Episode 255 | Jimmy October

In this episode of The Corie Sheppard Podcast, Trinidadian artist and poet Jimmy October opens up about his creative evolution, the story behind New Calypso, and his new project Episode 3 — a four-track EP that moves from the high-energy “Bam Bam” to the reflective “Desires.” He explains how fashion became self-expression (“the three belts story”), why his sound blends Calypso roots with modern R&B and pop influences, and what it really took to walk away from a secure hospital job to tour and co-write “Magic” with Kes.

Jimmy shares the discipline and structure behind his artistry — from his cadet years to his 1-hour-45-minute daily gym routine — and reflects on the emotional toll of creative life, from tears on tour to gratitude for his mother’s sacrifices. He also revisits his early poetry days in the Free Speech Project and performing at Machel Monday, connecting the dots between spoken word and music, and making a powerful case for why culture must keep evolving to survive.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Jokes, Belts, and Style as Identity
• 4:20 Fashion, Self-Expression, and Confidence
• 10:40 Introducing Episode 3 and Bam Bam
• 16:30 Sequencing the EP: Sunset to Wind Down
• 22:45 Writing for Women, Ease, and Intention
• 28:50 Producers, Sound, and Polishing the Vision
• 33:10 Genre Talk: “Jimmy October” and New Calypso
• 41:20 Respecting Tradition while Evolving Sound
• 48:45 Discipline, Gym, and Creative Structure
• 55:00 The Name “Jimmy October” and Duality
• 1:02:40 Stage Presence, Kes, and Making Magic
• 1:12:10 Songwriting Rooms, Mentors, and Mastery
• 1:20:15 Quitting the Day Job and Touring Reality
• 1:29:40 Caring for Elders, Culture, and Legacy
• 1:38:30 Spoken Word Roots and Early Breaks
• 1:47:10 Building Scenes: Radio, Shows, and Community

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

David gave me signals that mean we had a start, right? So welcome to the Corey Shepherd Podcast. My name is Corey Shepherd, and today I have with me Jimmy October, will you say so? All as well. You good? Yeah, man, I get it, I get it. Usually I like to start these episodes with a you know what I mean? And a light note, right? But I have a deep philosophical question for you to start with, right? Forgive me, right? Celeste. How much belt is take to hold up my pants? On average. Just give me an average belt is take to hold up my pants. Tree.

SPEAKER_01: 0:28

Let me say that three is perfect. Tree perfect. I could go for a I could go for a photo on a bit. What if we people don't know what we're talking about? We can put it on the screen, eh? David if you said Mary.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

I feel it's an inside joke as well. That's where you start, man. I just want to know.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

I just want to know. Because a man who does wear belt. Message me about that. Or you commented on the post. I was like, yeah, I could use two more, two more pants. I was the only one. I was everybody was watching it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

So let me start with fashion now because that seems to be something important to you generally. You have a different kind of style.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

Thanks, man. Yeah. I think um, I think it's more for me expression across the border. I like being creative, I like being expressive. That's the way that I feel I get to show who I am without even saying who I am. You walk in a room, today I get a man I'll full out of. I feel happy putting on my clothes. Like I wanna feel, I wanna feel good, and that's really that's it. There's no maths, no science. As for you ever since? I wouldn't say ever since. I feel like if I if I ever tell you a joke, so when I was going to school, right? I went to high school at a time when tight pants was our vibes. Right. My pants was big, so serious, bro. My mother made very clear no tight pants, not walking out this house because your pants not reading no work. Literally, I'll never forget. She literally made that clear. Your pants not learning no work. That's a real Trinidad mother, boy. Real, real. And I remember a time I get I get licks for not even gone mouthing the pants, but making it a little smaller. Right. Yeah, the world, it's like the world end because what you doing? What you doing? You cannot do that. You go into school. No, I used to be sometimes in school as a youth. You're just like, wait, boy. I really had to stay here for eight hours with this pants, but school is a cool world, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 2:37

When you're going to school and you're outside of wherever the trend is, it's a brutal place.

SPEAKER_01: 2:41

Pressure, your bag sometimes uh buy a transport and like form three or form four. Because that's when that's when I could I could have given my own little make it. But from form one to three, yeah, it's another jam, so the one bag it have. Yeah, boy. And my mother do not business now.

SPEAKER_00: 3:00

She was right. Was she? I don't want to encourage her either, because then I gotta say my mother was right.

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

She was right, it made sense. And I think those things allow me to be yourself in a way and be a one person. It kind of gives you this foundation to be like, hey, if I don't have it, I don't have it. I could still be me. And I think those things play true in many different forms in my life. Fashion is one of those things. Sometimes it's not about fashion for me, it's not about brands, it's not about money, it's not about that kind of thing. It's about me feeling as though this is me, this is how I want to, this is how I want to dress, this is how I want to walk into the room and feel good about me now. It makes sense, makes sense. I think I think a lot it just became a part, obviously, because I make music, it became a part of my brand. Of course. But if I didn't use to make music, it would have just been a part of my personality.

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Like I like seeing people like you know, um Childish Gambino, what's his name? Uh Glover. Yeah. So when you see his style and he is unique too. Yeah. But I like when I see old pictures and see how he used to dress long time, like we parents used to dress it. Different, different.

SPEAKER_01: 4:08

But when you find a sense of self, yeah, it's empowering to find a sense of self, and I hope that people who look at me wearing whatever or being me that empower you to just be yourself and do what you want to do. I think that happened.

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

Yeah, I think that happened because I see it in the comments too. Because when I see the belt, I said no, they said any pants still in happen.

SPEAKER_03: 4:32

No, the pants.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

Because some people think it's one pants, and it's just like uh maybe the belt is the waist is where the belts just oh people are asking how much pants it is. It's more than one pants. It's three pants.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

It's three pants for real.

SPEAKER_01: 4:51

I would have never think that. Yeah, it's three pants, one, a breaking long. Yeah, let me hear that. Let me hear that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:57

As a man who has no fashion at all, it's the most interesting part to me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:00

Big up, big up ketos for style and that too. Right. The is one long pants, which is the pants you can see. Right. The the other pants is a three-quarter for some, you know, somebody and hole. Right. And the next pants is literally like this short. So it's only that is only the belt.

SPEAKER_00: 5:18

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01: 5:19

Basically, but yeah, that's the um, that's the breakdown of the bam bam cover too.

SPEAKER_00: 5:25

All right, David, you give me first fashion. First fashion. First fashion lesson. Well, listen, your name came up in Hoppy episode, right? Which is something I want to get back to, but I also want to make sure you don't do me like hoppy and you ain't drink a damn thing for the episode. No, you know, I know you come up under the best. So let me talk Bam Bam now. You have a new EP coming out soon, right? Yeah. I was driving here and listening to it. Now you tell me analytics to see every time I listen, right? So you're privy to don't ask anybody who coming next, right? Don't ask Jimmy up so well what time I prepared before the interview, right? Don't ask him because he knows now. But I was listening to it on the the Bam Bam is the first one on EP. Yes, what's his name on the EP is his title?

SPEAKER_01: 6:07

It's called Episode 3. Right. Uh just to give a little backstory on why. So in music, EP means extended play. Uh, but with regards to this project, I've been a little bit literal in the sense of EP, I make um I'm making it mean episode. Right. Uh as in this is my third solo EP as Jimmy October. And basically, this project is four songs. It's a it's me at this space and time, and that's what I want to share with you this time. So, this is the episode that I'm in. So call it episode three. Gotcha. The first EP was vacation, the second one was last year from October with Love. And this is just called Episode 3. Episode 3. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:58

Yeah, I like it. I was in listening to it, I was telling you before we started. It feels like a body of work for from somebody who is one of us. Yeah. Where there's a there's an ease of listening to the songs. The best way I could describe it, because sometimes you're preparing and you're listening to people's music, and it not I don't want to say it feels like work, but you know you're consciously doing something for the purpose of an interview. When I throw on your EP, I listening.

unknown: 7:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:22

And then I think about other things, and things happen, and I realize I still listen, I realize it starts over. Yeah. And you're just in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:28

Yeah. So you have the You have the private link. The image that you have right now is the actual artwork for the project. But prior to that, the artwork, the the image that I had in my head was just an image of a sunset. So the project basically starts It's like the day winding down. That's what the project is. So the project is Bam Bam starts as the I guess the highest hype song on the project. And I'm sure you could realize that we come down. So it's Bam Bam Time U. A song called Desires. So we basically closing out the day. Right. And for me particularly, it means in a sense of closing that particular from ep from literally from episode one, which is vacation to episode three. This is the wind down of what we would call that saga. Oh gotcha. So the next the next saga will be its own thing, musically, sonically. And I I like to think of my music the same way as calling it an episode. It's like a chapter. Most of those, actually, all of those songs were made more so within the past year. I think in the past, I would collect music. Like with the last EP. One, it was way more, maybe way more personal than this project. My mom is on the intro of the last one. Things that I talking about, even in it might be more catered to relationships I was in or things like that. For this project, honestly, I set out to create from more of a softer space. That's probably what you could tell in terms of it not feeling too busy. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it feeling like something you could really put on. Uh, for instance, a song like you. I literally set out to write a song for women to get ready to. Like being I I learned that from this J. Cole. He was he was having this like time in when he was creating a project where he was saying he would give himself these goals. Yeah, this project is on a softer note, and I I I want to particularly also big up like women that listen to my music. Because part of why I make this project is because I would go, I remember I went to this event. Um, and I mean, I could call some names like mailing, I'm Alder, Maya, Cameron, DeAndre. Like girls are girl always be like, you know, like when when is the summer music coming, or when the next EP coming? And the project is literally so they ask him for that. It it there's that softer side of me is very much catered towards like women who want to listen to music like that. Yeah, so I feel like I spent um I spent some time catering to that. Bam bam, I make the joke of it being written for Luna. Um and and I and I was and I was able to work with her on some stuff too, because when you think of this head space, when I'm creating, every time I'm creating is not always about me. Like the creation of it is for me. Yeah, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. And sometimes you want to be a little bit more intentional in that sense, too, and be like, you know, I want to make a project for this. Yeah, for purpose. If I want to make a project for Carnival, then I want to make a project to give a certain emotion to the people.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

Oh, wait till it's about women a little bit now. That's what's over, right? Yeah, so I remember seeing a documentary with uh Diddy talking about him and Biggie in that era when they were doing um the first album or singles really, they didn't get to ready to die and all that, yeah. And they were talking about how they would just bring women around the studio, yeah, play beats, play records, that kind of thing. And get it so they watching a reaction, something you're all doing sometimes when you're working on projects, or you're letting them hear it when they're done.

SPEAKER_01: 11:40

I think sometimes I would I would play music for people, I mean people in general, not just women, I'd play music for people sometimes to get a feel and be like, you know, I wonder if you're feeling this, I wonder if you're liking this. Did I do that much with this project? Not maybe not. So you have a sense of what they want without without necessarily testing it to them, yeah? I think I think sometimes if if where I am and where you are at the same time aligned sonically with where like where you feel and you want to listen to, then great. Sometimes you don't even know. Sometimes one person might like something, the next person might like this, and you're just kind of like, oh, I didn't I didn't know that song would have worked in that way. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's not as I don't want to say it's not as formulaic uh as if I'm in an error, I I know exactly what you're talking about with like Biggie and Dilly too. Like even when they were making songs like Juicy, they would have it's old samples, which means they're tapping into the chords and those particular moods and frequencies, which means that you're trying to evoke a certain emotion. And I think that, like musically and artistically, you're trying to get a particular type of result and you're trying to touch a certain type of person. Sure. And I feel like, yeah, this was definitely in that vein and space to for it to feel easy to listen to. Oh, I got you. For it to feel like something that you could put on when you're getting ready, for it to feel like something you could put on while you're hanging out, while you're while you're with your friends, is not is not too too busy in that way of like oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

I had to make sure because when I listen to it, I was always saying I listen to it very early, as you know, between me and David, there's about 150 years combined. So I was wondering when I listened to it, but again, the exact feel I'm going for because the production quality is pristine. This is can you say Brooklyn? Does he produce all? Yeah, so so Brooklyn Decent produced Bam Bam.

SPEAKER_01: 13:44

He produced Time with Um, you know, Giolani sure Pops um track three was produced by Crazy Leen off a 20-year-old named Cadet. 20 Genius, like real, real Dungim? Yeah, right here. And the last track Desires was produced by my brethren Rich from LA. I made that song in LA. The last one. Yeah. Real um, real sp as a special collection of producers. I work with Brooklyn all the time. Um, and yeah, I also working with some other people too, trying to build that will and build that sound.

SPEAKER_00: 14:24

So it came true. I appreciate it. Definitely, definitely when you hear it. I'd ask you about genres. There's a big discussion across this table all the time, right? About genre, music, and things. Yeah. Would you call it a genre? Like when I listen to it, I don't know what I listen to. Maybe it's just my age. You you you box it into a genre? How do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

I feel I feel like at this point, I feel like Jimmy October is a genre at this point. I I I think I have had different moments where the genre, and I mean I'm sure you've heard the term nucley. Uh, which is there was a point in time when I would be I would be going to studios and I would be talking about music with artists, producers, working with them too. Uh I remember a time I was making Remember the Days and a song called Remember the Days with Casey, and he him, even him would be like, you know, like what what is like what would you call listener? And where's the what is the identity in it? If it's not because people would tell you, a man would say, but I know soaker. That's the reality. Even sometimes when it is so to me, or it feels like soaker to me. And that's where new calypso came from. Uh that's where I was kind of like, okay, I would like to find some sort of identity in what I make to be able to differentiate and stand on who I am and what I do. And do I make new calypso all the time? No, it mightn't be that all the time. I am I standing on a lot of stating that I am a multi-genre artist, particularly because there's some people who know me as a rapper, there's some people who know me for vacation, there's some people who know me for magic with cast. There's some people who will find out who I am today. And really and truly it doesn't really matter what the genre is. I think what matters is the quality of the work. And if it resonates with you, it doesn't matter what it's called. I would I could have my views on what something is. Um and and also to say, in my opinion of music in Trinidad, I think everything that we create is rooted in Calypso. Calypso is the mother of all music Calypso in the way that we just talk. So if we if we keeping it real, whether it is soccer, Trinity Bad, Steam, anything, new Calypso, Calypso, it's a C Calypso, it's a A Calypso, so it's a the the the the true essence of it is Calypso and it is where we come from. And I I tend to mix that with a few other things because that's just why I wait to feel like um yeah, you can call it no matter.

SPEAKER_00: 17:32

So let's bring up new calypso. Uh when Muhammad was here, well, most people credit you for saying the term new calypso first. And I at a crossroads where I talk to people who do new calypso, I talk to people who do I don't say any word old calypso for nobody to call me, I just calypso. And people who do calypso is a k. Yeah, and some of the feedback we hear all the time from people who've been doing it for a long time and make it their life is like, why we need a new calypso? Why we have somebody say why are Calypso with a K it already have kaiso? So the the the the tendency sometimes I feel when I get feedback is that the youths who doing it now running from the history and they're running from the past by trying to create something else. That's your feeling. Nah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:10

Um, first of all, I think some of the youths don't even know where it is. Because like this generation is very different to like us and my generation, Lou and them ahead of that. If if you think about it in that way, right? I think the reason I'll I'll tell you why I called it new. One, it was just uh, and I made very clear there's there's no old calypso. Let me make that clear for instance. Yeah, calypso is calypso. Sure. Um, I think the new came from the fact of putting a fresh spin on it. I wouldn't use the word modern because the word modern sounds very corporate to me. I see. And new sounds fresh, it's short, yeah, it's catchy. It's just, it just, it just goes, you know. Um, and to give a little bit of why is more so sort of if we think back to we mightn't be able to think back to it, but if you think back to like 10 years ago, there's some things now that are very popular in in our let's say modern music, modern soccer or modern calypso, right? That was not happening ten years ago. The log drum is new. Yeah it's a part of a new sound. We take any log drum and we're putting it in soca and we're putting it in calypso. We're taking this that going on in the rest of the world, and we fuse, and there's a lot of fusion taking place. And it we can so in my eyes, that's something new taking place. So are we gonna just say as you say now the the reason why we wouldn't say is just calyphen, and you could correct me if I'm wrong, sure the older heads will say, Well, Dina, what we was doing, so you can't call it Calypso. And to be honest with you, that's what people were saying with some music that I would make. It was like that's not so good. So but where you would call it, would it be that because I'm not making what you want me to make, then my music doesn't exist, or I don't belong in this space, or if there's somebody who saying, you know what, I wanna mix this with this. I wonder if I can make it sound fresh and new. And there's people who have done a lot of that in the space. I always like to call names GBM, Kuter, Treasure. There's people who Freetown the same way, full blown. There's people, there's re there's people who've given their spin on what yeah, we we're holding up our tradition, you know. Let me be real, we're holding it up and and we want to introduce it to the youth also in a way that they could understand and in a way that they do feel as though it's just a thing of the past because it's not a thing of the past. Calypso is the modern music. I don't even want to just say Trinidad because if we if we if we do a deeper dive into what Calypso has actually done in this space of the world, there's a lot of big things, there's a lot of similarities with what's happening in the Afro space with our music, too.

SPEAKER_00: 21:29

You hear it a lot, and you hear you know what is true about that that simply mother music is what you also hear other genres of music dip in and out of what would be like a hear tune, you hear rap, and that thing feeling like kaiso. Yeah, you know, it it's like almost like they never leave it alone. Yeah, so I appreciate it breaking it down because one of the things that I am uh passionate about, like when we when it just came, I tell a boy Kaiso and Calypso is my thing, it was I'd be very interested in talking to youths now, or people now, let me just say youths, right? Because they calling youths a whole different girl, everybody young to me, you know. But um, I interested in the people doing it currently, yeah. Who choose to say calypso or kaisu in any form, whether they change the letter, they change the name, I don't care. Because what I understand is I will not be here. We are going to die, right? As most guests here tell me, we're not here forever. I'll learn that at this table. Yeah, one thing that you love to keep moving. The other thing that I understand is that like again, I come from a parang background and I used to sing what I call old time kaisu Melder and say, I can't wait for all November, you go and meld up by somebody. Come on, like me. Come on, you know what I mean? But the truth is, when that man was making Melder, he was no old man and he wasn't making no old music. Them things was fresh songs, and in my journey doing this, when I listened to song, I always call my father or my mother, and that was in the in the calypso and thing back in the day. And I say, This song was a hit. My father's being like, What? Boy, this was a and it tell it tells me something. One of the examples of that is a song by Duke named Walk It Up. I was sending to you. Yeah, yeah, your kind of music. Bad, bad, bad. Less than Paul production, one of Lesson Paul first productions. And I dig in for music, digging, digging, digging, just listening to Duke. And when I hear that, I say, nah, I said, but it's bad. When I call my father, he said, boy, my first guy, bye. I drive up and down lavanti road playing that one. And I said, You must not hit. There's no such thing as that it's not the idea that we relegated to being a sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01: 23:25

It's feeling but but yeah, I think is it's timing and it's also perspective. And I think there would be somebody that's 15 years old who have a very fresh outlook and perspective on the music that I might make, and he might come and sample magic in 20 years, and then be able to say, Well, this is when Kess and Jimmy made this, and I wanted to give it a different energy. And we had to make room to be able to be like, Oh, let me try to understand what his perspective is at that time now.

SPEAKER_00: 24:04

Yeah, just remember when you get go old age as I love a thing, and I can tell you if I try to get from here too fast, I'll hell break loose. Just remember when you reach that age, don't tell them youths what they're doing is not guys. You see, yeah, it's important. We had to change it, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 24:17

We had to change it. It really and and and and honestly, across the board, bro, I think it's a special time. And we say this obviously, we know how it is, but but it's a special time for our music. It really is. It's a special time for diversity. There's so many different levels that our music is excelling on, and there's so many different and new things being brought into this space. People like even people like Lady Lava, people like Young Brother, the listen clearly, you would hear the calypso in that as well. It is a different and a fresh take, and it's something new that's being brought to the table. But ten years ago, if I had asked your steamers, you we wouldn't know. And we must make space for it, it's important because it takes that particular type of like bravery and belief in it yourself to be like, this is what I'm making, and this is something that I could I remember saying on an interview when I used to rap years ago, we also have the responsibility of creating culture. Culture is not just something that we knew from our past because when Rashot I was making what he was making, it wasn't that at the time. Of course, he was deciding that I want to merge these two things and I want this to exist from today.

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

We're going up on this topic whole day, no brother, because dread. You know what they was telling him then? Nine calypso come on, or Lord Nelson, you bring up technology and how you're using different drums now. When well they'll say they tell him, they tell him what's that? Different. Well, it had to be different, it's had to be different. I appreciate all if for all you for your efforts to be different. So I would bring up this feeling, yeah, and in your music, there seems to be a lot of feeling that's poured into your making of the music. So I want to go back to the original or some of them feelings, but I have one more today question to ask you. How long are you standing in the gym, Dredd? Me and David um we behind bad. We're looking for we we had a therapist here yesterday, right? And we get real free therapy. So right now we're looking for a free workout, advice and fitness, and so on.

SPEAKER_01: 26:30

I I work out for our 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 26:34

I don't work out you work out each time for like over a period. Because I work out of our 45 minutes annually. No, you and aggregate.

SPEAKER_02: 26:44

Yeah, and read the book you read the reading properly.

SPEAKER_01: 26:50

I get any results to show no, no, no, I know what they mean. I promise, yeah. I promise, and yeah, that's not what they mean. Um the is dope that you asked that. The the the interesting thing about the gym, bro, and working out now. Uh I would say it is something that I've done over time, but for the past year, or I'll say for this year so far, I've been taking it, yeah, very, very as a part of my day. Oh, the 145 is every day. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:27

All right, let's move forward. Yeah, he said, he said, let's keep he said he's embarrassing. He said, That's not for me. That's not for you. Um you're taking it seriously, start my day.

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

Obviously, there's times when you have something to do. I like I ain't go to the gym today. I'll probably go later if I could make. I don't love to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 27:44

Yeah, you sure? Well, let me go. No.

SPEAKER_00: 27:47

I think I'm busy after. Something just come up. I see you doing that. Let's make it. I see where they're going and go.

SPEAKER_02: 27:57

So I can't what you doing, man. I can't even tell you what I want to tell you. I want to hear.

SPEAKER_01: 28:03

I want to hear it become, it literally become a part of like my my daily structure. I don't like to I don't like to work out in the evening. I work out in the evening more if I like traveling. But I like to start my day there. Be walking back home, the sun coming up, the gym closer where I is, you know. I mean, it it feels easy. And I used to be in cadets as a youth now. Oh, seriously. So the reality of it for me is when I left my job a couple years ago, because I I was working up until what? I think I left my job two or three years ago. Oh, seriously. Yeah, I I was on tour without without working. Oh nice. Yeah, like working in in a hospital. So when I left work, I needed something to add structure to my day. I needed something that was tied to discipline that could actually get me going to then be like, okay, cool. If I start here, I have a session here, I have this here, I have that here, and it just become this part of my life. Yeah. And I think even on a on a note of if I think about purpose, because I always try to think about what is the what is the piece of myself I could give to somebody else too. The the the the truth about that is I also are artists and creative people and people who do similar things to me and our work. We have to remember we had to take care of ourselves. We have to we we we live in like this life where we you might smoke, you might drink, you're not resting as much because we're trying to put work in. The the reality is with all that in mind, we had to be able to be here to even enjoy whatever. Comrades, and I and I hope that what my peers or people see from that is we could guide it in the same way.

SPEAKER_00: 30:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:10

Lesson for the hours good, Chief. That's an hour a day.

SPEAKER_00: 30:19

How long a week? Hour a day. There's a lot. I don't know. Let's move. Let's advance this conversation. David, I learned a spell from this man, you know. So your name yet G Y M M Y, right, Jimmy? So let me talk about the early days now. The first thing I always wonder is Jimmy October. Where did the name come from?

SPEAKER_01: 30:40

How long we have here? We have whole days. We have whole days. Yeah, this is I get this question a lot, and I'm glad that I could answer it on a platform like this because I can't answer it every time somebody asks me. Um so much people ask. Yeah, I think it comes from a few things. I'll give you some one, I was born in October. I was born in the 9th of October, and I always I always resonated with being a Libera, and I always felt connected to it. I feel like I'm a very balanced person. I try to be and I always perfect. But so I always wanted like the October thing was always something I felt connected to. When I used to rap when I was younger, I had a song called Jimmy. I wrote a song called Jimmy about this very simple guy. Me, it was me, Nick Sol, and Romey. That was I was making music with them very much at that time. And the song was about a very simple guy. I'm a boring person outside of music, I promise you. The song was about somebody who your superpower was was was trying to make music the most important thing. It was the most important thing in your life, and there was I the song was written about this trajectory of becoming Jimmy. And where that came from was you ever watched Eight Mile? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eminem. So Eminem's name in the show, his rap name, I think, was what it was the Rabbit. Rabbit. Right? His real name in the show was Jimmy. And I resonated with it because I from Grand Lyas a simple fella. Simple childhood, simple life, no no money, and come from nothing of that sort. And I resonated with the fact that Eminem's superpower in that show was his talent. It wasn't anything else. He didn't have anything else. And I always felt like that was my my superpower, was what I could do. It wasn't I have this, it wasn't I could get it, it wasn't that. It was this is the thing that was tied to what I feel is my purpose. And I felt like that's what all Eminem had was drive in that show, you know. Like drive. He didn't have anything else to give you. He could open his mouth and when the switch hit. When the switch hit, it hit. And and I and I and I I resonated with that. And I also on Kanye had this album and he had a skit called Lil Jimmy. And early in like my rap career, I connected a lot with that project. That song, that album, and I felt, I just felt like I was called to put Jimmy in front of October. I see. And it was it was kind of random, but I was just like, This is this is my super human element. Because my like, I mean, my real name is Lashawn. I'll say that here. I don't really tell people that. But my real name is Lashawn, and I felt like I really exist in this duality because Lashawn could be very, very, very different from Jimmy October. Lashon, yeah, Lashon. I know people might people look at Jimmy October as like this confident. Yeah. Yeah, Lashawn just taking it easy.

SPEAKER_03: 34:20

Yeah, different sonna.

SPEAKER_01: 34:21

Yeah, I I'm very confident about what I feel like I'm I'm here on earth to do, and that coming from God, and maybe that's where the confidence comes from in that regard. But outside of that, it's just a simple man. Alright.

SPEAKER_00: 34:37

And that's where the Alright, we go make this into something so you know to tell this story again, right? You go box it up nice, you go put a little bow on the top of that, and so everybody knows Jimmy October. It's part of the mystery. So when we talk yesterday, he asked me, well, what's the first time you come into contact with Jimmy October? Tell me. I'll tell you, the first time I heard your name and saw you, I saw what you just described. That confidence on that to the point where I was like, what the hell is Jimmy October's song? And something about it is grip you. It's like you want to know more when you hear Jimmy October. Blast. And then like, how this man's so confident? I never heard about this man before. We and I was I late to every party, so I always assume people know and I don't know. And it was a performance somewhere in St. Vincent's Street for Guardian. I believe Kes had a show on the street. I don't know if it was COVID or something, or it was. It was COVID. It was COVID, yeah. And I heard the name Jimmy October. That was the first time I came across here. But when I heard the name, I remember when I saw you the first time. It wasn't a show in the complex. Okay. With Bounty Killer Idonia and all of that. Folly load. You remember that? Hoppy. Oh shit. Hoppy. We can't get rid of the hobby. We can't get rid of the hoppy. Yeah. It's true. So that's so that time I saw y'all on stage. That would have been with um Brave Boy and Never. So I saw it then, and I say, But only hold it. Let me put it like that, right? I'll get back to that. But then I see you announced, and they say, Welcome into the stage, Jimmy October. And it feels like you sort of walk to the stage from the Savannah. Yeah. You just taking your time. I was like, Who's this man? I was like, who he? You just taking your time coming down cool. And it's almost like, you know, when you see a force, you just had a watch. You just had it. It's so because Kess is Kesses who he is, you know, and you never seemed hustled, shaken, bothered, or any of it. So a part of that is your own confidence going on stage. You remember this? Of course. I remember it clearly. So what you was just cool.

SPEAKER_01: 36:32

That was a moment for me too, bro. I see, I see. Yeah, that was uh that was that particular. I think I was very much realizing too at that time, like, okay, cool. I really kind of doing this thing. You know what I mean? And and just trying to be me, you know. Just take moving with the vibes, moving with the energy. Uh, I I love I love performing with Kesson Liban. Yeah, them fellas is real, real human beings, and I really appreciate working with them and too. So, yeah, it was it was easy.

SPEAKER_00: 37:05

Yeah, easy, yeah. Look easy. It always reminded me of a time I was graduating from you. And I remember one girl who um random girl she on campus, bright, everybody bright, you're graduating. And at that time, there's a certain amount of a stage bring a certain amount of nerves, for me at least. And no minus hundreds of people crossing the stage. The thing that you're calling my name and as you center attention, I nervous. And I always remember the girl in front of me. When they said her name, she takes what looked like the most deep breath I ever see in my life. She just takes a huge breath and then walk across the stage real slow. So now I nervous like, hell, because I was like this moment, I just want you to get this thing done. And she takes it. Take her time and she walks. Yeah, and I it I always had a parallel in my mind with those two moments. What made that moment special for you if you say something that's slow to you? It's just the recognition that it there.

SPEAKER_01: 37:55

I feel you have moments. You have moments when you want to make the best of the opportunity that's given to you, right? I feel I think one of those moments was definitely being able to make magic with like make that song with Kess. And in that particular that time capsule, yeah, bro. I I just trying to give my best, give my all, and and and ensure that when I show up, you know, it's me. You know, the way you have an idea of, oh, this is who Jimmy is, and this is this is what he brings to this space. There's something about whether it be identity, whether it be sonically, what you like, you like what you hear. And I feel like for me, maybe the moment of walking into that space to perform, maybe it wasn't where it was for you seeing it from afar. You probably more like, oh, this is uh is a spectacle to you. To me, I just kind of trying to make sure I do crack.

SPEAKER_02: 39:01

No, like focus for me.

SPEAKER_01: 39:02

I focused on it. All right, let me try to deliver. I have I have five minutes here with one of the one of the best bands in the country. Do a good job. And I have to do a good job, and I have to represent myself, I have to represent Grandi and where I come from, I have to represent people who in the younger space, music, yeah, have to like hold all of these things together to create a moment. And that's probably all it is for me. I know even looking at myself the way you of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:36

But the parallel to Jimmy and in MM is is so is so similar, you know? Yeah, but it left an impression because I know if Kess called me, I come in, I come in. It's a no sound we release. Hey we I So we done on magic already, like now. How did it come about? How did that collaboration get in?

SPEAKER_01: 40:00

So we was doing I knew Kess for a little bit, but more so just to see him heal him. If anybody knows, Kess is a genuine fella, like across the board. No artist, like across the board, he's a genuine human. Right. Um, so we would we would cross parts sometimes. Uh and I was I was still rapping when we when we when we probably crossed parts the first time. Um I think when I made vacation in 2017, I remember going on my phone and seeing Kesley Barn official just followed you. And I saw there was a few other artists. Like I was like, oh, what happened here? I was like, something was happening. I felt maybe because the music was now closer to sonically a home space, and it was something fresh, something like Kess always told me. He was like, you have a fresh approach to Calypso, and that's where really where we connected because Kes comes from also a background of making different genres of music, which is something that there's a there's a parallel there, something that I really respected. And we just see each other eye to eye in that space of being like, okay, cool. We click there now. Right. So we was doing some writing sessions. So we there there's there's there's work that we wrote. Uh we wrote me, him, Kalpy, we wrote um close to me for him and Shansea, Kesson Shansea. So we were we were just doing sessions. I was as a songwriter, that was more what was happening. And there was a day, he called me, he was like, yo, we are wrong. I was in town. I was like, yeah, yeah, you know, this location, you know, he picked me up and he was like, I have the song now. And I was like, all right, cool, we could go and finish it. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, and I just thinking we go in and write. I just thinking as a writer, because you have an idea, and I can't remember exactly the trajectory of it, but he had the line, they had the line, it's the new calypso, right? And I believe it was probably him and full blown, because they wrote on this song too. But they had that line and maybe two other lines, and he was just like, New Calypso is you, and he was like, I know just where to finish writing this song. We have to do this song together. Which is something that I had I was like, What? Oh, this is this is what five years ago, and that's only five years ago. I was I was 25 or 24, 20, 25. So for me, working grandiose, yeah, you know what I mean? I had work in the morning, brother. You know what I mean? Kestone, I have work in the morning, my G for six. Yeah, son. That was the reality. So for me, I messaged my mother to tell her what Kes wanna make a song with me. Okay, that at that age, that's not real. Like, like, it's not it's not real as like a youth man coming from Grand Lee. It almost is imaginary, and him being like, Yeah, we have these, this is what we have so far. I need you, and this because this is the energy of New Calypso, and even him, because he could have probably done the song by himself as well. It's a very short that's what I was gonna say. Even with the words New Calypso being in it, and him being Adam and to be like, as Jimmy, and Jimmy had to be on this record, and that's what I mean when I say by real human, he he's he's a G. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's somebody that shares light and shares space. And when he said, I remember being uh I remember being so anxious about it because I know that I was entering because of his light, I'm entering a mainstream space with a song like that. Right. And I remember having in my mind feeling like, yeah, but bro, this is not so, you know. People would say it not feeling like this.

SPEAKER_00: 44:21

Also, when you make it, you had that in mind, and it's done.

SPEAKER_01: 44:23

I won't I remember wanting to change my verse and I tell him I was like, you know, I feel like I was singing too much, and he was like, bro, the song done. He was like, bro, we made a masterpiece. He said, I promise you. And season coming, it coming close. They're already teasing the instrumentals and the ad for the rhythm of life. He made it such a big thing in the moment that he was in. And I was like, You're right. I was like, You're right. Again, one, you know better than me. And he was like, the people will feel the energy that we put into. He said, You don't have to worry about anything. And so said, So done. The way that that song resonated blew my mind, and yeah, bro, very, very, very grateful and appreciative of being embraced like that, and being able for me to be able to take a back seat and be like, allow this to do what it needs to do now. You know what I mean? So that was uh one of those very defining moments in my career, too.

SPEAKER_00: 45:38

Yeah, it wasn't just embraced by Kess on the ban, it was embraced by the Trinidad Adams and Nego. It is it's a staple, it's a classic, it'll be played forever and ever and ever. You know, thank you. It's one of those things. So in your early life, you you know music is what you're gonna pursue. I know I know what poetry is where your moment are started off rewriting, but music is on your mind?

SPEAKER_01: 45:58

Yeah, I would say music is the first thing I fell in love with in my life. Parents and the music and thing, where do you? My mother is a poet. I see. So my mother would write books and books of poetry. Like my mother would write a lot of poetry on her phone and her notepad and all that. Like, so the the that fundamental, that part of writing, that was the first that was like, I know I want to write, and I knew I wanted to sing. It's only like what age you talking about now. I I'm even gonna like one. Serious, as early as you can remember. There's a old bro, there's an old picture of me beating a Clinton. Like as a chubby we get that to play.

SPEAKER_00: 46:44

We can put that in as a um Clinton this morning, just man, it's all we know is that Clinton.

SPEAKER_01: 46:52

Bro, the the the the truth is now my my mother loves music, yeah. She she would be singing any house whole day, playing music, whole day I grew up with that. My father loved the singing too. He'd be walking on the street whistling and singing. Uh, my neighbor ma by my mother always reminds me that ma she always reminds me, you know, yeah you're just like your father. They remember so much. I look just like my dad and the mannerisms. So music was very rooted in that way. But in primary, I started writing songs in primary school. Yeah. What school was that? I went Sangigrandi Government Primary School, very close to where I live. And it would be me at that time, me and Nicholas Subero. I would be in my the computer in my mother room. I would be making, I started making beats early too. So we would be in there literally, whatever time we get to use the computer because it has a time. It's a lock of time. It have a lock of time, big brother. Right? And we would utilize that just to make music really, really innocent, literally, just love something for the if that that reality of just wanting to create, you know. So anytime to do it, you're doing it. You're doing it. I don't mind if it's good, it's good, if it ain't good, it ain't good. But that's something I fell in love with. And I think music allows me to realize that my true love is creating things, creating and expressing the things that within me and bringing that into the reality. It takes different forms now. Now I could say I could creative direct something, now I could style a shoot. Now I could I could build a mood board, now I could do those things, but the root of all that is music, and it's because I see colour when I hear sound.

SPEAKER_00: 48:52

Yeah, somebody was here talking about that actually.

SPEAKER_01: 48:55

Yeah, that's the real it it it literally tied to my mood now. So when I build an even a project, I look in sometimes I look in at a constant image. The same image I tell you was actually the and I could show you, I could give you an idea of what I look like from other stuff that I have in my phone. You see this 2025, you see the palm tree, right? That's in my so these are that's the way that I will see this. This was the first image for Bam Bam. I like it. This is just an image, this is a image I saw online while I was listening to the beat. I pull up the image and I want to describe what I'm seeing there. That is what I mean. I won't suppose I'll listen back to it now, but yeah, with you. That's what I mean. It's a full wheel building experience for me, is not just well, I want to make a song. Yeah, yeah, to catch a hit for the next carnaval.

SPEAKER_00: 50:04

It's not that and at and as early as you remember, you would visualize things in this way.

SPEAKER_01: 50:10

Yeah. It's interesting, and and and I mean, now as an adult, I piece it, I could piece it back together of why things made sense to me. You probably wouldn't know that you can't, you don't know how to say it. Yeah, the parent support on somebody too. Yeah, you wanted the the No My Mot is an academic, she's a bright lady when convention make sure you get them subjects, better. I see. First priority, I with you, you know. I wit you, I know you love where you're doing. I love that for you too. I want it, keep doing it, but do ever she didn't want me to lose focus. Uh the reality is, especially where we're coming from. It ain't how no if you ain't get it, yeah. Where you go if you do get it where you go for it. Of course, how would you be able to provide for yourself? You would not be able to. And I just always say, I get my subjects for my mother, is not for me. I know I had to do XYZ. I wanna make you proud. I want to be a way to know we here, we here with you. And I never stopped pursuing music. I never like I continued at the same time working on what I had to do. I get a job. I was leaving sometimes when I when I work, and I always used to make a big deal about it, they'll call me Jimmy in the hospital. Great, yeah. No, but because and and sometimes it used to be for them maybe surreal because it's like, but by the time we get to magic, it was like kept snuff. So what we talking about? You can't hide now. You know what I mean? You can't hide now. So you go tell me, but I used to function very much should LaShawnee man. Yeah, okay, yes, boss. So what do you used to do? That was in first time receptionist, I think. So I it wasn't my first job. I I got a job straight out of straight out of high school. I was working on West Sport. Okay. Remember West Sports and stuff like that? Now that Jesus Yeah, we we we um it was it was kind of interesting, just the trajectory of life. My mom, my mom had got a divorce around the time my great great-grandmother had passed, like that. It was it was a lot going on. So we me and my brother had to you finish school, you had to get a job because you had a my mom wasn't working at it. We had to like get feel, you had a whole, you learn, you know what I mean, responsibilities at a higher level, straight out of it, which is which is good for you. And that is how it went. So from since then, I just kind of knew all right, cool, this is how you're gonna take care of yourself. I get a different job. I was working, I was an OJT at a point in time. And then I got the I was I uh I ended up working at the hospital and I worked there for probably nine, ten years or I think for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and I literally had to take the first the first time when I was approached to go on tour with Kess in the US. I did South by South. Was that yeah? And me and the team was just billing out what would the year look like. And the year didn't start to look like work. The year did not start to look like like the hospital. It looked like a resignation. Yeah, so what I did again, the mother that tell her, she said, Here we're going on. You go how to take no pay leave, you know. You go how to take no pay leave, and you'll have to figure out if you could just being smart, if you could survive and that music, then you could make your decision based on that. And I mean, I wasn't sure if I could have survived, I ain't gonna lie to tell you because you're living out you're out. I was I outside for the majority of the year. And I and that year, don't know till you know, you don't really know you are using this credit, you come back home, you had to put our money back, you just most people just buy one belt.

SPEAKER_00: 54:27

Your expenses up, your expenses up your expenses up you're trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02: 54:40

What's up? Let's take that from here. Too late, too late.

SPEAKER_01: 54:47

Nobody's changed. You're trying to figure it, and there was so much people. I remember people telling me for so long, you had to leave that job because you know where you're entering. And for me, bro, I was just like, you know what? Let me take my time and really figure out how I could move into this. Because I'm not dependent on I not depending on my mother for a dollar. I not the my father, not our my father died. Um I not that's not the head space. I am in a space where I need to I need to take care of myself. So I came back home from what maybe was what the second tour, I think. And me and my brother was talking, he said, but you all know, because I used to work shift. He was like, Well no, you're walking along that roadie. I also walk in too sometimes. He said, You've vexed your house 10 o'clock, yeah. And it came to my mind, I was like, that going on start back just now. Because I was back home and I was going back out to work. And something tell me, I was like, the reality of this situation is this is a decision that you had to make. And if you make the decision to go back to work, it means that you don't believe in yourself, and you had to live with that decision because you're making a decision to go back to work, which means that you committing to that, you're not committing to this. And that is when I was like, I literally pick the phone up and I call HR I say, ah but I think I reached the I think I reached the road. You know? And I just make the decision and I and I and I did a video too um talking about it in a hotel away. And I was talking about the fact that you know I quit my job to to be a full-time creative, to be a full-time creator of things. And I still hear by the grace of God.

SPEAKER_00: 56:59

So yeah, but someone didn't mean to call and say, hey, this Jimmy October. It's a Jimmy here. Everybody had a dream about getting through in the career again and hit some winning the lottery and calling and cussing up the boss and taking it.

SPEAKER_01: 57:16

Watch on. I was telling my cousin this the other day. Because I don't a lot of things I don't really talk about sometimes too. You know, things hard. You know, if something hard, I tell him, I say, I remember I on tour, I think it was 2023. I went on a tour with Ruger, um, Nigerian artist, big up, big up Ruger, um, huge huge huge huge Nigerian artist. And that same year I went on tour with him, and I went on tour with Kes the same year. Um US US tour, a lot of dates, yeah, a lot of planes, sometimes driving, um, big up demon, big up rich, big up everyone. Like it was it was intense. And I was telling her, telling her, say, girl, it's at times I I they maybe now come from and you're my Instagram is Instagram, you know. I had to post a picture to show you do your work today. You know what I mean? But I tell her at night I call my mother, I cry, and I'm like, I don't know why I do in this form, I mean, I just like I because there's so much things they're dealing with, the pressure of the job, not having that, you might you're thinking you're going and pull away from that, you're pulling away from it, that's gone. The month and money gone. The money that you're sure about, which is how much, but you're sure about it. It's better than zero. You're telling yourself, and I mean, the the the other thing was at that time my mom's my mom, she couldn't work for a year. And she couldn't work for the year that I was on road. Oh, yeah, you want to be there. I had to ask her if I I that and she was like, Well, you being here, not gonna stop this. So the reality is you had to do what you had to do, you know what I mean? But all those emotions, you still had a you still had to give a show out there, you had to feel the emotions when you feel it. And yeah, it are times like I like I just like and she had sent more message at time being like new level, and this is the new thing that you had to deal with. And the reality is you prepare yourself for that, you work for that, don't let anything stop you from where your journey is, and yeah, it's like yeah, that's where it's the ground, then you know, it's the ground, and sometimes to really remind you, yeah. For sure. This is why this is why I still here, this is why I still doing this, this attached to purpose. Yeah, I think I drink to mothers, huh? No, real. Yeah, exactly. My mother is also a fan of the show.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:00

We're cutting out some other things to say and splice it into. We're gonna make a little drama here. What we're here for. I appreciate that. I appreciate that she's a fan. But it's something I always talk to people about here. Where because um I saw, yeah, I don't know if you saw Bungie interview recently with Irish Unchin, where he was talking about the life of an artist. He and Feyano's on the show in New York? Yeah. Dred, when that man says that, I I it resonates with me. I don't know how it resonates with people who do what you do and take a chance on themselves to do creative work. But that man says, first thing first, doctor lawyer, next this, this, next, yeah. I think he must call working in hospital to professional things. And then he said if none of them things work out, yeah, real. But that's the truth. You feel that way.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:47

You're either it called you're either making a decision or you're not making a decision. And that's the real. If you're making a decision, if I decide I want to be a basketballer, I can't go any football feeler. You might be able to learn something, yeah. But the sport you in will require you to exercise what the muscle is to do this. Now, if you choose to be, if I choose to be a doctor, that's a decision I made and I need to follow suit. So our profession is not really it kind of frowned upon sometimes. Your parents, you tell your mother, you want to do this. So how you going and really, you know, it has like successful, it has successful people in music. Your mother and father still don't really know what you're just doing. You could have a you have a big song. She said, Well, how would each day though? Yeah, of course. And the pain ain't what? It's a valid question. The pain ain't what seeing you you're driving a car, me and sure. The pain you real, that's the reason. They want they don't really. It's also love.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:02

They're concerned. They don't want us know you do it, you're gonna do well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:05

But it's because you love something, and you now have to find a way to make a living from the thing that you love.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:16

Yeah, every book you read tells you if you could find that intersection, you're gonna be happy in life regardless of what material things you get or whatever. Because you're talking about some of the downsides of Taurin. Yeah. Which, if you talk to a doctor or con anybody following their passion could tell you about the downsides of whatever it is, and you had to live with it. And you you talk about new calypso. Remember mommy coming from a time where she sees Calypsoans get older. You understand what I mean? And they're so old. It's some of them who they get older and they're not doing well. I've seen it many, many times. Some people who I call giants and greats and things had had to pass to bury them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:54

Do you do you think we didn't and when I say we are not talking about you and me, obviously, but you think we didn't protect them as a culture? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:03

I think we fail at that miserably. It's one of the reasons I'm doing this now. And one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you. I excited to talk to people like you because I feel like we have, like I say all the time here, Edrid, we are the grown-ups. It's not nobody else to blame. We had to see about mommy and them now. You know what I mean? Somehow or the other, I end up being an adult. I don't know when it happened. But an adulting is a scam.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:26

It's a scam, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:27

We can't tell him what it's a whole episode going on the door now. But yeah, what they don't tell him about adults, right? You had a scene now, you reached this age where you had to see about the children and the the what we used to call the advance a man twice a child. That's how it is, brother. And the once a man is a heavy load, you learn. You learn, and I learn in it now. We're watching your parents when you watch pictures of your parents when they when they're young, the picture looks old, but them fresh and young. Yeah, but them looking when you watch them good now, it's a different person. You see, and what we you see when you see our parents now is what we used to call old people when we were young. 100%. It's happened fast, yeah, it's happened gradually, so you don't notice it, but one day it's just watch them and it's like, what going on? So that's why I always encourage by talking to people like yourself who are willing to take some of the risks to take it and take a different stand as artist. Because when you ask me if we fail them, the answer is yes. It's no reason the first to should have buried the way you bury. What the first to do for this country? Yeah, could never outweigh in my mind when no doctor, no lawyer, no politician, no engineer. But I feel it's in his first to clapping as a man drinking and all I can't do with that. I guess that's not sure how it is. I thought the first to come back to my balance, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:41

Because as a as a nation, too, bro, we we could hold up people and and and and and does something even not just older people. There's people in my time of my career that I see do some work that if I now I they probably don't even feel appreciated for the work that they do. And that's why I was always saying I was telling men, I was like, always lift up people, always say a man's name. That's why I hear for always because you have to. I was a youth man. I remember getting a mixtape from Chromatics against the green as a young rapper, Highway Records. I remember messaging Matics on Facebook, being like, yo, just tell me where the studio is. Come here. Easy because and it's because I was a switch went off in my head when I realized that that was possible. And if he didn't do what he does, the switch might not have gone off.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:46

Yeah, and let's hope that I mean he's different. And that's why I like talking to our generation. He's different. He he taking the the business, and that was how I appreciated Bungie for saying what he's saying. So it's not fun, it's not thing, it's it's creative, is your passion, is all those things real standards real with. Yeah, I appreciated him for saying I appreciate him for taking any chances you took too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:11

So I saw I saw Bungie in New York like three weeks ago, and he actually told me about I was leaving events he was there. We just reasoned for our five, and he told me about um an interview. He was, I think it's that same interview in New York. He was telling me, he's like, Yo, you had to go and talk to this person, I'll organise it. So that's good if you're back because and we were talking about the fact that we don't tell our stories and it's a little bit a part of our culture because if I tell you about my experience with somebody, you the person mightn't always understand my perspective. So we just kind of talk a story, right? And but when we do that, we're not giving the people a perspective of what actually is taking place on our journey as musicians, journey as of course our journey is any work that we do, and or some of the things our parents sacrifice for us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:10

When you're talking about mommy making big sacrifices, and it's real, you know how I see it sometimes as if when you tell a story like that, I feel like it creates space for mother now who child wants to do creative things at three years old, yes, and she's frightened, she you're right to be frightened. She don't know, you must be frightened. Yeah, but you could see where hey this person could it's a real work. I like how you put it out. Yeah, it's real work, real work, bro. So you gonna leave the good, good government work, right? So let me go back to Trinidad. You leave a good government salary going. It's the belly, love that it's the belly, you leave in a stable income. I'm telling you why. You see, David go put me out. But C pep was a stable walk the other day, but we don't talk about that. We're gonna edit that part out, right? So it was a stable walk for thousands of people just recently. But what's a stable job? We had to try it. I appreciate people for coming and telling these stories because of that. And part of what I do in terms of my own strategy is why is the way if people call people names in a certain way here? I just recorded them before about the episode, so they don't know what Jimmy says about them. No, just keep it pushing, keep it going forward. I mean, no way. Let me go back to your story now because you go carry me down the road and somebody that the whole day no, usually take your time. No, we listen. This you're talking about things that are close to this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:29

This man, what he does usually drink and leave my red wine.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:32

Next time, book this man nine. Let me start an hour early. So let me go back to the early days of poetry. Now you see mommy doing poetry and writing and so when you start writing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:44

I start what yeah that was. I think I was like 17, 18, maybe. Okay. In terms of formulate, like formulating spoken word in this way, and I always credit two people for apart aside from the writing aspect of it, the delivery aspect of it uh comes from uh a poet by the name of Saul Williams and Mohammed Muakel, who we know from Freetown now. Right. There was there was something about the strength in delivery from Mohammed. I was like, okay, I need to learn how to do this. I could write something long on a sheet of paper, and the way in which I speak, again, my mother, you ought to speak proper, articulate yourself, and be able to make sure people hear and what you're saying. Don't talk direct in the woman class because they know your friend. Real, as simple as you're telling me, I like it. I'm a mother. And I went to primary school for a little bit, uh, kind of back and forth in London, and had a Chinese teacher, not just an English lady, a Chinese teacher. So the way in which I speak now has a lot to do with the background of that. So I would speak clear, I would try to speak proper English. Right. I also have a lisp, if you can't hear. I fighting with some things here. Right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:13

It's a cold word. Right? So, and it was what it was bad. It was a real bad.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:19

I fighting with some things, so I had to make sure that I speak clear. Sure. So when I started writing poetry, Mohammed helped me, not in I he was it was from a distance at the time. Yeah, he helped me figure out how do I bring dialect into my delivery. Because all the other poets that I might have been looking at me have not been doing that. Um big up Skeet O2, Kyle. He was one of the other people I was looking at. Um I was writing this piece, big up Vishall. I was writing this piece for the Live concert. You remember the Live Concert? As Vishall Vasp. Yeah. As a youth, I was writing this piece, and I can't even remember where I get on to Vishall. I can't even remember exactly how, but I reached out to him and I was like, yo, I working on this piece based on the situation. You know, I know you're all working on this. I wanted to bring this forward. And I sent it to him, and he was like, I now play this for Marshall Montano, I now play this for bigger um Chow. I now play this. And he was like, it looking like we were here to be a part of the show. And this is I probably 17 years old, to be honest with you. And carry my mom to the event. I perform um laundry, bring my one because he makes a big, he's like, nah, I have I have to introduce this man, think thing, thing. And the reality is I think at that point was when Jimmy October, because I have a video of him, he introduced me as well. I see. Right? I wasn't Jimmy October yet, because I wasn't in that like bag yet. I was more making rap. So me, fat dog, bigger fat dog from Grandy, Nick, my brother. We more nuts. We now just making rap. Sure. And I was trying to find a way to take that into something else at that time. So they live concert, went from there. That's where I meet like free town, class. I started to be more in the space. And after that, we we went into something called the Free Speech Project. If anybody remember the free speech project that was uh in it was on 961. Change everything, I think. BFM, you know, all the stations. And that was when I had changed my name. Because Choward called you was like, Where you want to go as on this? And I was like, Well, I definitely not go in as LaShawn because I don't really want I don't want to mix up my life later. And my name was Mike at the time as a microphone. I got it. Because that's why everybody used to call me in my neighborhood because I just talk a lot, sing a lot, and I'm very loud. Right? So they literally my nickname is Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, now is the time. So we do the free speech project, poetry moving. I changed my name to Jimmy October. So it used to go in the spotlight, Jimmy October. Song and gonna say up. Right? So from the free speech too, after performing in the love concert, that is how I was able to. I would have opened the year Marshall had. No, no, no. So that was before. I would have we would have put poetry in Marshall Monday in different slots where Marshall was organizing the show. Yeah, it's in salute. And I think I was before Happiest Man Alive or something. And that was just those things were just these moments. Obviously, I young those moments coming and going. I talking to Marshall on Twitter, like those moments just move in in this way. Of course. And the year that he had on my way, I remember um Mustafa, the poet, was who was in the video, and he couldn't make it to Trinidad at the time, I think. And I remember Che calling me being like, yo, you know, I'd send him a piece that I had for On My Way. And he was like, you know, Marshall, were you to do it? And I was like, I'd say this. Here you go in. And that I think from that point was when I was kinda really being like, you know what, I feel like I feel real purpose in this thing. And I and that's when I really start. From after that was when I made this song called Gossip, which was rap, rap song. And I that's when I was like, yeah, I really I really end this thing. Like Jimmy October is here. I want to take this thing seriously as a career and see how it how it moves.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:35

And well, before you go on from that, I want to go into them three moments. So you're going and do that in a show. I would say that at that time is not common, right? To do spoken word in front of an audience like that. If people remember what a live concert was, and maybe what?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:51

Not even that's not a poetry thing. No, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:54

People had bad like mine. So what is it like you going also in stage to approach that? And what's your response like?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:02

I think for the live concert, I didn't have any. I was just nervous. And I kind of couldn't believe I was talking to believe you're talking to Marshall Montano at 18. I couldn't really believe, I couldn't really believe I was talking to these people that I was seeing on a screen on a phone for my whole life. Of course. Um I was just happy to be there. And all people responding, people Yeah, bro. People people's response was like that you man bad, but he fucking had like that is where it was. Which is not a common response to smoking. And I think that is where the light probably went off in all our heads that the free speech project could be a thing because we realized oh, we have a space to bring some positivity and conversation into the fold that wasn't common. No. And if you know me, I like to make the uncommon. Like, yeah, get with like this the this way it is. There's no going with. Um, which is a risk, and it takes a lot, you know. I mean, it takes for sure, for sure. Um, but yeah, I I I don't think there was much, I don't want I don't think there was much thought going into the response or the just doing something, bringing something to the table that I love to do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:35

So good. Let me give you fine perspective, right? Since you wasn't studying it. I'll tell you from all sides, like again, at my age group, I crossroads. Because I see a lot of the people who came before, and I see what you're all doing now. And I I feel I'm at the center of that disconnect now, where people could call me to say, This is Calypso or not Calypso, and people could sit here with me and say, hey, why doing is why doing? Right. And when I grow up and watch people like Paul King Douglas do what they did in spaces like y'all do now or have done then, so much of it, there's just a familiarity to it that almost make me realize, wait no, we used to do this all the time. Yeah. But but I'm not sure what happened. Or I guess when we were young, we was a little rebellious sooner. Because the truth is, our generation, when we were teenagers, we we was trying to hear dance hall or dub at the time. We still are, yeah, I guess. And to me, I don't feel I don't know if anything is wrong with it. Yeah, youths had to do what youth is do, it's just what it is. And we must accept that when I guess the problem is is you don't realize when you're not young again, you know, and and they have a fresh batch of youths coming out. When you're going to school and you're doing, you're doing you, you had to create what's coming next. You you focus on that. So it was so reminiscent of that. And talking about not just the the performance at Live or the ones at Marshall will talk about, but just the whole idea of that movement that came through. Salute to Ojo was a big at the center of it. Because Dread, at that time in an urban space, that was if anybody had write off now on paper, say 96.1, who we we was there when 96 launched, right? As youth. They say, hey, at some point, Chinese laundry go bring poets and things. We say, Alright. We go say, mm-mm, ain't go work. Nope. Don't stop my music to play nothing games up. Shout out to pop poet. It it's this was running in the different time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:33

All day crazy on YouTube too. We had we were recording pieces and playing them too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:38

Exactly. He was one of the first people to do that too. But it felt for me at my age like, hey, we're back in the game. Yeah, we have we have back the John Agitations and the Paul King's Douglas who spoken part of what our culture is coming from.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:53

I love the um I love the way that you're marrying those things together because it means there's some continuity to it. I was a I was I was a youth man. I remember listening to my mother and her husband at the time. They had like Paul's Keynes Douglas um cassettes and CDs of him live and like recorded. I like I don't even know what that is as the time, but we just listen. We listening to it because that's what they listen to and we there. But when you when you grow up now, you realize, oh I know, I know his son. Yeah, like you realize the all these things connected. You said it in the beginning. We were so why you even doing it 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:44

You you you started with it's real. So Marshall Monday, another beast of our event. Yeah, you got you and Marshall Monday when it was that was at the height of what it was. Crazy. Yeah, crazy. And then you go in and to do a smoking word before what would be one of his biggest songs. Yeah, yeah. What's that like? You studying the moment then? Or I'll tell you the fan side, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:05

I think I've always been a big fan of Marshall's work ethic. The things you could like you could see, you could see passion, you could see, you could see drive, you could see these things that have like you set out to do something. So even in the I remember being, I go in rehearsal. Sometimes I ain't even had to be there. You're just watching in the barn room and you're watching this thing happen. And at that time, too, I like, yeah, I had a I had to learn how to do that way. Like I had to learn how to put everything into what I doing. And that's what I was doing at that time. Just learning on the bench. Yeah, absorbing. I know even sometimes I making sure that I come to do what I do to the best of my ability so that you see me, but I also absorb in what are the things that I could learn from what this man is doing here. And at a young age, too, you're just like, you just again, you're just like moving through it. Yeah. You're making mistakes, you're learning, you're listening, you're seeing, you're like, alright, cool. Alright, this is not, I want to do this, and I think in a very, very innocent way. Right. It's not them days. I don't even probably know what the word anxiety means. You could think like we didn't grow up with that word at all. We didn't grow up being anxiety. I didn't grow up. I I was feeling something. Just based on me thinking about what my personality was.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:48

And we only had two diagnoses, and we said slow and hyper. Is I did slow. And watch on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:55

I was hyper in the class and slow in the book. So I was the both of them. You know what I'm saying? So you know, mommy dealing. You know, mommy dealing with me. Salute to mommy. I like that. I like that. She said, but you not paying attention, mommy. Let me get you something to make you pay attention. What are you doing when Miss Talking, brother? I tell a rich and my joke. Sometimes I tell it at a point in time, Miss Hercules walk into the class and she let me know, hey, when I come in, I would like to see you walking out. Yeah. Because you only talking in my class, brother. I put you to sit on my Joshua, you're talking, I pay you to sit on my Marcus, you're talking, I pay you to sit on. You come and sit on by me asking me something too, boy. What to you, boy? I just had so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A ball of energy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:49

Imagine that little quick come out now. You're gonna make me say a whole day twin because I find, right? We should have a special thing. Every teacher who finds of a child who's talking too much in our culture, we must identify that child and send that child to spaces. Because talking is a big part of our culture. You say it in beginning, talking is sky, so talking is calypso, talking is a big part of what we do. No much of them tell me I talk too much in school. Alright, don't every walk it out with talking. Come on, and what's the lecture? Alright, don't go on. You know what I mean? So I wait until interview some teachers here who tell me that to thank them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:23

I went back to schools to do talks and things and big auditorium and thing. And Miss Ridey, who was telling me to hush my ass. Yeah, and I tell them children, get them tongues sometimes and talk. No real get them tonda sometime. What happened? She go beat your father? Yeah, take the lexics. Take the likes. Because it might one day, it might make sense. Oh god, don't get them too much trouble. Yeah, it's a problem.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:52

Jimmy said get real trouble in school.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:53

I used to, but I used to I used to talk a lot. I had a lot to express. Well, I think that is what it was.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:59

Well, I mean, before we move on from that, the truth is that anybody who has a lot to express can tell you how frustrating it is when you tell us to keep quiet. Yeah. It creates more problems, right? We're gonna leave that at that for any therapists come back, right? You know what I mean? Kyle the alcohol be the only therapist we have. So going back to that moment, fully loaded again. I too old to be outside. You know what I mean? As a man supposed to be in my bed by nine o'clock. But bounty killer and I don't you and be the man. And Hoppy. You know, it's fully loaded. We come through when he starts fully loaded and thinking me, I'm a regiment, so we had to come out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:30

I didn't know that. I learned that on the podcast that you did with Hoppy. I didn't know that fully loaded was something from the past.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:38

I see, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:39

You must be you yeah, because I thought that that was the first fully loaded. Nah. The artwork was yellow, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which tires me back to where when Hoppy had the yellow car and the yellow death. I wouldn't know that it's true.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:54

Context at the time. I learned that from the podcast. Well, good. So say tell people why they must come and tell the stories, right? Yeah, it's easy for people to think. You will go through it too. Is you will think that everybody knows what you went through. Nah. It's just not true. We were there. So fully loaded actually was a real throwback to what was fully loaded back in the day. So tell me. So old people like myself fully loaded back in the day. Fully loaded, they just used to bring in song systems mostly. Because song system events, like Hoppy was saying in the episode, it started to fade away. It was local clashes, mostly Matsumiller, jugglers, radioactive cell construction. That's where it starts. Then you had people like Mosiah Goldstar, uh, Audio Menace, Judah, and them from South. It started to become a big swell in the song system culture. And Harvard's bass, all them places, salute bazo, was clash. Okay. And song system dance and things. So what you see a Hoppy describing 45 shootouts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is when it started to like it past its peak. Because, I mean, how much money you gonna really spend on dub plates and how much dance you're gonna go to hear the same set of dub plates over and over. So they did it with records, regular records, and that was a little more attractive to guilds because are real heavy stones, you could have sink a boat. It was no money in the dance, no hoppy didn't tell you that part of his story, but it was Mandeville, Manchester, Man United. It was a real man thing. But what Hoppy and Hoppy was always innovative, always. He saw how that was fading and fully loaded as I even towards the Jamaica. They used to do that every year in Montego Bay, Tony Mataron and them control fully loaded. So Hoppy with the bright self again decide we need a fully loaded. Yeah, and it was a song system showcase more than a clash. So what would happen is Mighty Kong might come. The same fellow who interviewed Bungie, and them as Mighty Kong manager, Irish and Chin. Okay, so Mighty Krong might come on here, Stone Love came on here, those Jamaican songs, yeah. And you might have Shaw and them playing on jugglers at the time. They might play a few little things, warm up, and then you have the big thing. Gotcha. Then of it turning to artists. So that is when we hear they when fully loaded, come out, it sells out the day. That day it's selling out. Yeah, Hoppy and them was no joke. Yeah, yeah. Hoppy and them is that crazy. Hoppy and them are control and youth from ever since. That's why the episode is so fascinating. Because to see him now with sports, very, very talking to young people still is is amazing. Very fascinating. So, having said all that, yeah, I come out my bed. Me ain't come out in years. I just as old as fully loaded, so me ain't going nowhere. I live in South at the time, eh? So I call up our brethren, salute to my partner Hinks and I say Hinkson fully loaded the boy. We had a boy because bouncy kill or thing. And here now, we upset. Because when we go in there now, the place ain't ram like how fully loaded used. And if you remember, they had a on the inside the basketball side, uh, basketball court side of the complex, they had a song system thing. Yeah. Inside. Yeah. And all the performed outside. Correct, correct. But the clash thing, I remember um was this man from Juggler's name by Brandon Stryker. It was bad for people who like that, but it was empty. And when in the empty, the real echoey. Yeah. And when you're old, you can't take noise echo late nights is a bad combination. My tism is on all. Might is marking up. I can't take it. But I always remember coming back outside because now you want to see this show. And soon after I came outside, you all had performed. Who you performing then is Brave Boy, and I think that that show would have been me, Brave Boy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:21

Well, Mark Hardy, young rod. And who my one to Jane Aj. I see. Because we were we that was probably very close as well to the time of Something to Believe in, which was an EP that me and Naj made. And him and I is who he is probably between him and my brethren, Darren, RBD, they are probably how I end up more so at Scotch Music. I see. Um Naj and Hoppy, Naj, they they they were cool too. They cool too. And I used to be like, all right, cool when I can fall in. And me and Hoppy, then obviously rapper. We get cool, we would talk a lot about. Music as a nil. You know, unhappy no issues that you want to talk about here. Um it would have been that that that that that that batch, and I think too, even I wanna say this particularly too because I feel like sometimes we do I do like we can we had a call names. Please you see hard, you see hardy, Rod, Enzy people, there's a time, there's a time when it might not been what's happening now a little bit easier than that time, and there's work people trap so if you remember things been building into certain things, yeah. And if if you wasn't a wrong ten years ago, you might know. But it's very, very, very important to put respect on certain people's names because and give people the flowers because people spend time building, bro. It's important, people spend time building, putting energy into the craft, and I can't call everybody's name. Yeah, but we was there. I was right there. I was right there. I see I see where sometimes when you're walking on a stage, a man says, Oh god, because bro, last night I pull up because I was talking to a young brother last night about things that didn't, and I pull up Isa Trini and Richard. And he was like, he's like, This could never be you. Real. He was like, What? Because some people don't connect with dots, you're not gonna be able to. They don't, they my hair wasn't where it is now. I was fucking 20 years old or something. A big difference, but he he was like, Dog, this is an antem. And I didn't need I remember telling Mevon, I was like, Mevon, I don't want to say doubles in no song, man. And he was like, hey, I switch up two things and he said, Yo, you had the grit, you have the energy, do it. So Mavon had poor choices and doubles from since my death. Where you doing me?

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:18

Hey, deal with here, mevon, nine of my business. Don't put me in whatever canal.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:23

Yeah, but no, but I remember just telling him, hey, say less. Right, and you will get it. Press R. Imagine because the bro, the real the reality of anything, even if it wasn't even I in my mind, I wouldn't even get to songs like vacation or songs like without going through that particular trap so era of experiencing because I tell people it wasn't cool outside of soaker to even use slang from Trinidad in music. Yeah, the word I could say now this pretty girl was a Roman Calypso. I could say now more rhythm. I could say now those things. The reality is those things were frowned upon. Yeah, those things were not understood, they were not normal. Yeah, people take hard lash, hardlash and blows, them fellas.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:27

Yeah, nah boy, like not them fellas, you have to say we. Say less. Alright? Say less. Yeah, it's important that you say we. Because I grew up in a time where I was disconnected. Let me ask a man a question who knows something about food, right? David, how important is food's our culture, you think? How important is food is our culture. Crucial. Critical. So when you say music is our culture, our culture is so many things. Putting doubles in our song, we we had to do it. But the truth about it is there was a huge again, maybe maybe when we was young, I feel like a lot of that's gonna disconnect because there was a time when some things were happening and you people used to say it, and then it had a time where it just was and and the truth is I feel like if we had to get more comfortable with the fact that if a man don't know, he just don't know. So I even appreciate you saying you show young brother something, he and know it, that's okay. Yeah, that's alright. You know what's the truth? The world starts when you're born. Yeah, the world start when you're born, and unless we make it cool for people to go back and see what happened before they're born, yeah, before you go blame them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:32

So him not knowing them songs. No, he knows the songs. He just don't know it's you. He couldn't believe the same person.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:40

Well, that's that moment there, and I was like, yeah, and I tell and he made me think I was like the same thing we talked about, he makes me think, why I do I don't like to talk too much about oh god. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:54

Also, I can thank him for you coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, then that will go that will go good. Hey, if you listen this long and you ain't subscribed yet, you're wicked in real life. So, yeah, I was telling about fully loaded and me being out way too late. And the the crowd is not exactly what it used to be for regular fully loaded, right? But I always remember how all they come out there and hold it. So you you you saw the people's reaction to you all at the point in time, like you pay attention to that when you're on stage. Sometimes sometimes you don't be this man don't be watching the crowd.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:24

No, some I think, especially at that time. Yeah, I think at that time you're young. Yeah, that's one of the smiths as aware. You're still kidding the candy store. Yeah, you focus on where the hair. I really just want to make sure you see what this do, and I really wait to know after today. This is me. I mean, this is what I bring to the table. Good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:50

So let me get the fan perspective. That's what I hear for. It stood out to me because I mean, you know, you know the names for a long time. I might be able at that time to connect your name with your face, but but Brave Boy and them been doing it. And as you're talking about connecting, because you don't want to say it, but I will say it, right? You connect in them early hip-hop days to what Trinity Bad and the things are doing now. I saw it with spot rushers and chromatics and them back in the day. Right. You know, so when I saw y'all come out on a show like that, which to my era is like Bouncy Killer and Beanie Man was it. And it's not like if you come and you the show dip or you drop the standard or it feels like it's boring. The crowd was with with you. Yeah. So I felt like if I remember thinking at that time, but more people need to put more people on in this country. You know, we have our own talent. Like we we tend to headline foreigners. It was much more the case then than now. Yeah. We tend to headline foreigners a lot and make that the top billing. And I remember watching it and thinking, we these are the people who we had to be putting as the headliners on shows. So I appreciate it that you all take that chance.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:52

You know, I I think there was no um even when, and I always make I always make this joke, I say um, even when you see somebody and you appreciate somebody, but like Rod and Hardy doing what I was doing at the time too. Yeah, In Z, Naj. I remember, and to the point where we could like work together to this high level, yeah. And the word like competition, it never It's not that. It was it's not that it it it is even if it's a matter of seeing somebody real good, being like, alright, cool, let me see how I could learn.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:32

Yeah, you said that about plenty of people in this episode I heard, you know. You said about Muhammad, you said about Marshall. In Z teach me how to perform with a band.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:41

Not by showing me, you know. Watch. We were doing shows together, there was a certain energy, and I was like, alright, cool. This is I want to learn how to perform at a band, and I love to perform with a band more than anything else, yeah. More than anything else, and being able to even do that with him at the time, that's like a point, that's an important part of my journey because now I know how to perform at a band. And I'm still looking at Kess when we on road, being like, all right, cool. You're observing, you're picking up points on. I think a lot of times, because things so in close proximity here and the country's small, it's a little bit difficult for somebody to feel like they want to help somebody else. Because then, quote unquote, now you're in competition with that person. I'm in competition with myself. I wanna I wanna do the things that I set out to do, and I want to be able to do them better every time if that's what I want to do. And helping people is a part of the process, you know. And people should be able to help other people without even thinking about yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:05

That's kind of scarcity mentality. You feel like if you give, you give from something that you could have kept, and I don't know if it's true. Nah, yeah, I don't know if it's a real thing, yeah. Well, you could see it from the way you approach it. I'd ask you before Kyle and Pooh about vacation. Where between the rap career and how that came about? We must know. They killed me for certain things if I ask it to do. So I had to ask about vacation and where it came out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39:29

So I think before vacation, my life changed. So before vacation was something to be leaving, me and Naj, right? It was a it was a project. I love that project. I listened to it the other day. Um, I think it tunes 10 years. Next year. Oh uh, yeah, there's a particular song me and Naj have that I want to come when it turns 10 years too. So let me make that. Let me get it done. Um but I start, I was I was an angry youth. I was very, I used to be a lot more aggressive than this based on I think the way I felt life was treating me at a point in time. My dad died. Like I made something to be leaving after that. Um, I want to big up, um, rest in peace, Trizy Kid too, you know, Titan.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:21

Which Titan? Video Titan? Nah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40:23

No, that's not a Titan. So Titan, Trizy Kid was uh like this Asian, super talented youth man. Okay. That's how me and Naj met. Um it was literally we were preparing to do something for him in his memory, do a show. Um, and we that's how everybody kind of got more close. All those things helped us be like in his name, like we have to take this thing seriously. Um he was very creative and with vacation after something to be leaving, I just felt like a load lifted off my shoulder. I felt like I got I got what I needed to get out. The the anger became less uh I used to wear black a lot when I was making something to be leaving, just black and like dark dark colours because again expressing where I am. This is what I'm feeling, this is where I am. And slowly it started leaving me. And when we got to vacation, I was just feeling light. I start wearing colour. Imagine that. I start feeling softer in my being, and I always tell people I'm I'm a very fluid person, like a fluid person. I start connecting more with the softer, more feminine side of who I am, of being like it's half and half, balance everything out, and that's where that comes from. That's where even the feeling of being able to sing more in high school, singing, unless you're singing for birds, which really cool, right? It wasn't cool. We was only singing for birds for pips now, like hey, to get in. Still to this day when she sees me. That's a real me, me, me, me, and me and Jojo. That's what we was doing. So I was like, you know what, this is what I feeling like. And I also really wanted to make something that was closer to culture, and that bounce, that beat. Tano was like, Yeah, I hear in something that could happen. And I just embrace it. Well, people embrace it too. Yeah, that that was um, I remember Richie Richie right now. I remember playing vacation for Richie, I like it, but he was like, You sure? Yeah, like literally being, and and I was right there with him. Like, you are this, you build this a little bit of an aggressive persona to come and get we sunny sky. How we doing that? And this is where the art side of it comes in. Me and Kristen Kun sit down and decide, all right, cool. This is how we're gonna bring it to the people. We're gonna document it in this way, and we're literally gonna switch the aesthetic. We're gonna switch where it looks like because the music feels like something else.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:33

Oh, yeah, and you seeing what the music song is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43:35

Seeing what the music, songing like. So I was like, this is where we're going. Gotcha. And we're gonna show the beauty of where we come from, the beach, the sky, vacation based on a lot of like blues, yellows, very those high, even whites and a light, light tone, those high, it was like high frequency colours, is why I would call it. That is what it's based in. Something to believe in was literally based in the nighttime. Yeah. And so it was literally like day and night.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:06

It's a literal vacation.

unknown: 1:44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:11

We're almost done. You see, writers are a hell of a thing, you know. You can't miss nothing to say, you know. That's how you reach there. One more moment I want to talk about where I saw that I felt good. Because again, you said it coincidentally before we start. Well, yeah, again, you asked me when you get to know Jimmy October. And it's a question, it seems like though you ask people, like when they when they come across you. It's interesting. And something you said was almost exactly my experience with you. Where you have all these moments where you see this person, and then you go back to this, and years after you see Jimmy October, and he's like, wait, this is the same fellow. So I want to tell you that it takes me years to connect the dots. Because when you're talking about magic performance being during COVID, I I feel like real years ago to me, yeah. But I started to realize why, because when I see you by the clock, which is a big important part of our culture in the stadium, and I see you doing things by say Marshall Monday, it's like, wait, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45:06

So when you're talking about young brother, it happens to people all the time. So only now I didn't realize it's not as easy to connect the dots, and maybe I have to do a little bit of that work. I maybe going against the mom, we do some it today and speaking about it a little bit more, it's important and given context, these are like the different stages and different iterations of Yuli.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:34

Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Because without that, and you remember too that um the stories that y'all tell in studios and the stories that y'all tell when they come in, we will just never know. So I appreciate you taking the time today, brother. I appreciate you coming through. As I told you yesterday, I was very appreciative of the fact that you always like and you always share the tech when nobody wasn't trying to be here, and I used to be begging people. I just sent a hundred messages to get one person. Check out my tech now, boy. Jesus, talking for hours. It's appreciated.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:06

Ah, bro, and and and and to you and the team to give thanks for giving us space for artists to one, share their reality, their journey, but also be able to translate to the people where we are, it's what we're dealing with, how these things actually take in shape in the world. Yeah, yeah. We can't do, we we don't get a chance to do all of the I don't they hold the phone in the air, yeah, yeah, different.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:36

Well, that's my life's mother. That's my life's purpose. So, as you say, you as as what you're working on evolve, come back through, come back through, talk about it anytime. I have one more question for you. We start on a deep philosophical level, so we had to end there, right? I see you open for Marshall, and I want to know that your mother is an academic and so on. How do you spell writer?

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:57

How do I spell why I ask the mother? Why I'm a writer? R I G H T E R.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:04

So we can take your word for it, brother. I don't know nothing about it. Thanks very much, brother. I appreciate you coming through. This was nice.