Corie Sheppard Podcast
Corie Sheppard Podcast
Episode 235 | Kenny Phillips
This week on The Corie Sheppard Podcast, we sit down with Kenny Phillips — legendary guitarist, producer, studio owner, and the cultural force behind WACK Radio. From playing with Kitchener and Singing Sandra to mentoring a young Dexter Simmons (who went on to engineer for Beyoncé and Michael Jackson), Kenny shares the untold stories behind soca, calypso, chutney soca, and ragga soca.
We trace his journey from building a home studio on a quarter-inch tape machine to producing over 500 livestreamed shows during COVID, and launching WACK Radio despite being told, “nobody wants to hear that music 24/7.” He unpacks the difference between arrangers, beat builders, and producers, and shares how songs like Boom Boom Time, Feeling It, Watch Out My Children, and By All Means came to life.
This episode is a living archive — of innovation, resistance, and the evolution of Caribbean sound.
🔗 Click the link in my bio for the full episode
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Welcome, mr Kenny Phillips. How are you going, sir, I'm good, I'm good, you're good. Yeah, kenny, I have some problems here. I tell you before we start. I say, boy, I never take enough time to do research for this, and I feel like them UE exams where you study just before you go in and every time I look up something I see something different. So you know, tell me you're going.
Speaker 1:Today we recorded when Trinidad played in Jamaica in this Unity Cup. Right, you carrying that on WAC? You're going to sort that out now, not on WAC, they just want me to carry it on to TFA and wherever, but to stream for them. Yeah, well, they say they get a link Right, so I have to just pull the link. I mean, I just get a call Right, so I myself don't even know, I just know I have to take the stream and send the stream. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's something you've been doing more and more of, like a lot of the things I saw during covid. A lot. Well, I guess everything went to the social, everything was, everything was remote, it was. You know, everything was not in person. Yeah, everything was masked. So you end up being the man behind the scenes for a lot of them, things that we enjoyed during covid. Yeah, well, I remember that time the government was paying everybody a five thousand dollars, right for two years, for For the creators, like wow, and you get stretched. That is one month grocery work up to you.
Speaker 1:So I, before I had decided, just before the COVID, I was watching it and I said, look, I have a conference room there that may like the meetings, right, so let me gut the conference room, put up a, a thing on the wall, right, a thing looking like a curtain in, like a like a nappa or a sappa curtain, right, and let me sing some songs in front of it. And boom, covid happened. And I was already setting that up. So it, it went fast, yeah, I can imagine. So you, you jump started the thing. Then you was there, yeah, over 500 shows, right, serious.
Speaker 1:Since then, well, during the COVID, oh, during COVID alone, yeah, all and everything that was gravy 500, brother, wow, every week was something and we asked for donations. In fact, I was using FundMeTNT, correct, and they were the portal, the e-commerce portal, right. So, and eventually I bought it and put that e-commerce portal onto my own website, correct. So that was, that's the beginning of that, and that is not only donations but pay-per-view, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, donations, but pay-per-view, etc.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was not going to ask you how you make money, because 5,000 by 500 shows, it is something like much per show. You know if that's what the government giving you, but you're making the money otherwise. No, no, no, the government was giving it's like a grant. Yeah, a grant. Oh, I see, I see. So when we we used to do our shows, like one of and she made $24,000 in an hour and a half, nice, in donations, right, so they say like something happened, but it depends on the artist, depends on the song, depends on the performance I'm running on super made real money. That's how people I had blacks a few times, blacks about three times.
Speaker 1:I had singing Sandra, I had Dennis Plummer and what it is by saying that I have these people before they pass. Of course I have, you know, because a lot of people, some youngsters, don't even know them and I have it. So I say, well, this is this one and this is that one. Yeah, important part of the thing to me, because you're talking to people who sometimes I was telling Eddie Charles when he was here, I said, eddie, people, younger people, know you as a soca parang man. They don't know who he was doing. I hear somebody ask you if he's a guitarist recently. I say in what was a good interview, you know, I like her interviews a lot, but it just shows that we had a. Young people don't know me, yeah, and they think I'm a radio man right here, far from the truth. Radio radio by force. Yeah, I am, I'm a guitar player. Let me start there. That's it. That's why I know your father. Uh-huh, yeah, I was in chandelier. I was in chandelier when he was in song rap, right. In fact I was in majors before chandelier, right. So majors was one of your earliest bands. You had said well, walter, school of music. First I played in the band there, not in the school, but in the in Majors before Chandelier, right. So Majors was one of your earliest bands. You had said, right, well, walter's, school of Music. First I played in the band there, not in the school, but in the band Right. And then from Walter's School of Music I went to Majors and then from Majors to Chandelier. From Chandelier I think I did Carl and Carol Jacobs when you joined. Um, carl, how's Carl now Carl? And that's always.
Speaker 1:Every carnival used to bring a guy from Antigua, mm-hmm, um, and you used to have little lead singers in between, right, ronnie used to come forward from Knocking Iron, uh-huh and sing them rapping songs, and eventually he became a big lead singer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where you start rhythm section. Yeah, I saw that evolution, you know. Yeah, you see a lot. Because I keep looking at this thing and I say, but all right, well, can you come and let me go through some of your discography and I tell myself I'm doing something wrong, because when I see some of these songs I say something ain't right.
Speaker 1:Kitchener, kitchener, this 80s, early 80s kind of thing I play about 8 or 9 years Straight for Kitchener Recording studio. Yeah, I used to work with Leston. Leston is my my mentor. Leston, teach me A lot. You had to say Leston Paul, right, for people who don't, leston, mr Leston Paul, the great Leston Paul. Yeah, he probably had the most hits of anybody in the soccer industry, probably followed not so closely or closely by Frankie McIntosh, pelham, goddard, right, dizey Mende, uh-huh, leston Pelham, frankie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't think I have any other name. Yeah, you don't know, it's another name, right, I don't think you have any other name? Yeah, you don't know, it's another name. Right, and I am a far foot. Yeah, far foot, I am just, I'm just happy to be called in the same sentence as these guys. Right, that's fair. That's fair Because I am a bit lucky, because I'm a guitarist.
Speaker 1:These guys are keyboard players, so there was a disparity. You know, you are guitarists. You know guitarists will really be arrangers and producers, you know. But I follow in the footsteps of Nile Rodgers. Right, you know, nile Rodgers, of she? Yeah, I heard you telling a story about that. Yeah, so somebody was here and they were talking about that opening.
Speaker 1:Like you're playing, I'm feeling it one of the most iconic pieces of music. You know, like some soccer, they have a signature to them, they hook, good, they take. But instrumentalists you might be the one who could boast of many, many of them things, but feeling it was one of them, special ones, it was special. Yeah, it was very special. We didn't know how it happened. We just play Leston, say you start yeah, yeah, and that's it. So you just play where you feel it. Yeah, I was feeling it. Yeah, but you have a good sense of Barron here with Leston. Long time, by that point, I know Barron before Leston. I know Barron from Bamu Village. Yeah, you understand Mm-hmm, bamu, mind you, back in the days I used to be a band zombie, right.
Speaker 1:So I used to go through San Fernando, even Separia, and look for bands just to listen to bands, because it's something I was into. You go down, go down, where's that street boy Down behind? Where Wacky's there that band practicing I don't know if it was Solid 7 or some one of them bands and stand up and listen. Used to go Laramie and use that one called Free Soil Straight, you know, and I used to like that. We used to go to Separia. I had ago Separia had this boy keyboardist, incinus. Stephen Incinus had a band called I think it was, heat Wave Up.
Speaker 1:There's a time I went up to that place on Superior Street and checking a band and a man playing a Vibes on a big silver vibraphone, right, andrew Tanker. I see, and I knew nothing of nothing and I just bouncing up on the six, I look in, we still run down band. So you strap up a guitar when you're going, no, no, no, or you're just going to listen. I was nobody, I just going to Mako. Oh, so this before you were really playing. Yeah, and I was into it. I was into it.
Speaker 1:So what led you to be so into? I found out. Found out very late, from my father, I thought I was in my forties. My father say my, my mother used to teach piano. You know, I'm like what man you're now telling me that After 40 years, I only tell my thing as a home child. Why are you now telling me that, yeah, and was confirmed by his. My aunt, who was down here the other day, she was confirming some things, yeah, his, his mother, but she died young. She used to teach piano. I see, so I realized, oh, this thing really, the lineage is is pure. Yeah, it's in you.
Speaker 1:I'm watching my granddaughter taking one of these bottles and she's sitting on the ground with her pot spoon and she's not two yet you know what I'm saying Whoa and enjoying herself and she's good for a while. So I realize it's there, like I hear in family. You see. So I realized it. You know it there. It there Like I hear family.
Speaker 1:You see, your sister gets high as well. You start off with it as you first pick up. Yeah, boy, like you know Napriwa girls. You know prestige school thing. You know, up top, yeah, you know. So you have to buy a recorder, right, and you a recorder, and you have to buy a guitar and you're going to school.
Speaker 1:So my sister, have all of that, me, now a rebel, watch the guitar, hey, so she show me four chords and I like that, I like this, I like it, I like it, but do not touch my guitar anymore, that's it, do not. And she going to sleep, put the guitar up on the cover and if you see a boy sneaky, let's go. Take the guitar and, you know, stick it in pong. Yeah, real movie thing. You know, go on downstairs and, mm-hmm, shove away, move the bridge. Yeah, and I really was interested in this, this. I didn't know how to tune anything, I was just playing. I would move the bridge and when I finished I'd go and play it back. Easy, you forget to go back to the bridge Next morning.
Speaker 1:Mommy, talk to Kenny, now the bridge is all over the place. And I'd say you get your own guitar. You know, I said all right, alright, and I got my own guitar and went classes and the first day, the first, the opening of the book, um, I was by a guy named Mr Gaskin, and the first day I finished the book, the whole book. When he realized, oh, okay, alright, and we turned till we end up till the down the whole book. When he realized, oh okay, all right, and we turned till we end up to the down in the end of the lessons and thing, me and Mr Gaskin used to just be jamming, you know, playing music.
Speaker 1:No, it wasn't teacher, I think it was. We was jamming. He used to get hot. He's one man. When you play like it's the last time you'll ever play, you give all. When you're playing, when you get hot, you take your guitar, turn it over and start to beat it. It was real, real vibes, real vibes, real vibes. It teach me vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it teach me vibes, you know. So you're going through that thing in learning. But with the four chords that you know, there's plenty song, yeah, so the four chords that you know, there's plenty of song. Yeah, yeah, so you're playing different genres, you're playing anything at that point in time, yeah, it was real fun. Those were the days.
Speaker 1:People who learn it or people who could play an instrument might understand how hard it is to finish that book. Most people on that first page are sweating. No, but I, when I realized when I go in and do this book and I gone, you know I really enjoyed that. I just sleep in the guitar in my bed, my book.
Speaker 1:My mother bought me my first real guitar, but I mean I had a, I had a acoustic guitar and I had a old buggy which I still do. I still have it. I don't even know I have a few guitars. Well, and the old buggy was the old buggy. Right, when I say old buggy, it was a green guitar, it was electric. At this point, yeah, that was the first electric. And I actually went by Mr Gaskin who was a carpenter and he started it all and he make it the sunburst, nice, it was an old buggy.
Speaker 1:Now, to get in the game you have to have an instrument To play in the studio, you have to have a studio instrument, an instrument to play in the studio, you have to have a studio instrument. And I mean I've been studying the thing. My dream is to be a studio rat. So my friend, another one of my teachers, jamie Brown, he's come down every year and playing in Kaiser House and you know, and this is we're talking really years ago he brought a guitar and I bought it from him. I think it was 5,000, 6,000. It was just big money.
Speaker 1:Back in the day, my mother went and take a loan and I put part, she put part and you know, and she said, tola, your father's sin, whoa. And after some months and thing and thing a day, one day he passed, my father passed, and you walked past him. Were you gonna? You know something? I would. I just don't answer.
Speaker 1:I've lived to see the day that he said my son is a guitarist. You know my son is a musician. I've lived to see the day that he said my son is a guitarist. You know my son is a musician. I'm like, yeah, because normally musicians it's not a job that you want for your children. Even back then, yeah, yeah, you want to be a doctor, lawyer, police a job, a real job, yeah, but musician, musician was not. I want to be a musician. My father said you want to stop? Yeah, yeah, you know things have changed. Well, let me say that I made it work for me. Right, to make a living out of music wasn't easy, mm-hmm, it wasn't easy. It wasn't like. I see a plan in this and I'm going to do that. I cut in the part. I don't know where, but somewhere it's going to go. I'm a musician.
Speaker 1:I left the bank for salary. Leave the bank. Daddy must be worried. No, but at that time, at that time, I was making more money home than in the bank. Daddy must be worried. No, no, but at that time, at that time, I was making more money home than in the bank. I ain't going to leave. Yeah, just so you know. But everybody said you're mad man, but you leave the bank.
Speaker 1:The bank used to be paying, you know, I think it was $7,000 a month, which was big. Yes, good money, by the way, good money. No, but in recording and stuff you could make five thousand dollars a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you're, if you're really mercenary, you could make, you know. So it really. Yeah, it wasn't a hard decision, gotcha, but I was own way and miserable.
Speaker 1:So, like I would go to work and have ideas. I always have ideas, always have ideas, and I'm watching the line. I was the customer service representative and I'm watching the line. You know montan and penal right and everybody who had to give thumbprint and them kind of thing, and I'm watching the line. I see why don't we do the one line and have the person as they do now. They go to wherever cashier you want to go to, but you have one line. So I was the CSR, so I, that's my call.
Speaker 1:So I changed the thing and I fixed it up early in the morning and when the accountant, the boss, come in like who changed this? Who did this? I said I do it. I said we could try it today and see, no, no, you can't do that, jaisal. You're like no, put it back. I'm like really, yeah, me, mm-hmm, Jaisal, jaisal, all that's all. And I go upstairs I hear my resign. You're taking this thing serious? No, no, I, I.
Speaker 1:I hold reverence to my ideas. If these things don't come now, everybody's have them. So when you have a, let's try this and let's see if it could work, let's do this. Give me a little something now, mm-hmm, don't just. No, we can't do that. We're no reasoning, of course. No, not today, let's do tomorrow. Nothing like that. Yeah, zero, no, mm-hmm, like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I do entrepreneurship classes, right, and they talk about that entrepreneurship, but that is when a man goes on his own. But they have a thing called entrepreneurship where you stay in the business, yeah, but you use that innovation and ideas to help the business. The business always wants it. No, I find it's something that people feel threatened. Sometimes you have to be because you're changing the whole status quo. You know people just want ideas, but they don't want to change. So how you could want ideas and not want to change? Yeah, and I was sure that's problem. You know they want people with innovative out of the box, right, but you're putting them in the box to stay in the box. Don't come. No, no to the box. Stay in that box. This is how it has been working, this is how it's gonna go, but it's not working. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do accept that. No, it's not working. You realize it's not working.
Speaker 1:We like the expression of ideas, we like to talk about ideas. I don't know if we really like to see ideas become things. You know, sometimes it's just, and the thing is nobody trying to show you up, nobody trying to. You're just trying to get something better. It's to make this thing better and, oh, my brother, it's a war. Well, you're in the heart of it. You're in the heart of the war. So, as you bring up the idea of monetizing and making money out of the, out of the culture or the music we are going and start being a studio. That's where you first start making money. Right, how you get into a studio to record, you just hang around and name us out From playing in Walter's School of Music. From playing in Walter's School of Music again, I was miserable.
Speaker 1:We were a little band in San Fernando, used to play on the promenade regular, play a cover band, play pop song, play, you know, and we found that we was good, we feel we was good. Right, we was a nice little band, really a nice good sounding band. This be before big PA system and all that kind of thing. It's amps and right, nice little band. Yeah, somebody, somebody hear us and say, hey, I want to hire Olya to do a party in Mondiablo. Right, what, we get a party, go ahead, we get a party boy. The party just happened to be on, I think it's Olya's night in Mondiablo Right.
Speaker 1:And New Year's Day, walter School of Music had a running show that they shoot for TTT, showing the students playing here comes Santa and jingle bells and whatnot. Right, the guitar violin. So they shoot that show in Hilton Right Every New Year's Day and here we have now a party all night. I said, no problem, that's cool. We from the party we go to Hilton and to me, I always want to be a musician who touring, and you're going from gig to gig, so you're living for that I say, nice, good, right, mistress Walters, come down and say you all know we have that shoot.
Speaker 1:And da, da, da, da, da. And I'm like, yeah and no, we can't do it. I say what do you mean? You can't do it? We leave from there and we go here. We hire a taxi, maxi, whatever, and we go here. Musicians do that all the time and I'm trying to. You know, this is now we get in. That yeah, she said no, no, you can't do it. I say I joined this band. Now I can't be disrespected, of course. I joined this band to be a musician. Here I am getting the opportunity to be a musician and you are telling me, no, no, we cannot do it. I said, well, thank you, this is, this is here for me. I done and I size up and I'd say, well, I done, I done.
Speaker 1:I forget that the amp I play in is not one of them, little Fender Twin, it's one of the tall six back in the day. So, hear me, I done, I done. Let me, curtis, help me carry this amp up. You can't stop. This is the bank again, pick up my amp on this. You know, like, sometime I, you know, like sometimes I say, curtis, we can't. Yeah, curtis, remember that. But I, I left.
Speaker 1:I left the band then and immediately I got a. Well, while I was with the band we did a Rolls Royce gig and the guys some majors heard me oh, this is sorry, get into the studio, keep me on track. So they heard me and they come and say you know you sound good, you know you want to come and play with us. I said, okay, play with Olefa, with this band. That's me, I'm with this band, unless something happened. Alright, and then something happened, yeah, so I ended up in majors, and in majors they were the ultimate. I ended up in majors, and in majors they were the ultimate cover band. They were the Michael Jackson. Oh gotcha, they had a fro. I didn't have no fro, I had a frightened fro. So so we played and thing I played, for I was in majors for three years.
Speaker 1:I met Leston Paul. Leston used to gig, leston used to gig with majors. Thank you, man. Yeah, every so often, whenever a big show, they pull in Leston Right, and I bounce up Leston, and you say you, you, you, you about playing in the studio. I'm like, no, that's where I want to go. He said, all right, meet me, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, mm-hmm, I'm like huh, so at this time he's a ranger, he known and all that Listen man Less than was I. We got his break at 19. Mm-hmm, doing Duke, yeah, hops of gold. He gonna be so young then. Yeah. So this is in the studio and I could play, but I didn't necessarily read and play Right, and Fortuner is at the point me through every Bar by bar, bar by bar, and repeat yeah, yeah. And I met him in a funeral. I met him in O funeral. I met him in Old Rodney, fortuna, reese. I met him in Old Rodney's funeral.
Speaker 1:I said you remember, you remember helping me that first gig? No, I said you don't know that you changed my life, you don't know that you changed the sound of Soka music forever too. I won't go so far, but I mean I cannot fail, of course. I've seen I won't go so far. I won't go so far, but I mean I kind of feel. Of course. I've seen situations in the studio where men could not and fail. They say, all right, brother, check me the next time. You know that kind of way. I've been in situations where I failed already too, and the embarrassment is so, so big. You go home and you're any money to go back there? Yeah, so I no, no, no, it's not about fun or work, right, you know what I'm saying. So that was and that's how I got into the studio. Yeah, but mind you from being in the studio now and playing in the studio it was KH at the time. It was KH and went to Choral.
Speaker 1:Where were the? Where were the studio, the? Where are those studios? I've been in Sealerts, I've been in the one up in the mountains, shark. When they come outside they see monkeys and what not. So those are the major studios Sealerts, shark, that one down is it Ryson Road? I think I played there once or twice, can't remember his name, but Stalin used to record there. So I've done so.
Speaker 1:I've been in the studio and from being in that studio and watching technology, I say I'm going to open my own studio now. And Leston and Eric Michaud roll on the ground laughing at me when you say that they say you effing mother, you go out of my studio and I turn it, because you know the machine was a big two inch machine with 24 tracks. That is the standard Tape Tape rolling Big. But here I am, going out of my studio with a quarter inch tape. I see Eight tracks, eight tracks alone, right, so the maths was what it is Eight tracks, eight tracks alone, right.
Speaker 1:So the maths was, you think seven tracks, and on the eighth track you put a sync code and on that sync code now you could push to a live sequencer, right, so the sequencer now plays the drums, the keyboards, whatever could sequence. Right, so whatever can sequence your recording tape Voice, guitar, bass, background vocals. So before you, even before you even start to record, before you even start to hear the music, you have to now calculate, yeah, what would go on the 8 tracks, or 7? Yeah, 7. Oh, right. So you have to now figure out, okay, right, so you had to now figure out. Okay, if I do, if I do, um, six tracks of background vocals and I bounce it down to two, your maths had to be, it had to be real and it wasn't easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for people who. You're talking physical, now cut on, yeah, yeah. So I was just telling my son this the other day you're watching, and he wasn't understanding the cut copy paste, right, and I said I bring him back to a video of a fellow who was doing movies and I said when them men say cut copy paste, they mean cut physically. And when they say on the cutting room floor is a real thing, you know what I mean. Back in them days cutting. Was you cut the tape at the angle triangle, see, so that the next triangle will seamlessly. So you're hearing the sound of this one into the sound of this one, so you don't miss. So you'll cut it and you'll take that tape and hang it up so you'll have. Look the verse here, right, jesus, the chorus. Okay, and we will. You know how you used to do that on cassette and all. Yeah, do that little tip.
Speaker 1:I remember giving. I remember giving one of my editing blocks to a youngster. Check this story. This lady bring her son by me and say my son like this thing boy. That's getting emotional when I talk this story. She like this thing boy. So see what you could do now. See, that's bringing him a problem. This little rasta boy come. I say, all right, you like this thing, all right, just watch and ask questions. I was doing the Lamo or something at the time because he remembered the song I didn't remember and I gave him an editing block to fool around and we talking and we laughing and yeah, nice, and this little boy left and went abroad to school.
Speaker 1:Fast forward 15 years. I am in St Lucia doing St Lucia jazz. I did St Lucia jazz as a band for like about four years straight. I used to back up people and stuff and stuff and stuff. And I got a call while I'm on stage song checking. Can I Say, hey, who's this? Deki boy? I said Deki, all right, what's happening? I'm on the stage here on the Grammy stage, collecting a Grammy, and I said to call you and tell you thanks, like sure, yeah, who's this? Okay, cool, nice. Can I grab me and I start to call you and tell you thanks, like sure, yeah, who's this? Well, okay, cool, eh, nice. I didn't believe him, I didn't. I didn't even know who it was, I didn't remember.
Speaker 1:Boom, a few months after, this man comes by me with the Grammy. He say look, it was you. I say, boss, take that and carry it to your mother's house. What's wrong with you? Your mother see that every day, of course. Yeah, she ought to be proud of that. Do you know that that boy became the number one engineer in the world? He was engineering. He got his break doing the Boy's Mind from Monica and Brandy. He engineered Destiny's Child, beyonce, michael Jackson, you name it. Yeah, his name is Dexter Simmons. You name it. Yeah, his name is dexter simmons.
Speaker 1:You do not know, when you show somebody something or tell somebody something, you don't know where that is gonna go. So you always give them your best. I have some people around me who does hide and when I say hi, they would not show you this and they will not show you that and they will keep this from me because, whatever I just give it, I just give it. Yeah, because they are not me, I'm not them, their part is not mine. You know if, even if your teeth are, that's one walk, you know I mean. I mean it's much more. I will be me, you will be you. So I will tell you. Sometimes I'm telling people things, I'm telling my boys things, hey, and they don't take me on. They don't take me on at all, and then come back the next day and say you know this thing, but isn't that what I told yesterday? Yeah, but you didn't say so. People just get a message when they're ready to get it. Sometimes their brain not ready, they're not ready for it. So I have.
Speaker 1:I am Dexter has been a I don't know a mentor of my. He's my mentor. I was his mentor back then. Yeah, you showed him the way. Yeah, but some things I remember bringing him down for a course, a course cost. The course costed over $90,000. I was the acting president of Riot Recording Industry Association. I said we have to do this because here we have one of ours who has made it, who engineering the global sound, and we're here fighting up in Trinidad how to make it international. So the name of the course was Engineering the Global Sound, why they sound like that and why we sound like this. And we brought him down. I didn't know where I was getting money from. I asked the government. I said we're doing this and it was in Armour Studio. We brought him for two weeks. It's two weeks probably. Yeah, men flying from St Lucia my son, that was. I saw my big son, that was. I saw my big son Casey. I saw when he nubbed turn. I hear the switch go clicks and Casey started to see and hear differently. You understand, he became a techie. I mean, he was always in it. But this man turned a switch and Casey became this guru.
Speaker 1:What age you to be done? You know what I mean 12 to 15, somewhere there, right, I mean started to discuss frequencies and discuss things and discuss things. That age, whoa Different, whoa, what's happening here? But this guy, the first thing we always discuss, you know that kick drum, why them kick drum, the song, so on, why we just say and this man show us something with the kick drum, he say I don't use compression, it's just straight kick drum. And everybody's like what. And when he finished explaining the thing, my partner from Solution said Gaston, I'm going home. I said, I said I'm going home. This is the first thing he explained to me. I'm done, I'm going home. Make him question everything you know already. No, no, the techniques we just didn't know.
Speaker 1:Back in them days there was no internet to Google. No, no, no. So even when you say you're going around looking for bands, only people understand you. You got to just ask around, show up somewhere. Yeah, you got to have a band by yourself. There's no Google, there's no maps, you just go in. Yeah, you just figure it out as you go along.
Speaker 1:Listen, I was so enthused by technology. I used to be on bulletin boards. You know some computer bulletin boards. The screen was blue and it was just text, right, and you used to hear the dial-up. You know that. You know that sound right. And when at the end of the month you get a bill for $20,000. Them days you're paying for internet. By the hour I paid to learn.
Speaker 1:All of us, everybody, people must remember that Back in the days they didn't have magazines, magazines used to be all internet. So I used to have guitar player, mix, magazine, subscribe and once a month kind of thing whenever they come, because the stores didn't used to bring it like regularly, like they would bring Cosmopolitan and Redbook, yeah, any kind of whatever thing, like music or tech. So you always look in, you always. You know what I mean. That's how it was, yeah, but that you have a defiant spirit. Kenny the bank manager tell you, put back the thing here. And what the thing.
Speaker 1:Imagine Leston Paul telling you to laugh. That's something that could break our next mind If somebody like that say you can't do a studio. Yeah, some I don't know, most people might say it's true, okay, okay. So where's that in you to decide that men laughing, and you know what you're going to do? But if I'm feeling it in my spirit, if I've seen it, I'm feeling it, this could be done, this could be done, I could do this, who are you to tell me I can't do it and you'll never do it? You never try it, you never do. Walk them steps. How you could tell me it can't be done. How you know, well, them steps. How you could tell me it can't be done. How you know, well, you did it and you fall down and it and I, I have lived to see less than have a home studio, mm-hmm. When he, after he laughed at me yeah, that's like I, I went, I told them I'm going to do a radio station playing local music.
Speaker 1:Again, the chairman, or the president, chairman, of the TTPBA, trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters, said to me, quote, unquote you feel people want to hear that music? 24, 7, 365? You have to be a wacko. I said WACO, okay. You just waited for somebody to tell you that Okay, waco, w-a-c-o. We are culture crazy. So every day, every single day. I stick it to that man. Yeah, let him know he's a WACO, waco, living People just call him hey, know he's a Waco, waco, living people just call hey, I'm a Waco.
Speaker 1:And it has now. It's a cult, it's a movement, it's a following, it's a our music thing. You were here for years. You know what I mean. Yeah, you might say who want to hear that music like? Yeah, I think the problem is he was kind of Caucasian to us so that would have been worse. Yeah, that was worse. It hit your spirit. Yeah, that was one of we.
Speaker 1:I said, yeah, my diagnosis, that music about the front ring, the music I do in my, my whole life. You are telling me that nobody want to hear this mm-hmm. Okay, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me, okay, evidently Okay, all right. And you're proving it to them. So, going into the spaces like Leicester, because you're talking about an era where local music was not dominating the airwaves, if it was played a lot at all You're only making music that's not being played in mainstream radio. Yeah, that's all. You're only making music that's not being played in mainstream radio, yeah, so I remember when it clicked to me that I had to have a radio station.
Speaker 1:I was sitting down in a small studio and Kes Kes, kes's mother, was singing a contemporary song. Kes and I used to live like some streets away if I'm honest, born in a different town, in different towns right, contemporary song, kes and them used to live like some streets away. The problem is, bunny, different talent and different talents, right. And she came to sing and she was singing. She used to sing like my mother. My mother used to do them To dream, the impossible dream and them kind of thing, contemporary songs, and the lady singing.
Speaker 1:I said like wait, sir, where are we playing this? Who playing this music? The lady's singing, good, but where they would not accept it. Is it outlet? I understand, where can I play this? If it was a kai. So then I would say, would you guess and play Carnival? Right, if it was a sookai we could jump up.
Speaker 1:But a contemporary and I, I was doing it all the time everybody used to be recording and I'm like where are we playing this music? We gotta find our place, yeah, we gotta make our place, yeah. So that's what you see planted for you from that and I organized and did a license and dropped it in the the minister at the time is it public administration? A license and drop it in the minister at the time, is it public administration? One of them because they didn't have a like how they have a communications or anything, it had to be public utilities or something like that was Ralph Maraj, okay, and he was my teacher from Naparimo, oh, okay, okay, okay. So I feel well, yeah, he's a man of the culture too, he's a cultural man too. I went home by him. Nice man of the culture too, he's a cultural man too. Went home by him and drop it and I give him it. I say, right, we inside One year pass, two year pass, five year pass.
Speaker 1:And I say you know, I have an application inside. You know, I think, think, think. And I was, you know, I was on all kind of committees and boards and whatnot. I was doing the wrongs and I realized doing the wrongs trying to do things intranet and I was the vice president of the court. So I know the airplay situation. I know a dire a bad.
Speaker 1:We are under 4% local airplay, intranet Across radio stations, across all, and it was at a dire a bad. We are under 4% local airplane, train add and all across radio stations Across all, and it was at that time. No, it's 40. At that time it wasn't 40. It would have been about it might have been 12 or somewhere around there. 40 was our jump Right, right, it went from 12 to 40. Mm-hmm, or 39, from 12 to 40 or 39, actually, right, okay, and I see, but this thing, yeah, and then it was 4%.
Speaker 1:Even taking Carnival into consideration, it still is 4%. Yeah, right now it still is 4% of all the music played. It is well, I guess. Yeah, I guess it is because dance and hip hop and all them things we listen, everything I mean, these days are different, you know, playing the music a little more, but it still is. For I suppose it's true because I think in urban stations, but when you think of all the other stations, all kind of thing, everything, everything we play in everything we belong to everybody else but ourselves, you know. So Back to the story. Yes, boss, that lady was my friend.
Speaker 1:From being in all those meetings and stuff, I met a lady who was working Kent House up Maraval the roundabout, in a little nook there there was a government ministry there. I know the place. She calls me and says Mr Phillips, are you still interested in your radio station? I say, yeah, I'm waiting on a call. And this is are you still interested in your radio station? I said, yeah, I'm waiting on a call. And there he is, I'm waiting on a call. Well, I just wanted you to know. I'm looking at a lot of stuff in a dump here. They're dumping a lot of stuff and your application is in it. Are you still interested? I said it's because she knows me. I said yeah, nobody ever called me and said, well, nothing, they were dumping it. She picked it up and put it back in. That is how we get it. Then I called her sometime recently, after our radio being in existence for 15 years. I called her to tell her thanks, you know, it's because of you, because that in the dump would have been gone. That would be the end of that, the end.
Speaker 1:And then Joan New Williams, because when we marched the road for local content and we wanted them to legislate 50%, okay, okay, that happened. They wasn't doing that. Yeah, she was Minister of Culture at the time. She said you know we can't do the legislation, but what I'll do, I'll give three of y'all licenses. Oh, I see, and she gave me, which was a cradle, iowa, oh, 91.
Speaker 1:At the time it was 91.9, sukaba-schmidt and Solomon, and he was 91.9. Yeah, well, .1 or .9,. Yeah, right, he was 91.1, which was before he was 91.1. Mm-hmm, and we got community licenses, meaning I was .16 kilometers from point, so he wasn't supposed to reach Sandow. I was Sandow. Nothing was supposed to reach Coover and he was. The next one was um, right here, um, kirip, right, kirip. So they used to do community license separate from a national license. That was the first set of community license ever drafted. But I was just happy to get a license, right. I was just happy like, eh, we're inside, and then our people would be here Well, we're not here and our people would be here getting their Warning licenses. Every time you look at the other people who had licenses, it wasn't us, right, yeah, it wasn't us. It would be French, creole, chinese, of course, all the Indian stations in India, right, but
Speaker 1:none of us. And what year this is About? And what year this is about what time? Well, my radio station is 20 years old, okay, okay, so 20 years ago. So we start, iwa start first, but Iwa always first, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And he start and he say Kenny, I can't do this point 14 thing. Now I go in Iwa, put up receiver and shy snitter all the way to tongue. You go into that community tall, I'm like Iowa, what are you doing? They are walking from me, I. So Iowa was big and bad and great, yeah, yeah, yeah me. I start probably the following year in my little space, in my
Speaker 1:little 16 kilometers. I started my antenna on San Fernando Hill, right, whenever anything break down, I had to run up San Fernando Hill and fix it Yourself. Oh boy, was that true? And you're not even supposed to be hearing in town. Right, and Solomon started and he was doing alternative rock, anything alternative. So he wasn't local, local rock, alternative. Everything was local. I was local at the time, soka, but I was 91.9, 91.9, 91.9. Solomon was 92.1. Remember, he's the community here, I was 91.9 and he's all here. So the two of them are up
Speaker 1:in a rango. I called two of them to a meeting by me, solomon and Iwa, two of them fighting one another. I said, hey, look at this, look at us. Why are we fighting one another? And we have a whole, we have a battle to fight out there. We can't be fighting here. Let us. We need to band together until we can survive. Man said we need to band together and
Speaker 1:till we can. He survived and say that man feel it too big and da, da, da. And I'm like yo, yo, stop fighting, let me go fight the battle out there now Mm-hmm Court and all kind of thing, and one thing into the next, one is gone and one remains. Yeah, okay, gotcha, you understand, and they won't go into all that detail. Yeah, but you're fighting the wrong battles. These men and them fight in the wrong battles. You don't need to fight one another or they cannot reason that out. Yeah, reason that behind the scenes and go again. Yeah, but it is
Speaker 1:what it is. So that was the advent of the community and we have since gone national. Okay, we're full national. You officially changed your license, right, but it didn't make sense because we went immediately. We went online. So 20 years now we're
Speaker 1:online, we're online. When TSTT didn't even have the bandwidth for we to go online, they didn't have nothing. Bandwidth for me to go online, they didn't have nothing. There was 512k. Yeah, remember that You're streaming and it's like You're sounding, like you're underwater. We've been
Speaker 1:through some days. I remember a man called us in the earlys from Iraq. I said but this is making no sense, why are you blocking me at 16km? And a man called me from Iraq. I said but this is making no sense, why are you blocking me at 16 kilometers? And a man coming from Iraq? It makes no sense. So the thing changed.
Speaker 1:It changed we. Actually I said this the other day we could be WAC and I, to some degree, could be the reason or the end or the demise of pirate radio in New York. So, yeah, they're listening to you more than anybody else Because pirate radio they used to have a geographical span. You hit a corner here, gone. Hit a corner there, come back, and you know the FCC was looking for them, shut down. You know, I wonder how the FCC feeling now that men can go online on the computer? Yeah, that would have done. Yeah, they look for other ways fighting only men and things. But maybe the bandwidth, yeah, but now anybody open up a laptop, I can open up a laptop
Speaker 1:now and broadcast. Same thing you say about the studio, because now everybody, every artist, have a studio. Their home studio is a man recording in their car. Yeah, it's pretty much anywhere. I did a TV show one time. I don't even know that, but called building the beats because everybody me with my ideas, everybody have a laptop as a producer, right, of course. And you go to the producer and they me with my ideas. Everybody have a laptop as a producer, right of course. And you go to the producer and say, have a song. He say no, no, you have to sing to this beat. I said, but that's not a producer, that's
Speaker 1:a beat builder. So I said, alright, let's do a competition of beat builders, okay, and how to teach these beat builders to be a producer? So every week there's a challenge, like the very first challenge was we give them. We give them a sample. We give them a sample of chokas, chuba, dubai, a sample of sparrow, ude, ude, ude, then his plumber, what is this? We give them samples of everybody and then build a beat, chop it up, slice it, do whatever, but build a beat incorporating this sample Right and halfway through the beat we say, oh, by the way, halfway through the beat, while they're building, we bring in now the younger samples, integrate this younger sample into your beat, and everybody get like bungee going. Now they're going. What was I saying? You know the younger people. So that was challenge number one and the winner of
Speaker 1:challenge number one. The winner of challenge number one in that episode was Mikkel Teja. Serious, look at him now. He was 14 or 15 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was talking to, I think it's Mohamed from Free Tongue. Yeah, and I was telling him Mikael Teja, them fellas and them was here before. When I listened to his interpretation also his interpretation of classics plenty of people try to interfere I said in the episode he was actually with the guitar, trying to record any guitar on the laptop. He didn't have a mic. I see, I had to see that there was. There was a challenge. There was a challenge in one of those, because my idea is to teach these youngsters is you have to interpret the person's music, not put the rhythm and say
Speaker 1:sing to that. A producer is a producer, not a beat builder. Right, that was my whole thing. Right, and I carried them in Bagua and Sings. I say make music from only what's on the shelves of Bagwan Sings, no guitar, no bass, no, nothing, only what's on the shelves. That was the best episode. Yeah, because listen to that. The man takes some tiles and smashes it and recording that and running through the hardware. It was good, fun If you hear the music they produce. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it was unconventional, of course. Of course you had to check it. I would say because, now that I bring that up, the building of beats and the rhythm thing, like I keep asking artists about that and maybe we could hear your perspective on it. Because when you build a and you ask an artist, the vocalist must have the least flexibility out of all the instruments, right? So you're asking an artist to come in and write on the bit, write on it, record and so on. I wonder if sometimes it constricts the creativity of the artist
Speaker 1:or the other. The counter argument is that, okay, it makes it a little easier for some people to get through. It's easy to just, you know, you have boong boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong, boong boong is the melody or the music or whatever you know. Okay, so I have no problem with it. It's just it's overdone sometimes, right, sometimes I have too much people on one rhythm. You know it's
Speaker 1:not special anymore. That special part is the one that my father and I we always back and forth with this, because Byron has a signature style and sound and even look and all that right, and all the artists, kitchener, all the men you work with, superfluous Marshall, and now you see it with Teja and them. I'll admit that they're different. But I wonder if we went through an era where everybody kind of just gets the same, yeah, just so similar. Yeah, one is because they don't have most of their own songs. When you're on a rhythm, you're not special. Your song might be good, the next song not that good, da da, da, da, um. And if you, you realize that everything making it double back and it's coming back to Kaizo. Yes, you know, this year, the big rhythm with um, big rhythm With Marshall Betme, yeah, old Kaizo, old Kaizo Rhythm, and I love that. It's making the circle. Just now I'll become Relevant again. Yeah, I just want
Speaker 1:to Relevant again. I have another question On that. Builders understand Producers. What is the arranger? Because long time you used to hear A lot of people say Somebody's arranger, and now we hear producer more. What's the difference? All right, the arranger actually scores or directs the arrangement of the song. It would be the horns, the guitar. You know this is the key. This is the chord structure. You'll put this progression here. You know you write all the music. Only this is when they used to write music. You write all the music and you know people will come in and read and that's the arranger. That's what I know
Speaker 1:arranger to be. The producer is a man who used to be the executive producer spends the money. The producer is a man who says play it in this style, I want it in this style, I want it in gospel, I want it in chutney, I want it to. You know, he shapes the music. The arranger scores it. He can just arrange it and hand it to the producer and go, and you know that You're singing that in a bad way. You have to sing it like this. I like that. He now shapes the whole thing. Gotcha Right and what again? He asks Beat. The whole thing. Gotcha right and what again? He asks beat. He will understand. The beat builder, right, yeah, but I understand
Speaker 1:no way more. I used to be a beat builder back in my days. I used to. Well, I was a drum machine man, right. So I used to do drum machine for a guy called Kenny Wallace on a ranger and we did all spring garden and fire and inez and and red plastic bag and yeah, whenever they come in, I used to be the man on the on the on the rhythm machine, serious, yeah, and all the toms and then I'll play. Yeah, I was a beat builder, you know, yeah, yeah, you walk
Speaker 1:all the road. So at that point in time, going back to your studio experience, let's say I. So at that point in time, going back to your studio experience, let's say they've been telling you what to play, or by that time you're playing what you feel. No, at the beginning they had to tell me what to play Right, and it was like I have no idea. I mean, I have my style Right, but you play like this, play like that. But eventually you get comfortable and you become you're confident Ah, this song is like this. It's only if it's totally against what happened, you say na na na, na na na Do so, so, so, so, so. But when you develop yourself you can just play yeah, yeah, yeah. So other little people who you work with. But it might be easier to ask you who you ain't work with, because when I see Kitchener come, that gave me the things shocked. I was like, oh yeah, this
Speaker 1:could have been. You had to be real young playing them things in studio. I was in the early twenties and from then you're playing studio but they go into tents and play with a different band and that kind of thing. I didn't do the tent thing, so a man had to try to replicate what you do bassline's, so signature. You can't drift from it if you're going to play. You play so much riffs that you can't play feeling it if you don't hear that. You know that I. You know I
Speaker 1:used to be. I used to be in the band in Chandelier and feeling it come out, and I was the lead guitarist in Chandelier, not the rhythm guitar, gotcha. So the rhythm guitar had to figure that out. Yes, the rhythm guitar was robbing the man, sir. Oh yeah, it's true, I used to be in the back grinding Jingle, jingle, jingle. It's king time. Nobody know I play that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone go think it's robbing. Listen whenever that thing play the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want to think it's rubbish, listen whenever that thing play. The crowd go. And I look at this man boy, this man tip him on my shine. Boy, that was. That was good, yeah, yeah, yeah, you, you, you put me in that I'm going to learn your
Speaker 1:style after today. Whenever a song play, I'll be like, okay, yeah, boy, yes, good, try, good try. Even this guy did the beginning of High Mass, tony Voz. Right, yeah, tony Voz. And up to now people, some people can't play that. They can play something like it, but it's not that. Yeah, and up to now people, some people can't play that. They can play something like it, but it's not that. Yeah, but there's a particular way how to play that riff, for it to be true, of course you know, of course, yeah, you come from Walter's School of Music. All those riffs should be taught to people in school. You gotta come good, yeah, that's the song. You know
Speaker 1:what I mean. Like I saw a performance Marshall was doing somewhere in New York I'm not sure if it's the Madison Square Garden show, one of them shows. He was listening to that band. It wasn't his band, so I'm not sure what the show was, but the band was playing, too Young to Suck it and he was trying to get them to play and the band can't find it, boy, and I always remember him saying Ole's a band. This is iconic music from iconic artists, and Ole don't know these phrases. You know what I mean. I wonder how much people know it now. Because the thing, even in the producing and arranging argument, I could see now, when you describe it, why they just use the word loosely producer for whoever, because everything happened on a computer, whereas Ole was't got nobody to produce. I remember Leston. Leston did I'm Too Young To Soak, I play guitar on that and those days the rest are score, the score is there, but the vibe, the feel, play it like that or play
Speaker 1:it like this. Give me this kind of strum do this, do this, while let's do this, do this. I'll give my riff in between here. And you know, shape the music, shape it. You know you're molding it like clay so that at the end you have a hey, you have a nice sculpture here, but now press a button. Yeah, cut face. I saw a guy saying that. You know, nowadays music it have no life because you do a verse and you stick that verse in the trumpet. Repeat, repeat, repeat, same thing. I stand my bass man. I say yeah, but play whatever you feel, give me the riff, give me the riff of what I want, but after that, play, play, enjoy it. I will cut it and move it the way I want, so it mustn't sound like as though it's just
Speaker 1:dun, dun, dun. The man who's scoring the music can say Kenny boy can't score that bass line at all, but it's all over the place. I see you here. Just take the first verse and that's the basic pattern. But just for the sound you hear the first verse already you want to make was here. Yes, I'm there. Oh, that nice, that's the things you
Speaker 1:hold on to. Yeah, like colin was talking, colin lucas was saying the stories in music gone missing. Yeah, and I feel like the stories in the music itself, not just the lyrics. Yeah, because so too young to soak up. For instance, right, um, you turn out to be iconic song in the moment. I know how much you know because he had to be very new when he come into the studio to record that. He's not Marshall Montana that we're seeing today. Right, he's a little boy coming to record a song. No, he was a little precocious little boy. Oh, yeah, people, you know he's special then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, serious. Yeah, he was special, mm-hmm, he and I didn't even
Speaker 1:get that story. No, we hear he called me the other day when he did the. When he did the not the Madison, not the Apollo, he did his birthday or something, right, right, and he went through all his music. So he calls me after that. It's not in Barclays, no Kennedy Center, okay, big something. He said hey, boy. And we used to call one another Macarine, right, right. He used to say I's the Macarine boy, i's the Macarine. So he said Macarine, when we play that, your song, boy, people scream, you know. I said what's that boy? He said by all means, boy. When we play that, the people go, ah. He said I didn't know, it had so much juice in that song and we laugh, we talk them
Speaker 1:kind of shit. But that song I was my shirt used to work with Leston Pelham, the big boys. Even Frankie McIntosh really did used to work with them. When he came out it was Leston right, and then you know him and after Too Young to Soak, rayleigh and Julie had decent songs, but no mega hit. Yeah, it took some time. So he was always saying that the Asta records pack up. You know they just had to print records,
Speaker 1:yeah, I guess. So when he was he went and studied studio engineering and stuff in Ohio. And he said, when he finished the course, he said I got a placement in a studio in Club Med which is Bahamas, right, that's a fantastic place. So like, okay, I go in and I retire. And I say what's the trouble is you talking about? He's 19 years old. I can't retire at 19. You see, but Kenny the um, the money spending and nothing happened. You know what I mean, because all them days he was fighting for airplay. He didn't have airplay like how he'd have it for some people. Now he said I've got a hit, my tipi have a hit, you know. I said, but you went with everybody. You never gave me a chance. I do your Christmas song, soca Santa, I do Soca Santa, I do
Speaker 1:the ecstatic medleys. By that time, soca Santa, you producing a song, you're doing it as a producer or just playing Producer, producer, okay. So I said, well, let me produce a song for you. And he told me plain me already, like your style, you know. I said, well, no problem, you know, when you challenge me like that, you know he can't tell you no, that's a problem. No, no, I mean I registered, I like my style, okay. So you and me talking about shit, mine, you know, we in the kicks. So I said all right, and we started looking for songs and somebody found this song. People used to bring cassettes with songs to the place and we got a song called
Speaker 1:Base it Down. That was the side A, actually Basie Dong, and the flip side was by all means, it is time to party and we going down and by all means, pa pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa pa, you know post racing, pa pa, pa, pa pa. And then remember they bring all the puppets. Listen, go on, go on, go on. I did Marshall for three years straight. By all means, left, right back, push, take a Barope back tomorrow. Right at that time, there I introduced them to my son. That was it. That was it right. That was it.
Speaker 1:That was it. I think he did Big Truck the year after that. So I did those three years, but then my little son was in the free. How old were you? You would be in Big Truckers, 97, I believe. My little son started producing at 10. Um, my big, my big son, I say he started producing at 10, tc, and the first production was at Iowa. Iowa, george, I
Speaker 1:run the party. I run the party, I run the party. I, I run the party, I run the party, I run the party. I say I say Iwa Casey going to handle this session and everything right, kenny, that little boy, boy, you sure you can handle it. I say yeah, yeah, throw him in. And I throw him in. But I didn't throw him in. He was yeah, yeah, yeah, see, he done bad
Speaker 1:already, take over. You know, when he was in Pampas, when we did Jump and Wave, preacher, yeah, he was chucking and chucking and chucking Right, and you know, preacher was my son pulled out a plug To make that stop. Jesus Christ, nah, nah, serious, listen to me, you know my posture, listen to me, you know my posture, listen to me. Jesus Christ, men, tell me one, that jumping wave is too fast. You can't play that speed, that's too fast. I said no, that will never play. No, no, no, no, two. You see that stop, it will never play past that stop, that stop too long. No, no, two. You see that stuff, it will never play past that stuff, that stuff too long. I said what? Just leave me, let me do my thing, please. The rest is history. The
Speaker 1:rest is history. I have pictures of my little son in Pampas. In the studio. I have a picture of my son, my big son. Well, the little one is the same thing, now Worse, I can't get him in the studio right now. Oh, he's here, he's here, yeah, okay, okay, okay, I tell you, okay, say about eight roadmaps. Right, kyle had two Mm-hmm Kyle, yeah, come on, kyle have two road matches. So you're saying that's all. He dominates as a family. I know all of that from
Speaker 1:the early 80s. I heard that talk. I want to be the one to say it. If you're going to say it. I heard that I don't know of what you're saying because we have to give people context. When you say you're giving um, you're letting Casey handle Iowa and Iowa respond. That way is because, long time, bum bum time First song I ever do was
Speaker 1:bum bum time. Oh, as a producer, first song I ever produced in my studio. Listener, I had nothing. I had a 12 channel board. I had a sequencer. I had a Commodore 64. That was the sequencer, commodore 64. Mm-hmm, that was the sequencer, right,
Speaker 1:commodore 64. Mm-hmm. Right had the tape and he had the stripe, the track eight, yeah, and you know, do the maths, mm-hmm and I, when I done do this song, I call Frank Agarath, right, you know Frank Agarath, yeah, I lost, I don't know what I'm doing. We called him for help. What? Frank is the kind of guy who would come, frank, just leave recording on a 72-channel SSL board, right With two-inch tape, in a big plantation in Barbados. You understand Eddie Grant, right, and Frank would come and sit on my little 12 channel board. I like no difference. No difference in the attitude. The attitude is like, okay, let's go, 12 channel, stupid board. And Frank is like, okay, real, professional. And he mixed that first song for me. We had nothing. The brass was an sonic synthesizer
Speaker 1:and Iwa came. The song was Amita Indian in South, running up she mouth. She said, you know, like man, why me and she long, long for the caravan in Italy Festival. That was the song, that was it. Oh, that's all I heard. That's all I heard. I said I want no man, you need more, you need more, you need more. If the boom, boom, big, boom, boom small, we afraid of matter, boom, boom, big, boom, boom, small, I put in my sandal. Why did I that? Make the song Listen. That's why I thought a producer would do, I'd bring hooks, bring things. That's why I knew, and that's what I was doing. I ran into real trouble with that. Yeah, real, real trouble. Some men say you interfere in my song. Oh, okay, gotcha, but I'm a work, I'm a job. You know my job is to make A song a hit. Find a way To make a song a hit Anyhow. And that was the first song
Speaker 1:by that man. Imagine Carnival Tuesday Newspaper. I was, george, way ahead In the road match race. I said what, yeah, inside what? You gonna talk to me? You can't talk to me. But boom Ash Wednesday, duke and Ellis, sean and on is collecting
Speaker 1:the road match. I'm like what happened? Something went wrong. Yeah, just to again context it's not on Facebook, no, nothing. I had to wait till the next morning for paper. I was like it's thunder, if only it's not. I like I remember this song. When that song in boom boom time play is only dust in Skinner Park. I'm like what happened here? What really happened? That is what I understand in the politics. Sonny, of course, yeah, iowa was. What is that? Iowa, george? Yeah, I guess at that point Iowa, iowa now coming on the scene too with you. Yeah, people don't know it was a song,
Speaker 1:nobody knows him. And we jump up to battle the song. I mean, everybody play the song, but you can't, just, you can't just go and win this. No, no, no, no, no, you might not. So, yeah, I won Kenny, just so, just
Speaker 1:so, just so. Listen, people used to get our records in the radio station and treat it as where this come from, the guy in South. Granted, we wasn't good, it wasn't that good, right, but it was good enough, and we wouldn't know how good we are unless we hate, of course. Oh, okay, we need to do that, we need and always improve. But no, listen, when I got into the business, it didn't have. No, you have to be a Lord, this or or or you know, like Lord Laro or Lord Kitchener or or a mighty or mighty somebody. I say no,
Speaker 1:no, no, no. When I come in there, I was George Ricky, jai, marshall, montano, drooper T. You understand, I put normal names, I, because you have to go New York. You just have to record it and go New York. You used to have to record here and go New York to mix. That was it. That was it, you know, put your tape under your arm and go New York. I said, nah, I can't afford that. I cannot afford that. We gonna make this thing happen right here. And I boom, yeah, change the game. So I was
Speaker 1:at that time. You just, you know, you know him, you're a partner from a wrong hole. He just appeared by my house yeah, so you know you're doing music. And he come, yeah, I tell my man doing music and ting, ting, ting, like how you went by the bands, yeah, I look in, I look in Best of all, that Preacher and Superblue, best of all. Yeah, preacher and Superblue, that era, just to work to that Preacher. That
Speaker 1:was so special. I have to tell you I like a little boy in St James Another thing I used to argue with Daddy. I tell him wrong like hell. Every time I argue with him, just like you, tell me about your sons, but I was telling him before we started. He used to tell he going again and this is 2010 kind of time. And when you grew up in St James, you wrote March is not a nice thing Because you're beaten with a song oh Lord, over and over Every trap. That passed All day. Yeah, and I remember when Super Blue was doing things like back in our time and them
Speaker 1:things. It was. You just heard it here and it's here and it gets to be a jump and wave here you say, but you don't want to hear no jump and wave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when that preacher come, it's the opening, you know, yeah, it's the opening. And it's the same thing I was saying about feeling it and all this fascinating. It's that song, iconic Openings, and I want to do a program on that iconic opening, please, please. It's like Spice them kind, them kind of thing. Yeah, they give me the thing, they give me the thing that just takes you somewhere, them things will be planned. You know, sugar bum, bum too. You know, that's so long. Just stay in a groove there for so long before you say anything. Almost a minute and a half, yeah,
Speaker 1:of just music. I can't believe you played it too. Huh, you played it too. I wasn't. I'm too, I'm too young for that. I was making show. You know what I mean, but I have played. I have played in the kitchen. Yeah, see, I've circled that over the years, but you know, it's one of them too. Like Johnny here, come inside of this party. Yeah, the signature of who we are, that beautiful, happy music that we have, you know, that does something to you. People outside don't understand it, but we, this is our thing, this is us. I always feel if we stay authentic to that, they will start to understand it. I feel sometimes when we stray to it to match something else, well, that was the other
Speaker 1:thing with Shorty. I work with Shorty too. Right, watch out my children, watch out my children. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like how you just say these things in passing. I worked with Shorty too. He had the greatest life. Let me tell you this story. This is a good one. I pick up my whole machine it was a 16-track machine at the time Right, big big machine, big reels. Pick up that machine, put it in my car and carry it up to Buck's Calypso tent, down on the foreshore. Shorty is performing. So we plug up from the mixing board and take all the channels in so I have Shorty's performance,
Speaker 1:a whole performance. It wasn't just a one song, but Watch Out my Children was one of the songs. Then take back the thing, go back in the studio, go back in the studio and then we do over this, we do over that, we do over drum, we do over this, we do over everything and we build Watch Out my Children. Produce that Now. Shorty. Produce that Now, shorties are not that easy man, you know, when he come in, he consumes the place. Presence, yeah, yeah. So you have to deal with that. And hey, boom, mix, watch out my children. And it it even have it, even have, with all the tag and everything, down to the end
Speaker 1:where he was. People, right, so your boy. So he's saying I like to tank, I like to tank. Um, who is the engineer? Tony, is it? Tony? Is his name right, right, right? And I like to tank this one, I'd like to tank that one. And then he say so, remember, I pick up my holes too. I like to thank the man who's responsible for me being here tonight. Without this man, I wouldn't be here. So my boy started my maxi driver, matthew Alvordi what, you're right, he would not be here. Well, you see why I had to come here, so I could get all the credit, all the credit that I missed. No, he eventually said he's going to reach you tonight eventually. It's funny, that was real funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1:that was good. I was asking you when I was talking about Shorty too, with Shorty taking the chances he took. You know, they talk about the founder and creator of Soka, like the youths. Now they talk about Mount Rushmore, who's the foreheads of Soka, whoa, and they talk about him a lot. Let me hear you, mount Rushmore. Now what? No, you want me to tell you about Shorty,
Speaker 1:what he tried. Shorty was believing of this, this integration of the indo and the african right, the albums before the indrani and the sweet soka and whatnot he had. He had done some mad things. He was singing kaiso, kaiso, kaiso, kaiso, and inside the kaiso, what you're thinking, shorty, bring a dulac and a danta inside and a Dantel inside. He I was at Cloak and Dagger, a whole, a whole album of Kaizo with Dantel and Tolak, right, and everybody saw this man mad, this man crazy. And that one hit song, to me, one hit song, came out of it and it was a chutney, which would be K-Loji Bulbul. That, because that meshed. But the rest of them it was crazy. It was crazy like what is he doing? But he was finding something, you know, trying to find his way until he got to the sweet music and he enjoyed it. And he, you understand, because what had got to the sweet music? And he enjoy, and he only, yeah, you understand, because what, what happened, what had happened was
Speaker 1:what had happened. Um, when you took those records, our calypso records, to new york and tried to play it in the clubs, we had no, we had no real. We had a kick, but we had no snare. So we didn't have no. So it'd be that's the kitesail then. So right, so we didn't have no, we didn't have no snare, no pulse. That was kitesail. Yeah, shorty
Speaker 1:wanted a pulse. Now, mind you, shorty was not the only man working on kitesail to bring it to Soka at the time. It had King Wellington, right, it had Frankie McIntosh, it had Eddie Grant, it had Pelham Goddard and Ed Watson. A lot of them were doing the work, trying to find the way Shorty happened to name it. If you name it, you claim it. King Wellington was my real partner.
Speaker 1:He had it. It was called Russo Funk, russo funk, sing, russo funk, but not too hard. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I guess it's catchy enough. You know Edwardson was doing it. And if you listen back to the Sukkot early Sukkot at that time they wasn't sure if the Sukkot was If you're listening to somebody beat you, you hear
Speaker 1:this cowbell going. If that was the soaker, what was the soaker in the soaker? Everybody had their own. Ed Watson had his groove, yeah, bad groove. Errol Ashey, yeah, you know, but Shorty named it Right, so he claimed it and it was S-O-K-A-8. I remember, yeah, so it eventually now became S-O-C-A, but Shorty named it, yeah, s-o-c-a and solar eclipse, right, branding
Speaker 1:is everything Branding. He named it so, like, like some of the things that you used to tell me, I said but you did this, I just put a name to what I was doing, right, you know, but me, I don't go out there saying I you're mad, you should. Because I want to ask you about that, because I was asking you finishing a mount rushmore. No, I want to have you more. You want rushmore? No, I don't have a mount. Well, who's there for before? What top? Yeah, and the faces
Speaker 1:of soaker creators. Creators, because what the argument now is when you look at who they would have put on the wrong mount rushmore in the us, they have four people, if you could credit with the greatest soca artists of all time. And, uh, one of the arguments is shorty must be there because he's a creator, and some people say but it? You could say wellington, you could say nelson, you could say so many different. If you're creators creators of it, it wouldn't be performers, it would be creators. I would put Shorty, I would put King Wellington, I would put Frankie McIntosh, I will definitely put Edwardson and I would put Pelham Pelham,
Speaker 1:yeah, I suppose. So some of you had to scrunch them up, make them fit. Yeah, make them. They were, they were working on it. Even though some people claim Eddie Grant is claimed, you know, he's always claimed, yeah, he's always claimed. But no, no, because he used to be here. He used to be here, he used to be here a lot and you know, remember, he had that whole dance party and California style. He was in it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. It's like most of the things, when you talk about Pan, who could invent Pan? It's never be one person. Right, men were working on things in silos. Spree Simon was the man who actually make it happen, even though somebody was doing it there, and that was amazing. What them do in their layman brains, what Spree Simon and the next one, anthony Williams, do in a layman brain yeah, just figuring it out as you go, I'm going to put this in thoughts. What, how you figure that out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you understand, that's not a layman brain. That's
Speaker 1:a scientific brain. We underestimate our own people, that's for sure. You check the last budget, like what culture and everything there? Did you check the last budget? Like what culture and everything? There's really no last one, it's
Speaker 1:where it is. I have this saying that we do things right. And if we take you know, we're supposed to take the watchwords of the country discipline, tolerance, production as the watchwords of Trinidad and Tobago, right, we need to change them watchwords. Yeah, we do things in spite of I need to put it this way In spite of. We do things. It's a handle. We're going to do it In spite of all your blockages. Yeah, we do it. We're going to make it happen. We're going to make it happen. We learned that about you today. If you're going to make it happen, we learned that about you today. If there's anything anybody's going to take away here, don't tell Kenny, he can't do something.
Speaker 1:It's a problem. I want to point to you, too, that when you talk about Chutney Soaker, I do it and I read it and I listen to it and I want to say but you create this Chutney Soaker thing. You say that, not me, okay, um, when in now, mind you, I work with Sunar Poo, right, I work with Harry Mahabir, um, they were, they record in the studio, I think. Right, I work with them, so I know them. Um, drupati
Speaker 1:Ramgunai, she was. If Iowa was the first, drupati might have been the second or the third hit. Oh, okay, it would have been Iowa, drupati or Rash Hottieye, then Ricky Jai Show Me Emotion and them kind of things, right and well, I'm talking about hits of the year, right, because Drupati came second in road matchups for me. Oh yeah, I didn't know that I have a few seconds, well enough, oh boy, super Bowl beat me so bad. The only place Super Bowl beat me is under my foot. You know it was an ongoing battle at the time between Eric Grant, eric Grant's studio and Super Right, and we me preachers, yeah, you coming down, we catch them only one year, one year, unstoppable. But I came second a few times. Drupati was second, I think, ricky Jai was second and Ashok O'Donkey O'Donkey was second. O'donkey is you too? You see what I'm saying. Yeah, have a few seconds, have a few seconds, right, right. So, anyway, we talking about what were we talking about? No, we talking about that. We're talking about Drupal T, right,
Speaker 1:so, drupal T. I used to work in a bank, right, husband used to collect salary in the bank, right. So we get to talking and he say his wife, she's want to record, he want to record these. This wasn't chuck me. It was indian songs, right, indian songs with a soca calypso beat. A calypso beat wasn't soca. Yeah, I said, yeah, problem. That's why let's do according to sprang along. This is what we does. It was no problem. Um, cool. And we started we work and we did songs and I had to. I did the music like I normally do for calypso or something. It was you do the music for
Speaker 1:these Indian songs. Now Jawa, and we do the whole album and thing, thing, thing, and they put it on the cassette and nice, that done, good. Then he come and say will we put English to one of them? I said because it's all ready, guys. So, yeah, it's all right. And then there's an Indian radio station, those things playing on radio and things. I think they had always an Indian radio station. Oh, they did Always. Oh, I didn't know that. Always, always, or or segments. Okay, gotcha, right, but they had their cassette market, gotcha, I see they had their market. Yes, I see. So, like when you're going in the market and people, you hear, yes, okay, right, they had their place. And we say okay, and I call Kali, because that's my batch day, if you're going to write a song, it's me. And Kali, I said let me go. So there we go now. And he actually Pinned the words Chutney Soaker, it's Chutney Soaker, it's Chutney Soaker,
Speaker 1:it's that way. I'm a whining, don't so? Wow, is that one? I don't even remember that. Wow, so Chutney Soaker. That was the first time I
Speaker 1:heard those words. Put together Eccle Jacobs, yeah, and we, we went with that. And it was together Eccle Jacobs, yeah, and we, we went with that. It was a big song. So they
Speaker 1:created a genre. I didn't say that, I just asked him. I didn't say that I whatever, because I know if I say, yeah, boy, you know, you know, you know it coming, you know it coming. We feel he is, I not say nothing, we really, yes, I'm not saying nothing. We just hate to ask, we just hate to clarify. I tell you what I do. I don't know who was doing. You know everybody's doing something. Of course I did what I did, you know, I mean, and mr b says so that was coming right after her. No, well, yeah, actually that's doing because she did the album, yeah, and then when she sing that English song, it's like, okay, let me do it the real part. You know, cass man, wayne McDonald, say I have a song. You know, I say let me go. It has always been a problem to me Mixing the tasa with
Speaker 1:the African drums. They sound good for a few minutes, a few seconds, and then this one went to Poland. That one went to Poland. It started to make a mishmash. To keep it together is a hard work. It's a hard work. So doing this was was a was a job. Yeah, because it's also played. You know it's gone. Yeah, it's been taken
Speaker 1:to my production. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, talk about it, because it is turned to nutty air and it's probably is an indication of the society and you know, go any direction. You know who in charge, who lead in. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. But we held it together and actually the only other person well, the only two people who played on that was the bass man. I think the bass man was either neil lillock or punky boines and carl and carol, I think, sing chorus, and
Speaker 1:that was it. I think I played everything else. Yeah, I had my guitar synthesizer so I used to play like all that line ba da, da, da, da, da, ba da dee, do do boo, do, do do. It was that kind of shit. Um, ocarina kind of tone would make it sound East Indian-ish and you know, that was that was.
Speaker 1:That was interesting. He used to talk about these things in that kind of way like boy, listen, like how. When I put the clip here, you see what I mean, right, he just put these things in passing. So, ricky, jai, how'd that come about? That was sometime. No, it was the next year. Oh, that was right after. That was not. So, only going into the show in order to only create a deep dive in, right, good, ricky would have heard Troopity, and well then, he talk, it's, that is the,
Speaker 1:that is the. Of course, ricky came out of Kaiso, written by GB Sumintra ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping ping, you know, but that was Kaisu Sumintra, born in a shocking day. So but we put the elements. You know I like to mix the elements. I love a Dulac or a Tabla in a Reggae or a Kaisu. It's like shorty yeah, beautiful it. It's like shouting yeah, beautiful, it mixes Once it's overbearing and it starts to
Speaker 1:pull you on. Did you hear Ricky Giai's song this year? Yeah, the Calypso, you do that. Yeah, who writes it? Kurt? Oh, it's Kurt. Yeah, I wish Kurt was here last weekend. I know, I know. Oh man, that's a bad song. Kurt is a machine. Bad, bad song. That's called Kurt Chat GPT. I see
Speaker 1:you tell Kurt. I say, boy, a man now comes second In the thing. The next time you see him you say we're going to Loss again. I say, boy, it's a little less cool, you get a chance To catch yourself. You can't even win a competition, boy, one little competition. You can't say that because you say you win one road match. But now you confess that it's really Casey when you're in a road match. No, no, no, the road match, the picture. No, casey, casey, it's not Casey pulling out the plug. No, no, but it's the plug. The plug is when you're no, that is stuff,
Speaker 1:that is stuff. But the horns, that, yeah, but that opening, that opening is one of them. Listen that, that came from the guitar ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding, ding-a-ding. I see, hey, that bad boy. And the blades on the horns, yeah, this one. I'm just talking about these things
Speaker 1:like they're normal. So before, before you go back to Ricky, ricky coming the first song, he now coming out of the gate, yeah, yeah, some intro, yeah, and that that opening is again, and the opening line with some intro born in Ashwaq and David and his parents, from India and walking, just so Trinidadian it's. Oh man, they paint the picture. Chibi is a yeah, chibi is a fantastic writer. He's, he's, he's have a number. Yeah, yeah, good, all right, he's something else with
Speaker 1:writing. Yeah, yeah. And then Ricky and them went and do a video on San Francisco. Yeah, that was Alison Ayers and Ricky Jai, yeah, and the girl, um, there was, just that was before it's time doing that kind of video on that kind of thing. I Before it's Time, yeah, you know. And then after that, ricky did Show Me a Motion, yeah, boy, yeah, and that was a cartoon. Oh, yeah, it's true, it's true Before it's Time. Yeah, I guess Ricky was doing that kind of thing Long before,
Speaker 1:yeah, long before. So you continued over them times contributing to it. Can you have a hard-out to it? Because people who are recording now Trinidad playing Jamaica today, as I start with right, and I know you had to go, and so, yeah, yeah, you also tell me you play Road to Italy for Superblue. Yeah, we produced that. That was. Alice Nails came with that song and Superblue was the man Dribble Dongli. Yeah, like Colin was talking, more football dance. They had football dance. They had Road to Italy, lancelot laying the wood. Yeah, a lot, a lot. Yeah, hoping we were real. What went on with that? Like Soca Warriors with Maximus
Speaker 1:and them 2006. Even before that, as a matter of fact, we did a lot of songs, yeah, songs. You know you look at the election just going how much songs they had for this party. We do songs. We do songs to support and to push Right. You know, like I did, there was a year in the election I did every party theme song PNM, ner, nnv I can't remember what UNC was called
Speaker 1:at the time. Whatever it was called, I did a song Right and I used to. I did a song Right and I used to sit down and watch it. That's funny. No, sit back and watch your work. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, oh, what could I do this year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So plenty of government. Get. Bring them right in all your room. That is so true. That is government. Get, bring them right in only room. That is so true. That is so true. I mean people might think, oh, you're being egotistical, but it's
Speaker 1:true. The song. They start the ball rolling like there was a time. Shouldn't give this story, should not give this story. How could say this? There was a time a particular calypso came with a parang. How could say this? There was a time Mm-hmm, a particular Calypsoanian Mm-hmm, came with a parang and his son was saying hello, john Yule, I keep calling you like a fool Mm-hmm, but since, since all the wind, you change all the numbers, I can't find all the Mm-hmm right. And the Calypsonian was a staunch, staunch, staunch PNM and he's complaining on PNM, saying that they've left me. I was there with you
Speaker 1:and they're gone. And the well I know, june, june Newlillings, was responsible for me having my radio license, so I know her. So I would call her and say Tanti Joan, I'm going to have a song here. It's singing. I think you need to talk to this man Because if this song come out and it was a year when the party wasn't looking so good and the election didn't call, yet it was to call and she say send him to me, send him to me, ding, ding, ding, ding ding and she pay off that song and kill that song right in the post. Serious, yeah,
Speaker 1:because it happens. The songs, the music does it. It start See Kurt's song this year that start the movement. You know, I was telling him that and I like how it reference. For instance, you say you call Eric Duffy, you call Chambers Duncey, that's them songs. Chambers Duncey, he never, he just stay Duncey. Actually he wasn't Duncey, no, he wasn't. But did we make him Duncey? Of course yeah, there, we make it on C. Of course yeah. There are a lot of things Like they say somebody's a rumble and they drink, and that is the picture we paint on C and it stays. Of course it stays, it stays, so the
Speaker 1:song does it. That's why I like what Oli's doing with the Curto's Talking Body series. He's doing with coming up with topics and coming. He do that puck thing last time with Donald Trump and that just keep unfolding, like that story getting worse every week with his attitude towards me. Just keep going bad, bad, bad. And even when I look back at some of the monarchs, like Krookroo in particular when he did common entrance, corruption, common entrance, it's like the society know how to pay attention to what the thing is. But you've seen that before
Speaker 1:we see it. You remember there was a genre we interfere with that we call political parang. Yeah, I want a wedding, a dogla wedding. Yeah, remember that that was crew crew, some parang we do, but that's our next genre creator again. And you also create ragasuka too. I just accident me, girl. I know that the first ragasuka, to your recollection, is what. The first ragasuka, actual the first raga suka, went in actually to be raga suka was a preacher called Wine Up Right, but they had raga in a calypso. That became a kind of raga suka. It was
Speaker 1:Iowa as well. The flip side of the boom boom time was time hard. Yeah, hold tight when you're selling cigarettes on the rungs about, don't ever forget them. Like daddy always used to tell me when he was playing in Ketchum and he said Iowa came with that. He said that was the song he did to. That was the A side. No, he said that was the A side. Boom boom time was B side. Yeah, remember, back in them days, them kind of speed, and that kind of thing wasn't the norm. You know, mm-hmm, he was. There was a kaiso, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, we too. You have to work a little harder and we bring in Papa Percy what's he chant? Man, the Rudy chant, yeah, yeah, I used to like how they chant back then too. Yeah, that chanting, we pull that for a while. Yeah, so I'm talking about it's called ragga because there are ragga man chanting in the song on the kaiso or the soka or whatever. So, alright, so he created that too with a question mark at
Speaker 1:the end, right. So he tells, he tells Iow, with that tune, hand out the shit, music and thing on the plate and kitchen them. Say alright, you're inside, kitchen. Pretend. They say this is men, say you're inside and then he sort of hand out thing and these men say, well, what you doing? You're inside already and that turn out to be boom, boom time. Yeah, but boom boom time came up after fast, real fast. Even though they tell us this ain't gonna work. Well, they can't tell you that we established that that could
Speaker 1:be a problem. Can use plenty of things we had to talk about with WAC too. We need a next day to talk about it, we need a whole next day to talk about now and that whole, because you had said in person about the protesting for local music. Can we talk a little bit more about that? What was the organization? That was RIAT, the Recording Industry Association of Trenton, tobago, right? Well, I tell you, it's under 4%. And yet everybody working, everybody in studio, everybody doing music, it's only 4% playing, right. So we say, well, we need legislation, because everywhere else has Canada has, you know, canada has 50% legislation. Australia, everybody legislates to protect their industry. Trinidad is one of the only places to have it. Even America has legislation. They don't need it but they have it. Well, we have legislation to protect some industries, some, not the right
Speaker 1:ones, but some. So we decided we protested, do a march it was a march about three times. We do a march from Woodford Square, right, and I ended up being the acting president at the time, so I charge. So we marched down Woodford Square and we come back up by legal affairs and drop off a letter, say you know, request, and then we say we're going down by the number one radio station in the country, down the road and going down St James Way and we're going to deliver the letter by 96.1. To this big march I'm talking about big, they write song on the spot and they're singing and vibes. We're down the road. We're going to deliver this letter. So I am in charge, I have to deliver the letter and I feel in honor. All right, I am the army. When it's time to hand deliver the letter, I feel in my army, with me. You're right here, you're strong, you could talk to me, you could talk to me and I walk in to deliver this letter. Letter, and I started to feel light. I look back, the arm is still and I alone, I alone, went by the security guard and had this letter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said feeling. Well, you know, hey, brother, let me
Speaker 1:tell you this. I was subsequently banned off of that radio station, any musical Number one radio station in the country, the radio station that makes the hits. Yeah, for the youths too. That was the spot it was so bad Preacher came to me. No, this is after I went road marching, right, okay, after I went road marching, banned, and nobody say we banning you. You know, you just ban blacklist, blacklist. But I, I was always a rebel and always don't forget to open my mouth and say what I say. So I had to survive through that period. This is it's like I'm a taxi driver and, you see, you cannot drive on the road. You know, sir, how you gonna. This is like I'm a taxi driver and you see, you cannot drive on the road. You know what I'm saying. How are you going to do? You have to find a way and I
Speaker 1:found a way. I used to produce for KMC All Soul on Fire and all them kind of things KMC was, I used to be the engineer. All the KMC hits, all the Brand New Old Bear man, all them things. That's Maximus, yeah, maximus, that was a KMC rhythm. Alright, it's true, it's true, all them things, all them things, all them things. And that's how we survived. But life is funny. Life is so funny. I have lived to see the day where people who banned me come to my radio station for airplay. Yeah, look at that. And I'm like, yeah, it's not true. No, yeah, you, I can't do the same. I can't do the same thing. If I do the same thing, I'll be just as, of course, yeah, just like them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah. And then work out, but fast forward into today again before we wrap up. You responsible for when you talk about Ricky J. I said before you come here Karina, shake all. So you still responsible for a lot of these songs that would go into the Calypso arena. Calypso and Kaizo yeah, well, I used to do Kaizo. I am not a soccer man. No, my sons is a soccer man. Right, I is the soccer man. Mm-hmm. Right, I cannot do that. What I'm doing there, yeah, you know, can't do it. I will do songs, I will do songs. I will do
Speaker 1:songs For me. Right now in my life, I need to do something that has meaning and has sense, and you know so more than likely. I'm not saying that they don't have enough. You know, right, casey and Kyle yeah, man, they will come here at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will send you the clash, the clash between me and them, a song of that bad already. Listen, oh man, listen. That was amazing At that time, kyle only had two songs, but he did yeah, he's
Speaker 1:coming with bombs. Yeah, he has bombs now. So, yeah, so that's what I was. But you, yeah, you say you're coming with bombs, yeah, you're bombs now. So, um, so, yes, what I was telling him before we went down there um, the Calypso, I will, we will find songs for people and actually produce, like, if we see you a good artist, and then we say, hey, we have a song for you, okay, and we produce you and we take a percentage of the winnings if you, if you win, we take a position. If you don't win, we all lose.
Speaker 1:I see, right. So, like for this season going here, we had about six people in the six or seven, six people in the semis and three people in the finals. Ah Right, the six in the semis were Pharaoh Twiggy, Kareem Asha no, sorry, kareem Spascal, not Kareem Asha Kareem Sp Pascal, kurt Allen, ricky Jai and somebody else I can't remember. I can't remember the name. Somebody else. And from that going to the finals, we had Kurt, ricky and Tricky. So when we home I get into one another on social media, let's do all the songs. So when we home, again with one another on social media, let's do all the song
Speaker 1:and we fight. No, the song is the song. You know what I mean? I find there's a research on it in the last few years. I was talking to Kurt about that too. Yeah, there is Same thing in the rhythms and the effects. The calypso has done this and the soca has done this, mm-hmm merging into the calypso. In fact, I have a session tonight with some soaker
Speaker 1:men doing horns. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we miss that boy. Yeah, we miss nobody. Bring it back now. Yeah, you hear it a lot this year, this year, last year. You start to see the change. Yeah, but horns does it,
Speaker 1:horns does it. Yeah, yeah, there was a point in time that the Baj in the production that he wasn't doing it. They just slowed down the music and sweetened up the music, but we was going back to the hell speed, yeah, yeah, yeah, it went a different way. Yeah, but the tent was such like the backbone of the competitions at the Poison Zymocity Tent. Yeah, is it something you feel we could see come back to life? Yeah, but it had to
Speaker 1:have some changes. The tent can't operate how it operates now as long as songs that and too much partner-partner singing anything. You know, when you sing, I go in the bathroom. No, everybody who sings has to have a killer song. Right, I have 20 years service and I say no Qualify. You know we belittle it by put you in an easy treasure or putting no qualify with a good song and let people get good entertainment. Yeah, don't bring down the show. You know, I wish I had my way where I could fire some of them. Yeah, because some of them need fire so they could go back home and work, come again. It's hard part now is to go to the tents, the they could go back home and work, Come again. It's hard. Apart Now, we still go to the tents, the auditions and stuff and watch and say, wait, that's
Speaker 1:a good idea. You know, if you only finish that song, the man singing so yeah, no, I like the art form. Right, I love a great calypso and sometimes you have a good idea and it's so. They didn't finish it and some of them can't take. Hey, what, who's you? Who's you? Okay, you know what I mean. Yeah, finish your song. That song, that's a great idea. Finish your song,
Speaker 1:yeah, you know. You know, mary Ashby was talking about that a little bit when he was here. He was saying that because you could do everything home, they're not going through the filter, people like yourself. Yeah, they could tell you, and your whole family tell you that good boy. What do you mean if your family would tell you you're a big artist, that good boy, all right, good, and when you get bottled up you're like nobody will tell me. Everybody say you're good, of course, brother, brother, listen, I want to see that game later. I don't watch it by use, I don't like to watch it. Yeah, watch it, but listen, this was a pleasure. This was a pleasure. I feel like we only touched the tip of the iceberg when you realized I
Speaker 1:was toting feelings. I said this man is interviewing everybody and he called me boy. What can I tell you? Ask Conrad, I said Conrad. Boy, tell me. I said boy, kenny Phillips, I wonder if he'll come up the road. Boy, he said Kenny, welcome, whatever, I'll be here. That's what he told me. That's what he told my underestimated fellow space. Here
Speaker 1:they have everybody. I came to look at this space. I said let's see what I could teach. And then the chief you know what I mean. No, I like how he developed something from nothing. Yeah, you understand, thank you. Well, yeah, okay, I ain't come here for you to be giving me all these credits and thing thing. You'll be. No, you'll be no. Pom-pom gilder, what do you mean? That's me the first time somebody told me Kenny Phillips, play, because I know the name in salt radio and all them things and I know he has a producer and them kind of thing. But somebody's telling me I must see Daddy. He said but you know who played that thing. It's Kenny who played that thing. I say,
Speaker 1:I say what? And from then, one of the blessings I find we have today is when you go on YouTube, sometimes people just put up the record. So on the record you could see who you know Lou Lyons from. Very well, he, he's read them records and that's why I tell you, I'm unprepared Guys watch Lou all the time, all his episodes. I told him, I tell him we have to talk About this thing. I like what you're doing, please. Yeah, that would be great. The problem is, you see, like you, you went far back. Some men, let's go from when they know. Yeah, let's go from where they know. You know they had to go real deep. He going deep. And that's where I end up in trouble, because I just watching the episode last week and he say and Kenny Phillips play the guitar. I said what? And I think it was a muchan song. He's a guitar freak, he's a guitar jumbie. So he's asking me, like you know what guitar you use and where we talk guitar talk. You know what I mean? I was telling this story with what's his name, niall Rogers. It was such an important story to me. Just tell it. Now. You're here. I know you're going now. Yeah,
Speaker 1:I'm going now. When I went up to New York and of course I went looking for equipment and I was looking for something from a guitar song. I always want my song to be a song, a sound, right. So I go into some action thing and I look I see an Ibanez Ultra Harmonizer which would do something, something. So I say ah boy, and I reach for the Ultra Harmonizer. And I'm on, reach for the Ultra Harmonizer Same time with me. I'm like yo man, you say okay, go ahead, man. You go ahead. And I look up Nile Rodgers from Chic. You see you buying that. I say yeah, you say I'm coming for that too, man. I
Speaker 1:say right, man. And I realize we, because in them days they didn't have no internet, no, so you used to die in a magazine. You had to work that out in your brain. So we worked that out, that this is going to do this. You wouldn't have even heard it. You just know this is what you wanted to do, this is the motivation you want and that was the sound on feeling it, that effect that should be taught in schools. Now. Anybody learning guitar should learn that. I will put that past you. And Nile Rodgers has some of the most iconic guitar guitar and Diana Ross I'm coming out. Yeah, when you hear the two you could see, ah, something happened, something happened, yeah. But, brother, thanks, I'm glad you
Speaker 1:made the trek. The time was short. I'm going to check my list and make sure there's nothing else to ask. That's all I'm going to ask. I think I did. I have a random question for you. We could pay it in or not? Merchant you playing them too? That Build a Nation together? No, playing that guitar Build a Nation was Junior Warwood. In fact, junior Warwood produced that. I should have figured that shit out. That real bad. You know that. Junior Warwood and Tony Vozier, yeah, responsible for me to get some licks in school. What do you mean? Let me tell you something. Last story, and I'm going. Yeah, don tell you something. Last story, I'm not going. Yeah, don't keep me
Speaker 1:here no longer. I was in Naprema College Mm-hmm. Naprema College by the hospital, right, right there, mm-hmm. The promenade is right there. They used to have bandstand calypso, right, calypso on the bands, on the police band. Mm-hmm. Tony playing. Junior Ward was playing. So them boys in school, hey, band on the bandstand, kaiso,
Speaker 1:da da da. We gone Lunchtime. We run down there and end up now holding on to the railings. The people come and consume the place and we did tambu singing and this one singing and that one singing, I quote Kaiso. But time gone, lunchtime gone and Kaizo playing. We can't leave. We proud to take, we can't come out and we watching the time going down and
Speaker 1:someone is busting. When they're done now say all right, make the trek back up the hill a whole bag away. You know what, going up the hill in naps, and the dean comes and says you all line up there, every man jack line up. And there was so much of them you couldn't really distribute the amount of licks you wanted to. So all he do is come. So pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Everybody got double everybody. I like that. I got licks, boy, I got licks okay. So, boy, I'm glad you continue taking licks. We appreciate the licks you're taking us with. I could come now and say you shape a whole era and then make Sun Tzu shape a whole era. I could pull a lifting out of this. I know what I'd do. This was fun, though we laughed. Outro Music.