuring Kurt Allen is who won that Soka Mona? Yeah, because it took everybody's collective energy to pull off the performance.
Corie:Yeah, glad you remind me of that too, because Sunil Dempster that river was, I remember being down in it wasn't Mecca at the time could be Spectrum at the time, spectrum, spectrum. And that's when I realized she, because that song was so cute.
Kurt:Go on, go on, yeah.
Corie:But they used to wet down Sinel themself every night.
Kurt:Well, ronnie wasn't charged with that. Wetting to him, ronnie, bring out big size sprinklers. In PSA Ronnie was really active, you know, pushing Senel and Blue Ventures with that song. You know he was the backbone at that point because he was the lead singer of the band Gotcha and he was, you know, as he's a former two-time Soca monarch, he knew exactly what has to be done.
Corie:He knew how to do it Right, so we were coming up against that as well, of course. So when.
Kurt:Senel went on before me and we backstage boy and we looking up and it's rain. You say, go on this girl's side. You feel like you're dropping your shoulders. How the hell that can happen. There's Ronnie and some sprinklers out there. Ronnie, it looked real. It looked real and it was. It was effective.
Corie:I remember her complaining that boy, she take too much wet voice before the season is done she can hide from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So leading up in Brass that week before Carnival, you know you have a shot. Yeah, I know.
Kurt:I have a shot, but the critics didn't think I had a shot. No, no, the cease again. Alexis, who was working with the Punch newspaper at the time. He did a list of 22 people and my name nowhere inside the first 22. He come down first, second come down and Kurt Allen name nowhere inside of there. Roy Kip, kick some brass for that because you see, you find that was you know being kind of biased.
Kurt:Yeah, man because, you see, in the impact that we're having in the Feds and stuff, so all those things is what probably helped us to go a little harder. Some saying that I'm causing the Feds a mashup and call it a bandy song. So all those things. There's discussions in the band room and the more that they discuss us and the more they try to keep us down, the more we become resilient and say we go in, of course, and that's why I say it was a collective victory. I'm with you. That support was all around.
Corie:I remember them things with Manu saying band because we come into mashup F, we come into that right and the only time I've ever seen that since is Mr Killer, when he's saying pick up something I had seen it before.
Kurt:Toro, toro, chad, that's where it started. Oh my god.
Corie:Toro Toro Chad.
Kurt:Yeah, the year before yeah boy, when you hear Toro and that it's back and all in the Fed, yeah boy, ronnie didn't have to tell you to do that. All Ronnie had to say bring the tent and come, bring the tent and climb the tree, the climbing palm tree. He just had to give the instructions.
Corie:Yeah, I don't know what he had with people. I don't know what he Super used to do a lot on stage.
Kurt:Yes, ronnie used to make people do different things.
Corie:Ronnie used to make people move, carry it back. I said carry it back. At least he was responsible to say carry it back. It was a special time. So how long was that After? Beasley was a draw. You keep still for a while or you stay in the band For one year for one year.
Kurt:That's when I made the decision, as I said, to go full homeschool and I formed an organization called Caribbean Vision, which is an organization that was formed to lobby for cultural and economic cooperation between Caribbean people and their governments. And we launched the organization at Cricket, west Indies Cricket and our patrons became the Prime Minister of St Vincent, the Grenadines, who is still the Prime Minister, dr Ralph Gonzales, dr Kenny Anthony, prime Minister, who was Prime Minister of St Kitts, together with his deputy, mario Michel, who was very instrumental in us really making some inroads. Dr Timothy Harris, who is now a guest opposition leader, but he was previously Prime Minister of St Kitts. He was a patron as well. They're all members of the organization Caribbean Vision. Dame Paulette Louise, the Governor General of St Lucia, is also a member of the organization Caribbean Vision. Dame Paulette Louise, the Governor General of St Lucia, is also a member of the organization.
Kurt:And from there we got the endorsement from the CARICOM heads of government and we actually took a tour for five no, seven years throughout the Caribbean without returning the Trinidad, and we had a member from every Caribbean island as a member of the organization and we had a theat from every Caribbean island as a member of the organization and we had a theatric presentation called Educulture. We were encouraging youth to stay in school, discouraging them from deviant behavior, promoting CSME for the Caribbean Secretariat, and we got funding from USAID, unaids, the Commonwealth Secretariat, heads of government, ministries of education, culture, throughout the region, and we lived together as a family and taught for more than seven years and then the last three years it could have been 10, but the last three years were spent in Jamaica With another component of that same tour, sponsored by then Prime Minister, bruce Gouldings, but was sanctioned before by Portia Simpson, who was the Prime Minister at the time, before the government changed, oh yeah this is so, this is 2007.
Kurt:Serious, the current Prime Minister, mr Holness. He was then the Minister of Education.
Corie:I used to live in Jamaica at the time. Right, you see?
Kurt:So we were invited by Rita Marley and the Bob Marley Foundation for my daughter to do the feature speak at the UNI that's Marcus Garvey, at his institute, and she presented the feature speech there. Nice we spent three months living with the Marleys, working with the Malis, and then, when we were about to leave, dr Hullness asked us to stay on to continue the edu-culture tour and that's when we linked up with Tony Rebel and Flames Recording with Queen Africa. My daughter was signed to Flames Serious, yeah, she was signed to Flames and basically we lived in the same compound and everything in the studio and everything. And basically we lived in the same compound and everything in the studio and everything.
Corie:What was?
Kurt:that like it was, like it was different to me because I'm a Calypsoian, coming from a Soka Calypso background and to be in the center and heart, not just being in Jamaica but in the center and the pulse of the reggae movement. We mentioned Rita Mali and Tony Rebel and Flames recording was, as you know, the Rebel Salute, so my daughter performed three the Rebel Salute Right.
Kurt:So my daughter performed three years at Rebel Salute Really yeah, man. The same year that Virgo he had won the Rising Stars. So they did a duet between Chocolate and him to release one of his first songs Wow. But because of our plans and homeschool ideas for chocolate, we couldn't go ahead with it because of entailed touring and uh different type of life right, so that we we kind of backpedaled on that, but that was the same. It was the same um same opportunities at the same time yeah, I think so.
Corie:She did a song, something more to you.
Kurt:She eventually did a song with queen africa yeah, we recorded a song called friends and then she made a song. She eventually did a song with Queen Africa. Oh, she did, yeah. She recorded a song called Friends and then she made a conscious decision that she did not want to pursue the road of entertainment as a profession. I see she had interest in other things and so we eased up with her being, you know, pushed as a performer. Of course, of course. Yeah, interesting she still performs, but she's not putting that to the forefront of her brain.
Kurt:Yeah, she put a choice there, she decides when she does.
Corie:Yeah, she has adopted. Yeah, the homeschooling workout boy.
Kurt:Oh yeah, man Totally did, Totally did.
Corie:It made me right choice yeah yeah, yeah, that's a hell of a time, because Queen Africa 2007, mate she, is she red-hot at that point in time, red-hot.
Kurt:Daddy, don't touch me. We were there, we were in the studio, serious.
Kurt:Yeah man, we were in the studio when that song was recorded. We were there present. Oh yeah, is this why I was sitting down? As I told you, I was sitting down on the step of the recording studio and Tony's office is upstairs. So I was singing. I was singing a song called Last Bad Jones of Calypso. I was singing that one in particular, and then I went in to Too Bright, but I was just working on it.
Kurt:Tony heard me from the office. He had no idea that I was a singer. As far as he concerned, I am Chocolate's father. When he heard me singing, he come out. He said man, you gotta sing. And he say you should start singing. He tell me come in the studio. Tell him I like not no reggae thing, I just sing Calypso. And then he got a little history and he told me man, you have a natural calling. He say what I'm hearing here is a natural calling. You need to go back home and fulfill your destiny. Of course I was probably saying nah, man, until he went to my wife and he told her he's going to buy a ticket for me to go home. Don't tell me nothing yet. He has to go back home for carnival season Short pants.
Kurt:I came back home for the carnival season, won the crown when I was heading back in the airport. Short pants saw me in the airport that same night. Sunday night, after the competition, I went from the stage straight to the airport. Short pants said where are you going? What are you doing here? You know where are you going, right? I said no, I'll explain to him what's happening. I went back to Jamaica to fulfill the last three months and then came back here. From then to now I've been based here.
Corie:I've moved on, so the organization that you formed is still active.
Kurt:It's still very much vibrant and active. We did. We were responsible for what you call Kairikam Day celebrations on July the 4th. We were based in Guyana at the time. We lived in Guyana for two years, so my organization was responsible for staging the Kairikam Day activity in Guyana. Kairi Fester also did a special show in 2014.
Kurt:Kairi Fester was held in Suriname, but what they found is that a lot of the countries were sending their cultural artists, but they weren't sending the ones who really out there, who noted artists with a reputation. They were sending people that nobody knew. So what did they do? They formed a special show to cater for those artists who were like Brain Stevenson. I brought Brain Stevenson, I brought Kevin Little and even the guy who many artists from all over the Caribbean to perform at a special showcase, and I brought in A&R representatives from Europe, from United States. I was in charge of producing that show for the Carriacom Secretariat. It was about five events within CarriFest, so that's one of the last things we did. We presented, the heads of government had a meeting and they wanted us to take the outcome of that meeting and put it in a theatrical presentation. We also did that in Suriname the year before. So we've been doing a lot of stuff, especially with hiring artists. We've hired so many artists, including Christopher Martin he represented Jamaica.
Kurt:Arturo Tappan. He represented Barbados. Boo Hingsonados, boo Hingson, ronald Boo Hingson. We brought him To represent St Lucia as well. Wow, as a matter of fact, we formed a band Out of our experience, called the Windies Band, and Kirtley Ambrose Was the bass player and singer in that band. We came and we performed when Brian Lara had broken the record.
Kurt:We performed at the Prime Minister's residence, prime Minister Manning, and that band consists of people like Onion from Burning Flames, wokey Wokey and the Armstrong Spare One, claudette Peters. She was not yet a Soka Monarch. She has since went on to win five or six Soka Monarch titles. Billy Rogers, who is the only Chutney, as I said, the only African, who has won the both Chutney and Calypso Monarch competition in Guyana. All these people were part of the band. Madzat, who is the current Calypso Monarch of St Vincent, he was part of the band, so it was a super band together, you know, with members of Roy Cape. Roy Cape also played in the band in St Vincent. He played for Ben Greenada had the Hurricane, ivan had this. He did some Benefit concerts, gotcha. So we brought in Roy Cape and Chuseman To compliment the band as well With other top musicians From around the region and that was done For three years straight.
Corie:Yeah, that is amazing. Played at the Sinkits.
Kurt:Music Festival.
Corie:The Wendy's band. Yeah, kirtley Ambrose. I just happened to Bounce up someone On YouTube the other day and you saw him singing. Yeah, he started that with us man Singing and he playing and the guy behind him is Richie Richards. Right, yes, yes. I was like what the hell is going on?
Kurt:Richie couldn't make the gig, but Richie was part of the band too but he couldn't come to the based on his schedule.
Corie:Oh, he couldn't make it to the gig.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, yeah so those are the things that I've done, produced I'm with you.
Corie:So it's not just Greer, it's not just Tog you're active in the mix. So you bring us back to Tube, right, this would have been your first time entering the Calypso Monarch at that point in time, or you were entering since before.
Kurt:No, I was a finalist in the Calypso Monarch in 94, 95, 97, in 91. I've always been a semi-finalist to now got you.
Corie:Yeah, so I've been around.
Kurt:Yeah, you were always in the competition then I composed for Denise Plummer when she won the competition I composed for Johnny Williams recently which song was for Denise Plummer that? Was um. I'm not denial, even everybody yeah heroes, heroes that heroes won the best social commentary competition that year. She had the best social commentary With that song. Yeah, powerful song.
Corie:Yeah, powerful song, like when you listen to.
Kurt:Composed for other people who won the Young Kings and who was in the finals and stuff, not just in Trinidad, as I say From Dominica.
Corie:Yeah. When you have the Caribbean, yeah Throughout.
Kurt:Because of Caribbean vision, of course, of course. In my time I met with these people and you know that was part of it.
Corie:Like before we started recording, I was telling you as I listened to these songs. We started with Too Bright. I keep listening to it and I say, but they have a reggae feel to these songs. Yeah, you're going to find that.
Kurt:Yeah, of course, yeah, you're not understanding where something's from. I had a rebirth in a certain style, but Jamaica opened up. Jamaica is one of the most creative places or creative spaces you could find. You know, you know for an artist. I guess that's why you have that kind of conscious capital come out of Jamaica.
Corie:I'd spend a little time in. Is it Edna Manley School? Is that a?
Kurt:music school. Yes, yes, yes, I used to go there to play guitar, boy.
Corie:Listen. I school is as that music school.
Kurt:I used to go there to play guitar and it was so, boy, listen, I mean, it gets so because it's so strong when you try to change that, you know but, it's.
Corie:I mean, when you walk into the school, you feel that sense of talent.
Kurt:I mean. Apanya is the closest comparison to it when you see so much young people, so talented boy and that that gave me a greater appreciation for our musicians too, you know, Because in Jamaica you're getting the reggae strum, but they cannot give you that kind of strum. No, they can't.
Corie:They can't give it to you but in Trinidad. No, trinidad musicians they're giving you anything the chord structure, the patterns, the strum there, trinidad, musicians switch.
Kurt:Something is a different story altogether.
Corie:So when you're going with two brights, you're sure you know you're going to win. You had them, or what was you thinking when you?
Kurt:went in, I knew that I was going, I was singing again. It could be taken as an anti-PNM song because nobody was singing anything in terms of that type of political commentary. So I know that I was coming in an environment where people were watching, watch your soul and you know you could get some cuffs and coats. But the message I couldn't deny, the message it wasn't coming from Kurt Alan Perseid was what I felt and picked up. So I had to do it. So it wasn't a case where I knew I was going to win. I knew I was doing, I was going to do well because I sang in Kroko's tent that year. He allowed me to be a guest artists in the tent. Basically, and from the feedback from the audience and stuff, you know that. You know it's going to be a good song, but winning, no.
Kurt:I think for me the presentation of the song is what kind of tipped the scale for me, because that was the first night I was doing the presentation of it. All the time I'm singing it normal. But when I when he was on stage and I actually saw myself and I felt that energy off of the presentation, the imagery and everything, when I came off the stage I say, aha, I feel you have it. You know, yeah, it's a feeling. It's a feeling, you know.
Kurt:Sometimes you just get that feeling with other people too. Like all the other years, we didn't call names again, but when certain people won and they stand up backstage when they finish performing, they say, ah, boy, they get the magic, they touch the spot. That is the winning song, that is the winning performance. And so said, so done, so you never could go into a competition saying I win, or you know, I'm going to win this. It's at the night when you come off at that stage, you have a sense of yes, I did my best here and it feel good, right. And if it feel good to you, chances are you did well.
Corie:Got you, yeah, so you stay. You hang around to hear the results and things.
Kurt:That year I didn't hang around, you know they called me. I was already by maritime Right Heading home and I got the call that, kurt, you win, you gotta come back. Where are you? Where are you man looking for you backstage? Yeah, I tell them I'm not here right now. They say why are you talking? Why come back Shoma? I will call her name Shoma. Oh, it's the one who called me. She was the PRO of Tuku she called me and told me she said I buffed my up.
Corie:You were trying to run from this competition, because you leave to go home, you leave to come back to Jamaica. I didn't even head in the airport.
Kurt:I go in home. I have a couple hours before I head in the airport, so that was my intention. This year, the same thing. Unfortunately, it was said that when they called me for my prize, I wasn't there either. I had an emergency, so I left, and the unfortunate thing about it is that my trophy remained on stage and one of the officials of a certain organization selects to stay there and let the cleaners go with it. We didn't care about that. We didn't pick it up Because you're not there, no, because of the song that I sang. I mean, I know what I'm saying.
Kurt:That's the kind of nonsense that happens right. So that you leave my trophy on the stage. As nonsense that happens right, so that you leave my trophy on the stage. As far as somebody told me cleaners, everybody, go on, and the trophy remain on the stage and they would not take it up. Yesterday I was called about the prize giving, which is happening right now, and they asked me to bring my trophy and I had to tell them I don't have the trophy because somebody decided to leave it on the stage.
Kurt:And what motivated them is probably the same reason that I came second.
Corie:Yeah, I understand. Yeah, that's unfortunate, that's unfortunate and you see, the thing about it is, I feel like that's why I keep going back to the line Greer obligation. That line's a standout in that song, because that's what I meant.
Kurt:It's true, it's true, it's true. So it's my great obligation, not Kurt Allen obligation.
Corie:Well, think of it like this when you do a song like Too Bright for people who might know the song, the crux of the song is basically the people in charge.
Kurt:Too Bright, right, the one at Woodford Square, yeah yeah, a layman, somebody who understands the roots of the people. What concerns, you know the wrong report in terms of, like, really reporting from the ground.
Corie:You know how relevant that song is now, like the from the girl. You know how relevant that song is now Like the last election we went. The biggest complaint about the party that was voted out was that.
Corie:Yeah, exactly so the song's so relevant that a judge should never come between. Like I was talking to Mr Shaq here and Shaq say he don't watch them judges, he don't watch his scorecard. I was confused. I was like, well, why? Because I want to see Mr Shark win one. But he said he said that's what you're saying. He said my responsibility is to the written song and to who I'm talking to. He said so if the judges can't come between that, for me to stymie what I'm doing, which?
Kurt:makes sense.
Corie:But when you release a song like that, you put it out there and soon after that a snap election call and the electorate responds the way they did, then it tells you that there was a voice of the people.
Kurt:It was not Kutal. It says what it is. Same thing this year. Yeah, right after the song was out, the election was called and the same result, same result. You know so, and it's important to note that those were the only two times that I really sang songs of that vein actually coming at somebody like direct, like that, direct direct. You know what I mean.
Corie:The results showed. But the thing is like one of the things you talk to younger people about Calypso and I want to ask you about that too, in terms of the amount of young people in the competition now. But apart of where they find, you hear it all the time the art form dying, the thing, da, da, da, da. A part of it is the. You know the wailing and lamentations and the little near woes that's come on on our finals night where it's just about crying and how hard the country is. So I feel like it's an art to make a song still entertaining, which is what we know Calypso to be entertaining. It's formative and provocative. So even though you did, you might say you know it went directly at the person. But two brides is such a is is cleverly written, is almost double entendre and same cleverly written and delivered so and again.
Kurt:That probably came as a result to where when once there's a one song competition, you have to try and put everything into that one song, to try and make that song a complete entity. Probably if it's a two-song competition, you have a next opportunity now to be a little lighter, to come with a different issue altogether. That is not as heavy, right. But since they brought it down to the one song, you find that everybody concentrating on commentary, political or social because they want to get that message across, they believe that is the blueprint to win a title.
Corie:Yeah, social political community, maybe nation building, punto finale you don't get much other kind of songs.
Kurt:Remember in you hear that KroKo song Nobody Bad Song, nobody Should Go, no, nobody Ain't Go, no Right.
Corie:And you want to come with it.
Kurt:What do you mean? Which was careless, yeah, which had?
Corie:I didn't know the song at all and as a Trinidad, you know from here. Calypso Fiesta on every TV in the house you know how this? Go and. I hear the pa pa, pa, pa, pa, pa pa so it reminds me of a old song a man sing my father name is Low, my name is Low.
Corie:See you remember it, correct, correct so that catch my attention one time and when I hear the first verse I said what the hell is my dude doing? Flip the script. It was something especially in the context of what was happening to the rest of the competition.
Kurt:Bad, bad, bad and every verse.
Corie:I always watch it back on YouTube now and every verse the reaction from the crowd get bigger. Yes, but the truth is that is, for me, still very, very similar to Too Right, Because all you're doing is tapping into something that we already feel, Exactly Because Trinidadian. I talked to my sister about this all the time she's in DC. When you see her travel, it's better you don't tell it's better you don't say it.
Kurt:Because somebody has sweetbreads and that man call everything in that song.
Corie:I don't know how you remember to sing that, so I don't know how you can remember the lyrics.
Kurt:Probably personal experience, because he travels a lot, you know.
Corie:So he remembers it all the time. He feels like he's playing as a shell. Really Bad, bad. So what was your feeling when you get a call and you find out you win after all them years it was a special, special feeling.
Kurt:You know I've been in winner's row before in terms of winning the Young Kings, winning Soka Monarch, but when I started off to sing Calypso, that was my goal to be Calypso Monarch. It didn't have a Soka Monarch, it didn't have a Young King when I just started. So the aim was not to be a Young King, but the aim was to be a Soka Monarch. As a matter of fact, a Calypso Monarch at that time was representative of everything Right, because you had the Calypso Monarchs were the winners of the road match competitions. In the same way, you know whether it's David Rudder who won the road match and Calypso Monarch you had people like Sparrow and Skitchner who was winning Calypso Monarchs and road match.
Kurt:So to win the Calypso Monarch title, that was the crowning moment for me in terms of what it represented and what I saw it representing within the art form. Yeah, it was like, yes, good validation, yeah, from junior monarch to calypso monarch. And you know, thank mr john phillip disease for making sure and helping me to develop my writing ability. I mean all the key. All the other students who were part of that experience. They never followed up with the writing, the composing part, so they were into singing and I want a song. I'll get a song. He made sure that I kept my fire burning as a composer and was giving me all the encouragement in that area for me to be who I am as a composer today.
Corie:Otherwise, that would not have been possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, congrats on that. You're joining an elite company, Shadows. You're the only other person before to win both Caleb Sumanak and Sumanak.
Kurt:Correct, that's right.
Corie:Yeah, and only one man after yeah, marshall, yeah, yeah, yeah, it could be hard for anybody to accomplish that now.
Kurt:It's only Sumanak, right right, that's it, or is it Trinity? It's over, it's over it's over something else.
Corie:I had to go to again one of my favourite songs you put together where I say you turn the spotlight on we because that first investigation. Again you get a loss in my mind, right, you understand when I hear that song, not saying that the year didn't have real good songs, because that might have been one of the best years for Calypso Monarch we've seen in a long time. I was shocked by the results. Where you come down here? Fifth, no man. Eight, eight, yeah, yeah, shocked yeah yeah, yeah.
Corie:Because Marshall was going to win. Right. I can say it right, marshall was going to win. Kareem Nashua was real good that year. Chucky was good. I was shocked. You feeling that way, then, or you're going in there thinking you have a chance to win.
Kurt:Yeah, going in there thinking that you have a chance to win based on the results from the prelim semifinals and the. You know the interaction from the people about the song.
Corie:What was the results for the first two rounds? You were up there.
Kurt:I know I was up there. I was up there, okay, good, in the preliminaries this year. So you know that. Okay, you have a nice chance to make the finals. So you're going in there with that in mind and you're going to deliver to make sure Of course, yeah, to just follow through on the first place, I came ninth in the semifinals, barely made it to the finals.
Corie:Yeah, coming back to that, because that was weird to me.
Kurt:I don't know to say it, but me being who I am, as he is not outspoken calypso, but when I say something I don't say it from an emotional point of view. Politics was involved and I and I'm saying this with evidence to support it. It may not be evidence that admissible in court or I may not go that direction, but in my heart and the people who know what they did, you all know, and I'm letting you I know too.
Corie:So we even yeah, that's unfortunate for me, just as a lover of the thing Again, the song Investigation. You might say that somebody's singing about politics, or they're singing about this leader or that leader, but you kind of turned that song onto the parents.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, it was based on personal experience. The core of it, right, is that even now, a lot of parents teach their children to be fearful of police officers. So if they do something wrong, I will call the police and the police will come and look at me. Right, that's what I tell them, it's true. So when they see police passing, they already have this thing already, right, right. I always tell my daughter or anybody around me you don't have to fear the police, that is not your problem, I am your problem. You have to worry what I think?
Corie:No, seriously yeah, it's what.
Kurt:I think the police ain't gonna do you nothing. It's me, you hear with me. You have to worry what I will do. You have to worry how I will react when they do your foolishness. I ain't putting that responsibility on no influencer or nobody, nobody who come in to sing a song and no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's me you got to deal with. So it starts there. It starts home. The first investigation starts with peer-renting and if you can't get that right there, then go bother for no investigation. It's too late for investigation when they have bloodstain on their hand. You call an investigation police, make it. They make it. No, no, no, no, no, no. That investigation starts here. You got to watch me and my eye and know I am the one dealing with you. If you choose to misbehave, that is your greatest fear. The police are going to do you nothing that I could do, trust me.
Corie:It's one of the biggest changes we see in society, where the parent is no longer holding that kind of authority. Yeah, man, yeah, they give it up.
Kurt:Yeah, of course, and to be frank, the parents, some of the parents, need parenting. They really don't know, because they grew up in a time where a lot of things they experience they tell themselves. When I have my child, that can happen. Sometimes they talk about a community to raise a child and elders. Sometimes elders are wicked to your children, right, wicked. They're doing them wickedness. They're telling them all kinds of things. You want the child to respect them. So they're saying when I get my child, no elders can tell my child nothing now, because look how he does move. So that is what you're getting now. So you can't blame them either. They need guidance as so when you talk about parents, look at who are the parents. When you're talking about parents, it's 19 year olds, 20 something years. Is the parents you're thinking in your mind? It's some 50 something year old.
Corie:No, no, no no people who lost themselves exactly so.
Kurt:It's a whole. You know the approach is a holistic approach, of course, that you have to use.
Corie:So it's the first investigation. Yeah, and it seemed to me I like this song in terms of the sentiment behind it because I saw it as a response to the well, it's wicked.
Kurt:You know them videos.
Corie:It's almost like somebody make a post on Facebook about this. Well, it's wicked.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:And somewhere along the way in society we start to. Everybody else was the issue except the parents. It started being a school teacher. This is from the late 90s, the teacher's not doing nothing, and then all of a sudden it starts to become now the church, now the religion's nothing, and when I was small, the religion was this, and then it started to be the government, this mystic government that we like to talk about exactly as if you know where the child every day exactly, and then they tell you community to raise a child yeah, of course, but yeah but that may have been so in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, when a community was made up of family members or people who have the same vision, the same philosophy or ideology in religion or politics.
Kurt:Now a community is a man from Socom to live here, a next one from Socom to live here. He's a Buddhist, he's a Christian, he's a Muslim, and you find all that in a community. How do you, community, raise your child? And we don't know each other.
Corie:Exactly, you don't want nobody to cut your child down? Yeah, of course.
Kurt:So if you're talking, about community raising a child. The first thing you have to do is establish your communities. If you don't have communities, you have people living together in an area, but that doesn't make it a community, so you cannot tell me what community raising your child, so the parent isn't kind of just hiding from the responsibility it's their responsibility.
Kurt:That is where the community is, in that household. That is where it starts Mommy, daddy, uncle, aunt, sister, brother, grandparents, whoever it's made up of, that is the community. And if you don't do your investigation there and you wait for them to come out of the road or to go to school where they've been influenced by others, nah, man, no, no, no way. See, yeah, there are people that you wouldn't deal with Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, because you know, see that man, but when you send your child out to school, have to deal with that man's children who come with that same mindset, mm-hmm, you're putting them in problems. Yeah, you have those things. It's just this generic thing about community raising and child and child, yeah, or governments and police.
Kurt:Police, police somebody else? Yeah, of course.
Corie:Sometimes the police doing the job. Yeah, yeah, you know. That's why the term too late to me was so powerful. Too late meant so many things to me when I heard you song, because you lost control of your child. Yeah, these are things that you just say. I remember they used to tell me all the time you work in no place, you're sleeping late, get up and do something.
Kurt:you know there's a sign that's right. There's time to investigate.
Corie:That is the time to investigate Because I think, especially during when COVID all of a sudden gets a stop and watch the situation a little bit, you're seeing a lot of that at the point in time where people want ones, where there's a second autopsy, they want a next investigation they get the one thing and that. It was a hell of a song boy. So how come it boy Well?
Kurt:again, again, I have my suspicions, but that might be coming from my emotional point of view, so I keep away from emotional findings. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, I think it was one of the Apart from all that emotion, you won this year.
Corie:Right, not the emotional findings. No, you say you know. Yeah, I know.
Kurt:I know.
Corie:And you want them to know that. You know, yeah, but they know I know. Now they know I know. Okay, good, good.
Kurt:But because of who I am, it cannot affect me. My responsibility is to the people and you all can't prevent that. You all have been trying so much time. And when they have this thing about who is they? Man, I ain't gonna point no day. Know the self, night. Know the self, day and night. Right, and I know I know who you are. Don't try, don't feel like I don't know, because I'm not saying or not behaving in a particular way. You're not gonna find me being emotional and burning down the house to kill the mosquito, of course, right, but because calypso is about discipline and about exercising the art of restraint. So hence the reason, instead of cussing somebody, we'll say pock, don't pock around, instead of going direct, because we understand that is what kaiso represents, right, to color it and shape it, it to make it palatable, right. So don't feel, because I'm not coming at you all in the way that you all expect is that I don't know, please, just you know, do what you have to do and I will continue to do what I have to do.
Corie:That's what I want to ask you.
Kurt:This ain't going to stop you from entering competition the only way that once you put yourself open for a competition, then you give up all rights. You have to leave yourself in the hands of the judges and whatever they decide to decide the day that I remove myself from the competition, then I might be able to speak a little clearer and to say things the way that I want to say, because I'm no longer part of that cycle. Right and I sang a song in 1997 called Right. Right and I sang a song in 1997 called Pass the Ball, and very soon that is what I intend to do in terms of competitions and stuff to pass that ball, so that I will be able to comment and do other things to help Calypso without that, that umbrella or that shadow of he, vexed because he didn't win or he vexed because it had nothing to do with vexing.
Kurt:It'd have to do with the art form. There are certain things that I want to see for the art form. There are certain Calypsoians who come and put things in my head. They ain't see what they're doing. They ain't doing this, they ain't doing that. The organization, organization, that I understand all that, but it must be done strategically. We must engage the right people, have the right go. You can't keep pulling down somebody because you don't like him. You pull him down because he's the president or he's this, and that. No, no, no, no, no. Let's do it in the right way.
Corie:Yeah, well, I guess your history and your experience with activism you know how to move and shake and make them things happen.
Kurt:Yeah, man.
Corie:So you feel like you will still compete at that time, or that's something you're looking at helping others and moving away.
Kurt:I need to move away from competition. Yeah, because Black Stalin had said something where it's not that he doesn't want to compete, he doesn't feel comfortable putting his hat, you know, as a metaphor, putting your hand in the same hat as Kurt Allen. He didn't feel comfortable with that, you know. As far as you're concerned, I know you as a junior, as a child, put my hand in shame, had to pick a number to compete against you. It has. I don't feel comfortable, even up to now. There are some artists who in the finals I don't feel comfortable competing against them. I've seen them as juniors. I supposed to be out of that as far as you're concerned. But the economic side of it, this is what provides not just the platform, but it provides an economic window that the Calypsoanian. Without that there is nothing for the Calypsoanian. So that is probably one of the reasons a lot of them, a lot of us still there, but I don't have patience for that much longer.
Kurt:Yeah, there are other things that needs to be done other than competition, competition, and you know it's come like you grow out of primary school, you know, keep putting on your school uniform, primary school uniform, go into school and say I used to go to school, here I used to go to school. Look miss, look miss. It's that every time you move on you might go to a university which is a different school, but then the time you come out to lecture in that university and not to be part of that competition aspect in, you could do it differently. And you know my time is winding down for that, oh man.
Corie:It's sad, but I have my support regardless because I think in terms of your contribution, like you may have people talking about it in business where for the last 20 years, the same boards, the same people, are the heads of boards for years that's what's happening?
Corie:now, that's what's happening now and I feel like, if it's not so much, it's not to discard people and sister runny and she was talking about that, it was interesting her perspective on it where sometimes you see older people who are the foundation people and you want to discard them as a thing that we have sometimes. Maybe it's not to move your way, but you just do it differently which is what you say.
Kurt:Contributing a different way.
Corie:Yeah, so how's your feeling on the last few years where you're seeing several artists who will ever start with marshall? Because marshall had stepped away from competition for a long, long time all forms of competition and then came back into calypso monarch at any point in time, as people are doing it every year, your feeling is that he's stepping into all your domain. You welcome it. What was your thoughts?
Kurt:no, that is not all the domain. That is his domain to people. As I said, junior calso Monarch when you are a Junior Calypso Monarch, the next step of that is to become, or dream of becoming, a Calypso Monarch. So after he has accomplished all this in life, he sit down and say boy, I want to be a Calypso Monarch, I already win that title. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with to win the Calypso Monarch? And then they say you know what? I want to win the Chukli, so that I will go down in history as the person who has won all these competitions. I don't see anything wrong with that, because in the United States you have people breaking records and becoming the first to do this and nobody can touch this record in a thousand years, you know. And if that is, then who am I or anybody to want to put their foot in the way of that or condemn it? No, no, no. He is free to do that.
Kurt:And he has the ability to do it and he has done it. He's come from that and he is Marshall Montano. There's some you know we have to respect. You know he might be so accessible to us and you know, but there is no other than him, no other like him. You'll never find an ex-Brigo, you'll never find an ex-Stalin, you'll never find an ex-Shadow. These are, and many others, because they have made themselves into legends and he has won. I am not going to disrespect that.
Corie:But when you hear he's coming in in competition, you're looking to beat him.
Kurt:But he is once you come inside of there, of course, okay, he won last year, but look what happened this year. Yeah, yeah, no fear about that. And again, as I mentioned before, as a soca artist, sometimes you have to come behind Marshall with Music Farm and all these hits. You had to come behind Ronnie McIntosh and you say, no, you don't have a hit song. But when you go on that stage you have to make the people dance and we conquered that. We came after them with no head songs and did it. So that confidence sound, that etched in your mind, that memory.
Corie:There was nothing for nobody who feared in competition.
Kurt:I mean I defeated Super Blue.
Corie:Iowa was in the competition Bunchy was in the competition, so why should I be scared? That one was so common, that was so common.
Kurt:So why would I be fearful of Marshall or anybody coming into a competition? You must respect what they bring to the competition. And the fact remains, because of his involvement in the competition it brought a renewed interest in people not just in Trinidad but all over the world paying attention again to the Calypso Muna competition Even this year to see even if it's a see what he will come.
Corie:They're still seeing you in the process.
Kurt:They're still hearing about you in the process, so I would think that his participation elevated the competition.
Corie:Yeah, I would say so. I think this year he didn't have a chance. I don't think this one was lyrically strong enough. It was.
Kurt:I don't think that he really. I'll be honest with you? I don't think he really came out to compete for that crown.
Corie:He, but you know what's funny to me, that's not partial. I respect him more this year because of this year, because of what you said, because I agree with that. I saw the show he put on in Skinner Park last year and then in the final and I said, well, I don't see that. I said, all right, they ain't going to beat him. I said I know, and that's only for me If I go back this year and I know, okay, I won.
Kurt:I come in and do like Gypsy. Gypsy sing, mother. Can't Gypsy walk?
Corie:on his stage. He never dance. I will do that. So when did the fact that he went all out again, probably himself knowing that, is not a winning song?
Kurt:he went all out because he's a professional artist and he know he has to deliver something to his best of his ability. But if he had I believe so, if it's strategy he would have had a different song specifically for the.
Corie:Calypso Mona, I think so, I think so, yeah, but that you have to respect that, that he went to his standard regardless, yeah, man so, with the youths coming in now, where I would have seen Mikael Tejo, several of them, particularly young brother this year who was Skinner Park, is one of the more impressive things I've seen of them, because the more I talk to people like yourself, people talk about Skinner Park and how difficult it could be, even your experience this year, and I guess it's a renewed interest now because young people waiting to see. As far as I'm concerned, he's a winner, but when I see him, the way he walked out to the edge of that stage and delivered Like he was in our life before.
Kurt:Yeah, yeah, yeah, the vocal. You heard the vocal treatment, how he sang it, of course, and how he executed that, yeah.
Corie:Like he'd been singing in Calypso yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, total, total, yeah. So you welcome that.
Kurt:Of course. Of course Young brothers and the others who come from that background as well, the pretenders, the roaring lions of the art formula long ago you'll find roaring lions and kitcheners who have a tent would have already gone and picked them and said young fella, you're in my tent. We don't have a tent to go and say, young fella, you're in this tent, so we cannot go and scout the way that they would have scouted. And that is where, when you look at look, I was listening spiral calypso yesterday A young and strong mainframe that's all in town who thinks about a gunslinger. Of course he's thinking about guns and saying they're buying guns and they're making sure, but once they have the guns, nobody can handle them. And that was since the 50s, right? So what your brother and these guys do is nothing new. It's just that they're doing it. We talked about the by reggae influence being in Jamaica. Mm-hmm, when you, when you, when it comes out to a DNA, you can see somebody resembling an ex-person and they, and when you check they, have no relation whatsoever.
Kurt:It's just a resemblance, mm-hmm, the DNA of reggae, the DNA of what they call Trinibar, and the DNA of Calypso and Soca is the same. It's the same DNA. Even though you might come from a home to where you're looking totally different from your brother, they might say they're all unrelated. But when they check the DNA, that is your brother, the DNA which is what I call the algorithm of all those music, it comes down to one Calypso. And when I say Calypso not just calypso in the way that you might know it from the Sparrows and them, I'm talking about the original calypso in terms of there are nine rhythms. Now, this is something I don't really talk, but there are nine specific, distinct rhythms. That makes up the rhythm that we call calypso.
Kurt:Calypso is not based on one rhythm. That's why you find that when you listen to calypso has and you listen to rock and roll, listen to even jazz, you just wait now you feel it's feeling something. That's the dna talking to you. It's there. So calypso is not just what you feel. It is right we call it by different names reggae and jazz and rock and roll and all these things but when you look at the dna it's the same, because calypso it took nine, the coming together of nine rhythms to create your original rhythm that we know as calypso. Right now, what you're hearing, you're hearing about four or five, for the most you really hear entry, but I was sticking at four to a fifth out of the nine, so that we lost a lot in the process. From the early 1920s come down, we have lost a lot and that loss came particularly when the banning of the African drumming and the drumming you take away your cell phone for a hundred years.
Corie:They took away your drums and that they think that drumming is just about entertainment and communication.
Kurt:But it's high sciences, mathematics to the highest degree, highest order of math, that we, over the years, we lose a lot of it. So, what we call Calypso now is just about fall 39.
Corie:I see, I see. So you see, the train of thought, the steam, the zest are still in the same essence. It is the same.
Kurt:To the trained air who understands the science behind the music, Not somebody who and listen for certain things. Once you understand the science, the cosmic relation that our music have, when you deal with cosmology and not just the subjective wine and jam and how I feel what this music really is, we are not using it. This is a spiritual music. Calibur is something highly spiritual, the highest form of spirituality in terms of the rhythms. But we have lost that. We have lost the knowledge of it and by losing the knowledge of it we have lost what it could do for us as a people.
Corie:It is a science. I'm with you. So then, with this knowledge, you're not surprised when you see somebody like Young Brother come in that arena.
Kurt:Not surprised at all. I find it took long.
Corie:So you think they'll come home.
Kurt:They are home. They are home. It's just that we don't recognize. As I say, we're looking for something else, we're not looking at what is there and understanding that they are home. We want to see them home sounding like Attila. We want to see them home sounding like Lion, but that has gone. Lion cannot come and sing like that. If you bring back Lion now and all, he cannot sound, sound like that. Everybody has a space, me too, right, and everybody is. My new degrees are separation, so that it might look like a resemblance here and then next, 20 years down, you'll look like something different. Sure, but when you understand the DNA and the algorithm, because everything has a number assigned to it it's the same.
Corie:I'm with you. I'm with you. So you talk to them now. Our kitchen will handpick you and bring you into the thing. You talk to the youth now and they're feeling like society is not accepting them. Society is trying to sideline them, trying to silence them. What would you say to them now?
Kurt:Be resilient and express your true feeling, regardless of what society wants to accept. The society changes over time and what society accepts in 2025 was not the same thing the society accepted when I was a child or when I was a youth in 1990. So it changes. That level of acceptance and tolerance changes. Slavery was something that we embraced at one time. When I say we, the society, so that was good. And now you see what happened Good and lawful, yeah good and lawful.
Kurt:So things change. Your vibe and your energy must not be conformed to society per se. It must conform to your natural mystic that is blowing through the air, and once you're in line with that, nothing can stop you. Stick to what you're doing in the way that you're doing it.
Corie:I hope they hear that. I hope those messages are important. It's coming from you. I feel we're living in a society sometimes where part of why I do this is because I feel in society there are too much gaps. So I deliberately try to decide who I want to put out this week and who I want to put out next week. So when I put out somebody who youths want to hear, I want to put out somebody hear now, so that maybe they'll hear what the youth saying, because there's just too much disconnects in the society.
Kurt:You have to give the youth a chance to dance, to them prance and when you look at it in a true context. You need to give them that chance to dance and prance and express themselves. The way they see it. It may not conform to what you know, what you would wish to change it. Change the society Right.
Corie:Simple I'll wait till you're with me. It reminds me of a song you sing with no slave. No more slave movies.
Kurt:Right same thing.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah even back then you're feeling like especially when you sang that it was like you're away Subconsciously, subconsciously, yeah, yeah. So in terms of the competition, going where it is and that kind of thing, one in particular. Again, maybe my bias is the first investigation and not understanding how you come where you come. You explain this here. I have a theory about why you ain't winning the rest of them too. I have a theory about that, because when you're winning with two bright, what are you wearing again?
Kurt:Pig run outfit you dress up too nice for this last competition.
Corie:As you said, I dress nice.
Kurt:No, you see you can be so correct. No, that can be part of it. Try it, try it, you might catch them again.
Corie:But when you look at this investigation on where Going back to that song with Gypsy and Mother Cant, I don't understand how these songs compare. I didn't understand how he made the final that year either, but again, he's such a professional in terms of his ability to deliver on stages, one of the greatest who ever do it. So he comes out, stands, delivers. But he would have been president of NCC at the time and performing and competing in several competitions. You have thoughts on that in terms of.
Kurt:It might seem as a conflict of interest in terms of, if you look at, morality and integrity and all these things, but, as he always says, he's a Calypso first and if he can't get away with it, he will get away with it. If you cannot get away with something, then you cannot get away with it. I have no problems with them being a calypso first, but it doesn't take away the fact that in people's mind it is a conflict of interest. It is my address, yeah. So then you have to decide on your own merit. If you don't mind keeping a straight face and doing something that people don't want you to do, it's up to you. In that position, keeping a straight face and doing something that you know people don't want you to do, that is up to you, you know. But in that position I can't even say what I would have done, because you have to be in a position to understand it.
Corie:Well, I guess that's fair, but I mean, I could guess what you would have done, because now you're talking about stepping away.
Kurt:You're going to pursue other interests in, to be sure you can hear about. Kurt Allen has decided that, you know. But again, I don't want it to come across as making those kinds of decisions after coming second in a competition because, again, because he didn't win, he vexed. Yeah, it's not about competition, it's about that message that I have to deliver and I already have my message that I want to deliver next year in terms of, you know, like knowing what I want to focus on, so we could say that my song is done, okay, okay, yeah. So that you could very well hear that I'm not competing, or you could very well hear I'm going harder in the competition, okay, good.
Corie:Well, when you decide, come back now we're going to talk about that too.
Kurt:Yeah, no problem.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to whatever the next iteration is, because I appreciate doing that series. I think it powerful. Yeah, I think it's powerful. The, the, the, the people like myself.
Corie:With social media, people have the opportunity to um, like you see this current issue going on where they say a photographer, yes, yes, yes, everybody had a different site, yeah, but we have the opportunity to go on twitter, go on facebook and respond emotionally to things immediately or even with a lot of research, because you have a lot of professional photographers talking about it, calypsonians talking about it. But I find that series that you all have creates a space where now the griot gets back. You know, we get back the griot Because we lost the griot. I feel the Facebook comments, I think, is what makes the tent. It loses its luster to an extent, because if I had to hear political commentary or social commentary, when I get that on Facebook immediately.
Kurt:I have something up, Exactly exactly. You know what I mean.
Corie:From uninformed people sometimes like myself, who not? But I don't get to hear a complete thought from a Kurt Allen or Mr Shaq or Kareem Nash or anybody who in this space, Because I mean, you're taught to come out in a text the same way you come out in a song, and sometimes why we put things out in a text is because we have it for a song and we want the competitors to know.
Kurt:Well, okay, this is where we come in.
Corie:I would not talk to that at all.
Kurt:But it's good that I mean with the speed that you could produce now. You're willing to go on that. Yeah, I'm willing to go all the way because you know that's part of what I want to do now.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate that.
Kurt:I appreciate you coming through, brother, I appreciate you being here, man, this was good, you know.
Corie:Thanks a lot, this was a great, a great, I think, people are going to.
Kurt:I'll get back to him.
Corie:I'll get back to him, he knows that he knows that. I appreciate that man. I'll come back to you whenever you decide where you're going and tell Chocolate to send her love Will do. Yeah, you know she's one of them names who was, so it was like Chocolate.
Kurt:Island, yeah, man, and then they don't hear. So it's, you know. She's not even on social media. No, no social media footprint, because what she's doing she's doing independently and she's doing it for people who are here for nobody to get involved and make comments on these kind of things.
Corie:Well, listen, we're taking it that you will go have impact as your workers.
Kurt:She's on a number of boards in our community Beautiful On the finance committee, nice Cultural committees, and this is in predominantly. It's not the normal areas with West Indian people, of course. No, she doesn't have a lot of West Indian people where she is, you know, she's probably the only one.
Corie:That is right, she's making a serious impact out there.
Kurt:Even as a teacher I was there and I saw the impact personally with the students, not just her, her class, but the entire school embraces her. That must be proud of you the entire teaching staff and you know she's something special to them, as she is something special to us of course, yeah, that must be our proud yeah, it is no, I should have taken school more seriously. I should have done some homeschooling myself well, it's never too late. We have kids coming, I guess. Yes, we have about 10 more kids to have.
Corie:Oh yeah, guys, I should play some rap over the sink rather than looking for you. I appreciate it, bro. That's a million. Nice to be here, man. Thank you.