Patrick “Mista Vybe” Gordon: From Kiskidee Karavan to Soca History | The Corie Sheppard Podcast

Patrick “Mista Vybe” Gordon joins The Corie Sheppard Podcast for a deep dive into one of the most influential yet under-told journeys in Trinidad & Tobago’s music and cultural landscape.

From his early days in Kiskidee Karavan and the Party Time era, to being a member of Black Mayl and working closely with $hel $hok, Mista Vybe shares firsthand insight into a generation that reshaped youth culture and music in the Caribbean.

We explore:

• The origins and impact of Kiskidee Karavan
• The rise of youth-driven music in Trinidad & Tobago
• His role in Black Mayl and early soca evolution
• Writing “Billie Jean Soca” for Andy Stephenson (“the local Michael Jackson”)
• The creation of the iconic 98.9 Radi-Yo jingle 
• The transition from group success to solo identity as Mista Vybe
• Behind-the-scenes stories from an era that changed Caribbean entertainment

This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in soca history, Caribbean culture, and the stories behind the movement.

🎧 Click the link in my bio for the full episode

#coriesheppardpodcast #mistavybe #patrickgordon #kiskideekaravan #blackmayl #soca #caribbeanculture #trinidadandtobago #musicpodcast

Transcript

Cold Open And Show Welcome

Corie 0:00

But I was I was you know what I was surprised I went out with young brother though. I think it was uh there was one one of these dogs on the outside. And you can see Young Brother's like, you say that. That's what we need, that's what we need. You ain't gonna know until you know. That's that's your reality.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I said no internet.

Corie 0:34

Welcome to the Corey Shop on the podcast. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Thank you for everybody who's listening, and they keep telling me to remind you all to subscribe on Patreon to support the show, to support the merchant body things so that we can keep this thing going. They also keep reminding me to introduce the guests, right? And I want you to have some trust and some faith in my introduction and guest thing, right? Because we have a man today. He's one of them. If you know you know, and if you know you have to get to know, I want to welcome to the show, Patrick. Mr. Vibe God, no, you're going to. You good? I good, I good.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

You have an intro, David? I'm glad to finally be here. People watching this only know how long we're trying to do this, eh? Why are we doing this? It's been a minute.

Corie 1:13

We didn't set this up yesterday. Nah. Oh, it's not sorry. Better late than never as well. So so she tells me everything is taken a while to David. But uh survivor is a man, like looking at you at your history and so many things that you've done. There's not an era we talk about in this show with reverence that you wasn't a part of. So this one to stay tuned to. And I want to say as well that I've looked at we started talking a long time ago. You observe how many times your name has come up. Come up with a fun, come up with Nadia, come up with Casey Phillips, and you're talking about people from different eras, different times for different reasons. And one of them where it came up is Kiskity Caravan. Of course, right? Them days, right? Remember Kiskity Caravan days, good days, right? But you told me that you're working on a documentary now, or you're helping with it to put together a documentary about Kiskity Caravan.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, so because I was uh uh to put it lightly, an integral part of not only performing in the caravan in one of the groups, but I was like Shell Shock was the main producer of the caravans, like right hand. So I was AR, background vocals, co-writing, everything, organizing, who coming on which day. I did literally everything else. So all shock had to produce, do was produce. So because I was so integrally involved, um, a good friend of mine, Elisha Bartels, came to me and said, You know, you know how long we're talking about somebody should do a car uh a documentary about the caravan so that we could preserve the history and stuff. I was like, Yeah, Gil. And she said, Well, I have a friend who started working on it, and I feel like you and him should talk and thing. He wants to do an interview. I said, Celeste. They came to my house in my little studio home and interviewed me. And by the interview went, it was supposed to be like an hour, it ended up being like four hours because the more they asked, the more they realized that they had more information and so on and so forth. So, long story short, by the end of the four hours, we talked for another couple of hours, and at the end of that, they ended up asking me to um I ended up being uh co-producer on the product, they participate in it. Yeah, they were like you had a co-producer because not only do you know all the players, but you can fill in all the gaps of everything that the average person would know from.

Corie 3:16

The truth is it's plenty gaps, yeah. There's plenty gaps. Like I had here from Kiskity Days, I had Umari, sister on, yeah, Ozzy Merrick's little Ozzy. Yeah, I remember and you hear them talk about Kiskity Caravan, but there was such a big gap between the time that the caravan kind of stopped rolling and then the the other space for youths to just revolutionize and shake the place. Yeah. So, what is it like in them spaces? So shell shock. Let me talk about our first, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Because shock is a good place to start. Because shock is the reason why I ended up being a professional musician and still am to this day, right? I always was into music. Like if you if people that knew me growing up, we know I was in the choir in primary school, secondary school music festival. Um, I did solo and duet and classical opera training, all that kind of stuff, up to high school. And then when I got in form one, I um at that time in the early 80s, rap was like the hut. Right. Hip

Kiskitty Caravan Documentary Plans

SPEAKER_00 4:10

hop, like around DMC and all them things, was like the big thing. So me and my partner Anson Lewis wanted to rap. Um, he went by Halo Wales. I think my name was MC Easy Rock or some kind of crazy thing. All right. So now we're rapping, we enter Fresh Fest once, we did party time a year, and so you know, we could rap and thing, but at this time you're just rapping on there, just taping beats off the radio, again, little instrumentals from whoever about 45 and rapping to that, right? And we think I mean now, being me, I overthinking it as a neurodivergent person. So, Anton just like, I just want to rap. I think we have no album, we need original beats, da-da-da-da-da. But in them days, they already had nobody doing original beats in Trinidad, as far as we know. Fast forward to Neil Swanson, who people in the East West Corridor will know as DJ Electrosounds, who owns the um, still owns the Electrosound store on the corner of Dinsday Avenue, which is like around the corner from me in Trinity. Um, he's a good friend of my mom, too. So my mom and I went there someday for her to get a blanket or some kind of thing, because he sells the electronics and stuff. And Neil said, I want to talk to Patrick, and she was like, Patrick in the car. So she signal to me, I come inside. And Neil said, It had this fella here I want you to meet. So he carries me in the back room, and there's a tall guy in a baseball cap with Dr. Beat on the cap, programming a drum machine. It's the first time I ever see a drum machine in my life. And I had a drum machine and a little Casio CZ101 keyboard. And he programming it, but I didn't make it like hip-hop beats. But I I look at her own like where the tape player. He's like, Hello, tape player, hello record player. This I make up this. I was like, What do you mean you make up this? Like, you make this beat? He's like, Yeah, he's rapper was like, Yeah, so I started freestyle. Shock started play more beats. I started freestyle. So me and Shock realized, okay, Shock, like, okay, this kid can write, and he the sing, he the chant, he did rap equally well.

Corie 5:57

So you gain him different styles once you bring different beats.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

My thing from ever since is that I never was able to lock down. Back in them days, a rapper used to rap, chanting is a chance, the singer sing, maybe no singing. He dances a dance. Less so now. More people do like a young brother with chant and sing kind of vibes. Even Gala would do a little singing thing now and then, you know what I mean? Yeah, but back then it was very one-one one, right? And but I was doing all three because I come up singing, I discovered I could have chant and rap, so I switched him back and forth. Shock was like, So you're doing everything? I like, yeah. And from that, we kind of forged our partnership. And I he I carry would come, I would rap on his beats. We started taping them on the cassettes live and whatever. Shock was in a group called M Voice, um, a band called M Voice with Romel Best, his brother Gavin, um, a young lady named Marita, um, Dean Williams, who the well-known jazz guitarist now was the guitarist in the band originally.

Corie 6:48

What kind of music do you play in the band now?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

It was like a pop cover band, so they covering whoever, I'll be sure, and um guy, whoever was playing on the radio, Kid Sweat, just got paid, all them kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

And they were playing a little bazaars and kind of thing. So I kind of watched it the bar on the corner. My eye like it. I kind of like to do that, but I it had no space. And in them though, in those days, people who remember the party time year remember, they had a lip sync group called Sugar and Spice. The guy in the group that used to go by sugars is a guy named Dwayne Art, also known as Sky Dam Rapso Soka Artist. So Dwayne was the lead singer in the band at the time, but somehow by the time Dwayne got big in party time now, he he started get hype. Right, where you going? He cut in gigs because those days when you win party time, even if you just win a semis or something, you used to get gigs to do little school and bazaar and things. So Dwayne busy cutting his solo gigs, he ain't high and boys to study. And Shock was like, um, well, I feel we gotta get rid of Dwayne, you know. And um, eventually he taught Garvin and them into it, and somehow he sell Garvin and Rommel, Rome was the band leader, the idea of well, what if we put Patrick in the band? Because Patrick is sing, so he could do all these songs doing as do, but Patrick is also rap and chant, so we could do dance or songs, we could do oh, so he could cover movies. Yeah, we could do everything. Patrick could do so, Patrick could do everything, Reggie, everything.

Corie 8:04

So, yeah, when you're meeting with Chuck at that point in time, well, Shock is not who he is yet, and there's everybody up and covered.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Them days he's still doing he's still going by Dr. B, but he was already like a prodigy. He had a TR909 drum machine for the um equipment mills out there. I should call it Lucas go be like, Oh, he liked that. Actually, we come into column, but um, but yeah, so he had a TR909 and a CZ101 keyboard, which in those days is like basic ass keyboards, but he went into the settings and made that drum machine and that keyboard do things that they're not really supposed to do. Um, to the point where we end up being a band, we doing cutting little um giggle, bazaar and stuff. Um, and then I talked them into starting to do Fresh Fest and trying to enter party time and kind of thing, doing original songs because by this time me and Shock are rocking up songs, we're writing songs.

Corie 8:51

Also, at this point, it's done science and composer right now.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

For the time I meet Shock, before I was even an invoice, we done writing.

Corie 8:56

So it wasn't the recovers when you joined the band. You you can't.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, I done that is why Shock wanted me to join the band because then I would be in the band so we can write more songs. Shock was on on his own beat. Yeah, shock already on yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, fast forward now too. There was a competition, a thing called Youth was it Youth Pulse? Yeah, it was Youth Pulse was the name of the competition. It was uh well, it was an expo. The last day was Monday to Friday was the expo. Friday afternoon, Friday evening at the uh around five, six o'clock, they had a talent competition, right, for open talent community, rap sing, whatever. And the winner of that was gonna get to perform at the concert that closed the whole expo thing on the Sunday, and that concert was CNC Music Factory and the boys. I think Omari talked about this that on this podcast before. So, long story short for that, we enter, we did really good. We had a crazy original song where again I chant, I rap, I sing, which up to the point when I come up to see everybody's like, Boy, a one man chanting rap and singing with the other real man. People never sing. Stop with the beat and shock dancing with his Dr. Beat. Had them days he wasn't shot yet, he was still Dr. Beat. Right. But wait, what he doing in the band?

Corie 10:05

He just programmed.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

He programmed you and real dancing in the band. He's a real boogie, though. So, yeah, so we come out, they come off stage, kill we dead, we made everybody back to like boy, have it. And then Omari came on with that was a group of Omari, um, basically Getorians plus Omari. Because of Omari, Gage, AK, one was he DJ, Sniper. So Gage and them kind of chant rap a little bit, like how

Meeting Shell Shock And Finding A Sound

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Getorians would normally do. And then Omari comes with and bust a freestyle verse, rap. And the whole place was like, I remember just holding my head like we can't, I never see nothing like that. We can't shock boy. I thought we win, but so at the end of it, but it turned out to be a good thing. They won the right to perform at the concert. After they announced that they won, we came second by like two points or something. After we came second, Colin Lucas comes and says, comes to us and says that he wants to talk to the guys with the um the tour manage drum machine and the guy that doing the singing rap and chanting. He's like, You're a real talent. Say um, how long you're doing this and whatever, whatever. And then he started asking about the equipment being the equipment, the drum machine. He's like, That's a TR909 and a CZ1. How you getting there to do that? And so the two of them went into Nilville talking about technical shit that I still don't understand. And by the end of the discussion, he was like, Okay, fellas, here we're going all right. This no, mind you, this is Colin Lucas High. He still, this is like pre-Iowa butterfly.

Corie 11:27

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Because so he's still this is like a couple years after Dollar Why they talk about it. Colin Hot Scott Colin is starting to taxi or kind of gotcha. So Colin says that, you know, I'm a little home studio home.

Corie 11:37

I have like uh so this is just him seeing all the performance.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

He just seen us perform, and like we he he was like the we had to get the other group going because there was an originality category, yeah. Nobody ever seen that rap so thing before. So they they that's the only reason they be told about the job.

Corie 11:50

You know, Brother Resistance was a judge too. So that might be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

And Brother Resistance was also a judge, yeah. So we but even if he wasn't that the originality of rapping in uh uh doing rap so in a hip-hop flow was just like yeah, I guess it'll be old voice. We didn't even toot. Gotcha. But the good part was Connor was like, I have a little home studio, so well, they come home by me. If if you all want, you can come home by me and use the studio and stuff. I work in the dock in the on the docks from uh in on the port from you know 7, 8 in the morning until about four or five. I might get home a little after five. I usually work until maybe eight, nine o'clock. So if all they don't mind coming in late and work, you know, they could come and work until weather hour in the morning, and I'll just give all the key to lock up and thing, and you know, I have an eight track, I have an R8, which is the drum machine that can sample original tunes. Yeah, so Shock was the exception. Shock was like R8, don't say that at the X7, like all the hot equipment um Colin had at the time. So he was like, Thanks, thanks a lot, Mr. Lucas today. He was like, just call me Colin. Yeah, which is very colour to this day. Um so we went, we started, that was where we cut our first like professional demos. Because before this, all we could do was like play the song live as a band with shock programming drums, whatever, and just record it live. But he had like uh eight tracks so he could double up tracks and do backgrounds and do harmony, so that's where I started to learn to do all that stuff. And shock started to learn how to produce like a whole song song.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Um, in the middle of that, Getorians um and Omari and them, well, Getorians first come and link Shock because they were signed, they got signed soon after to Kiss Kiddy. They were the first like young actors before that Kiss Kiddy had like Shadow and Melanie, singing Calypso, and like you know, that kind of Tidny's bell for Kakalator. They had all that kind of stuff, and they had student Gitons who had won the um um Caribbean Trinity had Song Festival and Caribbean Song Festival in them days, which was big. So he was like, but he was like more old school, kind of loot of Andros vibes, um, old school RB. And the first young actor like hip-hop and that kind of stuff, that time was Getorians. But the problem was Getorians didn't like the level of production they were getting. They had a older dude, um, by the name of Neil um Neil Lilok. Yeah. Um, and Neil was like the producer that they assigned to Getorian. But Neil came from more, he was older than us, he would have been.

Corie 14:06

Remember Kenny Phillips talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah, Neil would have been, at that time we even cracked 20 yeah, you know, 1890s or minor. If that. And Neil would have been in his 30s pushing 40, can I think? So he, you know, older than us and he more mature. And he also came from more of a pop rock background, so it he didn't really drive with the kind of good friends who wanted to be like public enemy back there, like a real hardcore hip-hop. So they didn't like the production style. So they came and basically beg Shock to come and help them work on beats or whatever, whatever. Because um, Gage and Aki had all these ideas, but they didn't know how to do the equipment. I didn't know Shock is our guy. Equipment they bring Shock in the studio. By the time Shock does two, three Sunday, they ask Shock to become an in-house producer in Kiss Kiddy. And shock uh shock became initially as Gage and them producer. Gage and them partner who helping. Yeah, Gage bring somebody to try and work on production kind of because they're in a shock from Adam. This is just some tone man with a baseball cap. Again, this time Shock is still Dr. Beat. I later found out from um AK that um when Shock went in and started to work with them, and then um they hired Shock as an in-house producer. AK and Gage and them were the ones that gave Shock the Shell Shock name. Because if you look at Gator, this is AK as an DJ AK as an AK 47, sniper D Gage is all weapons, and so they they name him Shell Shock because they were like Dr. Beats something too corny. Yeah, that's uh too light. That was he then the they kind of crystal him shell shock, and then he started to spell a bit dollar sign, two dollar sign s he lollar sign H E L dollar sign at uh H O K um But Shock the the good thing for us was when Shock got signed to Kiskid, he realized in the the scope how the studio and how much things they had going on, equipment and the possibilities they play equipment. Shock said, okay, I will be an in-house producer for however I think we were paying them initially $800 or $700 a week, which in 1990 or 1990 or 90. I think it might have been 90 or 90, 90 or beginning of 91. Um was real money for us as you know, teenagers, still doing motherhouse and thing. Um Shock was like, you know, I gotta take the little money, I gotta do the in-house producer, because that way, you know, I can do my thing. Um but I would only take it on the condition that I get to do some, I had to sign my group, but I want to at least be able to do demos with my group. I have a I don't know, a group called Emvoice. Uncle Robert, Amar, and John Affoon, who was running the studio at the time, was like, alright, fine, how bad can it be? So from that point, we're living in the studio. I just in the studio 24-7. Whenever Shock ain't have Shock will, um, Neil would come in and went from nine to like four. Shock will come in about three, wait for Neil to leave and start working from four. He will work with um Kiskady artists or on Kiskiddy projects until I'm by that time they're starting to sign more than just Get Orials. Yeah, well by the time Shock comes in, Gatorade and Slidey and Kindred, Ron, um, they end up bringing in Ron, Run, uh, Gage bringing Ron, and they um asked Ron to sign, uh, to sign, and Gage to write a song for her, which is how Sister Run happened, and all that. By that time, Shock done inside.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Because he really went there to work with Get Orients. Um, and then eventually what ended up happening is Um one athlete to two athlete to three act, General Grant show up. Somebody kind of, I don't know how Grant ended up in the studio a day and chant for um for John. And then when John asked Shock about it, Shock was like, everybody knows General Grant, that man big. That time he's doing Dr. Hyde Cassette and Nya Bing. We he's like a living legend already at that point. He opening for all the super cat and all them kind of things. So by that time, uh in the young sphere, we done Grant is already a hero. He just didn't have no records. Um Shock was like, Yeah, we had a sign of me real well, I think, and we know chant that thing. So cool.

Corie 17:44

Grant. So just tell me something before you go on. That was a common thing then because you saying it in terms of not recording, you you're doing it for the band to play. Yeah, so yeah, nobody recording or playing out records before Kiss Kiddy and that way.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Because to record back then, you would have needed a studio which is hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it only had a handful before Amar, it only had choral sounds, was the main studio that like the soccer artists recorded, and that still wasn't like a state of the art studio, was kind of the best you could do on a media, mid-size budget type of thing. They had one or two little tiny, you know, home the Leicester. Paul had his little home studio that he kind of eke out and nothing. But they didn't have like studios, they could just go in and record it like now. They were welcoming, so even if you wanted to, the type of music you'll do in the butt was the other thing. You couldn't go to Coral Sounds over by Lefton and be like, I chanter. Unless, like, like for instance, you could go you could have um like Major Yankee ended up on um Kenny, Kenny J brush song, so bit of a brush, some bit of a brush, right? So they will get a chance to go on like uh a soccer tune at the point when that's how they want a rap or something. If if the song called, if the song is that kind of vibe. But other than that for carnival, but other than that. And then remember too, this the other thing that people forget too. Until the Keski Caravan happened, young people music was considered a distinctly separate and less serious thing than like big people music, which was Calypso and Soka and thing, right? So your shadow, your brother, you're crazy, all them things was considered real music, and we just making noise, going party time and fresh fest and doing a little bazaar.

Corie 19:18

Even from the industry side, as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah, nobody was like, I mean no money off, I ain't going away, and then you tell them to know what they're doing, and so that's why Robert and them signing was such a big thing. But in the meantime, Robert and them watching Run DMC rocking up number one all this time, doing it.

Corie 19:34

Well, I guess that's what you're watching too as youths.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

You watching what happened, and also the other thing that people don't really talk about is there was kind of a renaissance at the time because A, after 1990, we just came out of the coup, you're locked down for however many months, especially if you're a younger teen, if you're below 16, 17, you can't even go out and go keep cooking party. So you just home. And then how internet, you had to just watch whatever old videos, TDT rerun. You had to watch Little Mermaid, and the radios on the news. So you're just home kind of stagnating. Um, but that was a thing where normally the coup happened in uh in July, right? And it happened right when Cali

Youth Pulse And Colin Lucas Studio

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Time had no kickoff. They had now started auditioning and maybe had maybe one show. And when the coup happened, and because there was a lockdown, party time got delayed until they announced that they were gonna continue party time and like whenever the coup finished and the curfew finish and whatever, and that ended up being like October, November, somewhere around there, which was the latest we ever had. But that meant all we had to do was go by each other's house and practice for party time. So that started a whole renaissance. Let me try this. We have more time because normally you have maybe a week or two when school done to get your shit together and go on audition for party time. But that year you had until October, let me try this, let me do this. You can rap, okay, I can sing, let me, you know what I mean? So a lot of that is why after that, a lot of the uh after that point was when I met um 1990-91, was when I would have met in party time. Sennel Dempster, Denise Belfon, Blaze was in a group, um Blazer was in a group called Cleveland Blazer, Snake. We gone all day. It was a lot. Which Blazer, Blazer Dan? Blazer Dan. He was in a group called Cleveland Blazer, um, which is where I would have first met him, Sennel, um, Denise Belfon, KMC, a bunch of Aussie. It goes the list goes on, I don't know, Mary, Gage, all of them. We would have all cross parts and things. So there was a bunch of us that already had the got the bug from the party time thing and had that summer to kind of really make sense, hone your craft and figure out okay. Get to work on it, yeah, you know, whatever. Then a year or two later, um sister run and the um shot called all that stuff happens. They didn't know compromise, EP, those four songs, and that blows up because we never had like young people with our music. So that was like our revolution, like we were like Yeah, whatever 92. We didn't even have a radio station that played our music.

Corie 22:04

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

98.9. This was Radio 98.9. Chinese one launched that as part of the subsidiary of the TTC group. Yes. In 92, I believe it was. So, fun fact about that going back to us in the studio now. So we're in the studio, Shocker Ready is popular. EP come on, Mr. Storm, General Grant, King Fred, Victorian. All this all blow up. And they were playing on like a regular video. He had the gooser playing on 95 and with um Stanley Man Augustus and Paul Richards and then we'll play it on 9.5 and on a Saturday morning. Yeah, yeah. Adrian Bora. So they guys will spin on the half of the sun saying bye. So it played on the radio, it'd be big people radio, be like, wow. And then at that time there was a thing called after midnight thing that used to happen on public holidays when it went Dr. High or Dr. Alls or whatever, like ask uh session either after midnight or on public holidays for the Sunday. So that was many times we would get our vibe on the radio. And then Laundry came up with this idea based on the popularity of that whole program on 95.1. He basically showed the TC, what if we had a radio station that's cake with them with Sunday? Yeah, and you can send them all the coconut case. It's a win-win. Send it to them, they could make their parents by win. That's TC was like cool. Then Signal, who I would have known because we would have gone by signal to do when you were um dancing and now rapping. Before I met Shock, I would have gone by signal, I would have met Sigma somehow and won by him to um to do little together instruments, does a little mixes or two instruments on the change. So he was doing production at the time together, studio? No, any production. He had a little four-track, and they used to make me mix tapes for um for Chinese laundry because Signal was the DJ for Chinese laundry at the time. Um we selected that for Chinese laundry. And so in those days, the DJ just used a four-track machine to do the mixes like how um paragraphs know. That was the GM set up, but I cassette. Um and so we used to go by Signal before to get our little hip-hop mixer, like we're mixed two songs together to get a kind of redirection. I'm just thinking they're going by him for Wobble bus to go past it. Yeah, to go past it. This is the this is the party one or two party time, me and Anton went on before um measure. What do you mean shock guys for saying? Yeah, that's how we see segments and we go to buy laundry teams. Alright, gotcha. Right, yeah, yeah. So when signal, um when signal went to the laundry and they started the station and started forming because okay, how are you stationing? So we're gonna do that. We launched in that signals um sense the child, okay. Um single will discuss me some jingle, but you know, the station in W DLS and kiss on the station in New York have these jingles that sound like songs, like it could be actual rap song, or you saw what's a jingle for the game. Yeah, like we need like that, but like with a child that vibe, and we think who could do that? And somebody came up with the idea of share shop. And then Sigum was like, Yeah, I know that guy patrickers, we were shocking them with it. So they reached out to us, we had shop at the meeting with them. Shock came back and said, We're gonna jingles for this new station that coming out, rotating somebody here to keep done and all that. So we ended up doing the famous hitline jingle. It's the hitline 98, white nine. And that jingle, you think about it was before they launched the station, they played um they played um just random music hours, an hour, hip-hop, hour, half an hour, hip-hop, half an hour, dance, or half an hour techno, yeah, whatever. To test the signal so they can see, you know, make sure it broadcasted properly and stuff. And in between, they would play the jingles to kind of brand the station. And every week's interview was like, oh, don't say this because they were getting our music, no talking. Yeah. So everybody on their boombox, like, and they keep playing the jingle over and over again. By end of summer that year, by the middle of the summer that year, the jingle was like, I hit so far. He was just like, but people singing a lot of the jingle. We are not sleep, nobody knows us. Right. And people sing all over the song, like, so now Robert started watching. When they realized that we knew the song, they started recognizing my voice after he hit them. Like, they're not a trick. Shop was like, yeah, no, this is the jingles, you know what? So John and Rubber started watching us, like, okay, we gotta take this group scary us. By this time, we had um Robert Island and Garvin, yeah. The members of the band had kind of moved on. They were like, eh, they know this movie thing going. Yeah, like change. Yeah, they were you know, moving on, getting jobs, and they were older than us too. Um social, right? So the rest of the band moved on, my partner Matka, who is an audio engineer. Now, everybody would know what you mean, Dave. Damn? Damn Matka for sure. Oh, yeah, man. My partner Mapler was a rapper that I used to rap freestyle with a lot and sing on my real version. Um used to just come around with the studio a lot all the time. Actually, he used to come around with baggroom first. So we kinda he was kind of like unofficial and body band. He came in official member right at the end when we should call him a stage.

Corie 27:16

Right. Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

So he was the cut. So he came in Roman and then we eventually phase out. Um and then Shock came up with this idea, but he didn't want to use them voices. That was Rome L's band name, it's actually. And Shock came up with this, he was ready to tell you right as a guy, and like what we show all these boy groups, right? Um, boy bands, and he was like, We have the boy band name for the three of us. And then he came up with blackmail, but shock me, shock like in the spell things where B-A-K-M-A-Y. Right. So by the time we did Jenga, we already had rebranded ourselves, so blackmail came after the part-time year old.

Corie 27:54

Blackmail, we ended up doing guest performances later on. Okay, because I think in the first time I hear blackmail was part of time. So it had to be guest performance.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

It could be, but it might have been when we guess because by the time we cut our first record, they have to start guessing every part-time after that. So we could come back. So you put you sauce on Python but we were already blackmailed. I would have been on Python with my group step to a rock group, step two, and partner answered who went by Halo with blackmail. Gotcha, gotcha. Um, yeah, so the the that whole thing went to blackmail doing the jingle, the jingle get big, the jingle like a hit song, whatever. And then you can green and green and green. Fast forward now, too. When they were launching the station 19.9 radio, in they were gonna have a con they had a concert in the national stadium. The concert was Chris Cross, which was the biggest rapper in the world at the time, jump had called, and they had the remix of Supercats. So it was Chris Cross and Supercat was the headliners. Um they had like Ron and whatever. No, I think Ron at myself, yeah. They had Ron and like get rid of whatever, whatever, whatever. But um, actually, no, they wouldn't have had one here because they would have come on after the station. Okay. So we were just always playing. They had, I think they had rant like just open it as a freestyle or something. So Chris Christmas was uh 98.9 show. Yes, but that was the concept once of this time. We come okay, we officially launching the program and morning, showing. Right, just play music alone. So that was the big launch. We had this great idea that we launched up the concert in the studio where the U Then we cover to get another single game on July.

Corie 29:29

Yeah, Christmas might be the little concert I ever went. If I if I remember, yeah, I was outside for Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

So, your partner, your boy signals and the opening acts open, I forget who I remember. I think what they wanted with image. I think Grant came and did a quick thing as just freestyling on top of beats or whatever, on top of rhythms, whatever. Um just a little bit before he was sent. But I remember images on the show, whatever. They had a little couple opening acts, whatever. Yeah. We ready, everybody ready for crisscross and and um super chat, no, plays hype. Launchy and single, playing tunes, whatever, thing, signal, hands over to somebody else. I can't remember who some other DJ comes across to us and starts talking to Shock. Shock signals us, come across. Shock says, No, you man, talking about you that my man signal says, I feel when they show you why we'll tell the sing the jingle. I like signal, you crazy. But people sing up 40 until the second, 45 seconds, one minute jingle. Say I was like, I know we didn't plan this, and we talked to one day, I think, but I just must spur just something for the single jingle. No, he please. So shock watching me, I watched shock, make

Kisskiddy Studio Life And No Compromise

SPEAKER_00 30:40

sure Marco watched me, I watched Marco. By this time, we had another friend, Chris, who went by jazz anytime. Um so he he was like Marco where he was just alive, went us to like the studio band, whatever, whatever, and he like music, whatever. He didn't really rap or sing or anything at that point. He was just like with us everything, but he was with us, and it was like Sidney was like no chasing each other and me and Mark was like, I hear you can do it with life time. Shop was like Signa was like, I had it at this. Shop you were that you're like, yes, Patrick likes you talk to me confident, you go, you go through the thing, you're gonna run us at this point. Real time now, backstage. Yeah, backstage. Boom now, shock hit play, pam, pam, pam, pam, pam, pam, pam, grew up, just a turn of the dialogue, and they won't play it. So we jumping around, the stage I'm jumping around, I watch jumping around in the back. So I want you to come up jumping up because they too knew the changer was big, but they now realize that the chicken for real. So that was how we realized the changer was like let's already have to. But let's also tell us that the station was like two. I guess I guess I guess I love listening. Because not only were people jumping up, but they will stay along with us. And we try to walk off, they were like so. We have to do this, do the legal second time. Yeah. So we did like that second time. At that point, we just showed like I don't mean this actually, we just matched at the National Stadium. It's our first time performing for this many people. We National Stadium appances program for Chris Cross and Supercats. Yeah, but it don't make it no makeup stuff.

Corie 32:32

Yeah, because no, it's one of them things.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And the funny thing was when we when we and of course, because we did be drinking a lot of that stuff, no trend we try to say, we get what some backstage. So we know we're just gonna be backstage, whatever, whatever. So we must go to that. That's me, but that's weird, our extra cells. We say to ourselves, we go, we're matching for this to go because it's blackmail. So we we had matches. It was like one sleeve or red, one sleeve, oh no, one sleeve red, one sleeve black, little white, so red, white and black. We just went there to be like, this is our chance for people to know when they were black game, whatever. We thought maybe they would have said this is the fellow that's saying the whatever at best. Yeah, you can't. But we did a backup. So after this now, Jonathan Rafuna and Robert were backstage also. So Jonathan and Robert pull up some side and say, you know, we have to talk about what yeah, we should have signed money before. Because they realize when people say these kids now, someone pick them up. Right, right.

Corie 33:31

Um so So you didn't perform no other songs.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

We have songs about what it's on this level, we have someone to do it. So we weren't signed to any label officially, you would just have shops group that allowed to be in the place and record them, whatever. And as a sign, as a consequence of that, we ended up doing the jingles. Yeah, yeah. So after this, um, Laundry comes back to shop and says he wants more jingles. Um, we did a dance on jingle with Edu Rankin. We did like a boy band kind of motion filly type of vibe with a group called MD, which was my partner, Floyd. Um, who his dad, his dad and his mom, and my dad and my mom go way back like um their mama and my mom went to the shops together, kind of thing. So I grew up with Floyd and then older brother, Fred. Freddie, after Freddie went to see with me. Floyd was a Trinity man. Fred. Um, no government. You know, you know, Trinity went on there. Um but yeah, but so me and them go way back and uh shopping like a Needle Boy band, and I was like, I got a couple of group I was like, I'm a partner Floyd in a group in Trinity and Link them. That would happen to our young fella who grew up to be Ren Bunch, and right MD. So MD did like a uh singing like a post-jingle, a fella, something RMB. Um yeah, so was this one's age? Was Blazer and Remy and then we call this. We would have all been one in 1560s, when when we did the jingle, I would have been maybe celebrated. Yeah, we all kids. Yeah. Because remember they cut all the age up there five to 18. Yes, so that was the other reason why blackmail was on five time, because by the time we form blackmail, I'm gonna turn 18 youngest markets a year, young older than me. I'm shocked to you. Right, so we're gonna age out anyway. So this place is more jingles like we do watch and girls, so that's how we end up in the community bits that end up with the caravan.

Corie 35:30

EU was a chanter that somehow shop got on to, and so let me ask you a question about the caravan because we'll talk about it before we start. Well, when Sister Ron tell me here she didn't talk with the caravan. People are like, no way. People say this see Sister Ron and we take it.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

The thing was Ron would have Ron Kendra Grant and Gaturin would have done red shows. Right, right. Yes, but she was before the caravan kicked off. Show, show, show, show, show. And Ron might have flown out once or two before the caravan came. Yeah, she said so. She said so.

Corie 36:05

Like, so people might remember all of them as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yeah, so they would have remembered performances with all those people for it would have been in the caravan because with Ron to Ron would have flown out literally, right? Right when we were releasing month or two before the caravan, we started releasing it CSV for the caravan. Makes sense.

Corie 36:21

Run with a flower. So when the caravan kick off, who in it, yeah? Grants, get Orions.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

So Grants, Get Orions, Drive already signed.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Blackmail or automatically inside the call, one thing that you think is things and sliced ready. So we get inside the last shop group. So shock like that. Because the kid the shop can say, okay, we did four last year. We want to do originally they wanted to do ten. Right? For the no compromise, or you need no four for compromise, no compromise. And for the caravan album, whatever being the caravan album, they wanted to up to up it to ten. So they needed, they would have needed seven more because run five. And sorry, before we go forward, shock did all those funny no compromise. He did the um well people flash producers. Yes, I know. Shock did shock worked on one for he produced Kendred Um Kendred Ron and Grant. Ron, even though Shock produced it, Gage had a hand in the production because he came in with his song, so the production was built around the idea that Gage already had. So it's kind of like Gage kind of co-produced. Get Sorian's is a different case. So Shock was executing ideas they had. So I would say it was like co-production at least. Yeah, Gage producer shock co-producer. Yeah, wrong and wrong with the with the um marionettes and the thing is. But it's the marionettes, marionettes. Yeah, marionettes. Because the CSB had a room that was big enough to record like the marionettes plus a skin orchestra at the same time, um vocal boot. Gotcha. Yes, that's how big studio game um main boots was. Right. And and while you're doing that, they still have a separate boot and a separate chamber for the piano, separate chamber for drums, secret chamber illiterate a whole orchestra and a choir at the same time. So Marion used to record all the albums there at the time, and shop somehow ran in in the middle of in the middle of my cutting their thing and happened to do this creature singing to the champion. They were like, okay, I guess whoever and shop shot that samples. Yeah, yeah. That's your opening song. Yeah, that was opening a new song. So I always like to make it clear that Gage had a big input in the production and that talking about Gage too. Of course, of course, my husband's husband.

Corie 38:33

So going back to the groups I was in, there was Getorians, the original or originally would have been Getorians, Kindred, and sister.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Sorry, so now you let out the three. Right. And then Robert and Comment tells shock for the following year. So um no combination by 92. Right. For someone three, they want to do a follow-up, but they want this, they want it to be ten songs, so that means you gotta find seven more people. Right. Blackmail had the song on the radio, so you radio and shop the stadium, obviously for sack. Outside of the four street, right? Good blackmail. Right. And then shock is like, well, if blackmail was anything, and don't want to talk about it. So we don't decide. Right? Um automatically inside because he doesn't have anything but play on your side of the tool. So because he was voice when they would be a face anyway. Right. That's been kind of almost usually terror from the yeah. It's different. Nothing was um MVE was like boy man, um, voice the man was hot at the time. Boy man was okay, okay. Then cool. We will bring them to like we bring down to all the shop on the inside. Um, went back to my partner. Answer who I had to look step to where we went down party time with, I called Anton and I said, Yo, they got the chance you're gonna have to take a thing. Right. Um, but I mean between me anyway, inside because shop on the pants and shop he had shocked without going as far as me. Of course. And he was Anton could do whatever. Anton hadn't been as active because you know, he was he had got national or whatever, whatever. And as I said, Anton wasn't really that deep in it. He was just like, I try. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, uh, yeah, somebody else you're gonna bring a group in. So he's like, but you're just saying, I was like, Sales, cool. So Anton came with his girlfriend Channel at the time. Um, she sang he rap, and they were like, they needed a name. I was like, Well, yes, we love our name, step two. So step two inside, MDE inside, um, and then trying to think of anybody else. Oh, F1 was part of a collective called Horror Me with Um with Getorians Kindred, um Getorians and Kindred, and F1 was kind of part of like a Wu-Tang and situation with a bunch of different acts together. So F1 was a three-man rap group that was part of that. They already had them with any shop trying here, basically get signed already. So they were kind of unofficially signed, because

98.9 Hitline Jingle Goes Viral

SPEAKER_00 40:55

they don't need code in them. Yeah. Then we signed. And Super Child's yet too, already. No, no, Superchild was where, okay, we have a few already, they have four or five already inside, right? But we still need more. Right. So we try to get the same now. So then they announced on the eight by nine, they're gonna have auditions like CSPM Marvals, around the corner from KFC, by country club dating, auditions from, I think it was 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 p.m. blah blah blah blah blah blah. Right? And and we're supposed to be one day audition, I was like um boom, I think it was like around Easter time, so everybody. Boom now. We show up in the days, we still try. I think Shock had just bought it. Yeah, shock had no boss is first car. Um secondhand car. So a second hand toyota or something. And we pull it up, we pass K by reach by KFC. We started seeing line from KFC if you know where about from KFC. Or do we pass um country club, or do we go up to CSB line? And we start off when you start hot song, or we're like, well, it's like we started trying to take we don't have one the channel, but we like this can't be for the channel. When we watch any line, I start to see people like these people thing. So I like okay, that's not making this something else. We pull up the security, let's say on the party thing. We ask the security. What going on there? He said, Well, you like for you on the show. He said, Of course, of course, of course. And then chanting a rapid teacher and up in line. Yeah, so when they come in there, who you're on the show and for is you on shock at that point in time or no, I I I was allowed to me and Marco was all the sits in on it and get what the shot called we had shocked group and we don't. And they already realized that I am shocked like right hand man, and so I will be I go help out with writing and you got roles and whatever shocked me, like we'll be addicted AR and everything else. Sure, sure. So they're like back when the four yeah, they're gonna be two cents to be gonna take it into consideration. But the panel was Robert Amar, Uncle Robert. Um John Raffoon was the head engineer, mean produced me produced, he was the guy that anything creative they have to come to him and then he researched the robber. So he and the panel. So he and the panel was intrigued. He said they're not the one that people. So they had to listen to the whole land. So we said um, nah, we said okay. Well, we thought, okay, we will take that impressive to us, we go pick them, or whatever, and take it. But luckily, John said, but once I don't have one time you inside, you'll just make a note of who we pick, and then at the end, you'll just call and say when the inside, the inside, inside. Right. Thank God they do that. First person comes, Darial Bat. Second person, Darial Bat. And keep going soon. I love it. The problem now is they're supposed to go. And then what ends up happening at six o'clock, it's still the line still or goes for the city in the country. Because people keep coming at somebody going at the next person, come pull up, right? So we're like, okay, but okay.

Corie 44:33

Um that's mostly people are including yourself. You want to give another song for that? Or you use the new square?

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Right, shock will um listen to somebody's song after they got selected, they will go up to his little reproduction room upstairs. Shock will listen to this. Sing us, sing me something for the thing. You have another song? Let me get that. And he will go through maybe two or three songs and be like, okay, I like this one we can have this one. You start the beat, he will say, I like that hook, but Patrick, I need to go and either come up with a better voice, or a lot of people wouldn't understand because them days men ain't counting bars and all them. Singing, and so shock will be like I need to cut this down to three minutes, or I needed to make those two voices make sense in the context of this, or this voice might need to rewrite. After about two or three people, Shock says, Patrick, you know what to do. Any next one pick something finishing why I doing? I see. So I ended up co-writing vocal arranging, vocal producing, all that kind of stuff. Although at that time, I don't know that these are jobs. I just helping shock. I didn't know. Yeah, just trying to make it happen. Doing why I do got it. Right? Got it. So I ended up um on step two song. If it if if you listen to step two song, which is the house song and the caravan, in the chorus, there's a man, mad, mad many reading. They say, Matt, that ended up being me because shock is like it needs like a chanty something to liven it up. And shock is like Patrick Winnie and they freestyle something, and I ended up restying back and shocked like, yeah, okay, that's cool. Print. And then Shock never thought to credit me on it, so nobody knew that it was me, other than me and Step D. End up on that, and up helping almost everybody else, except uh maybe Super Child. The chanters more so came with their thing ready. So most of the rappers and singers and tech thing is more of a tighten it up or help write or rewrite or whatever, MDE and kind of thing. So I ended up being doing all this. At the end of it now, Shock, all the songs recorded. We're going down to Studio A, which is the big studio. Shock bring all these equipment down the studio A to finish um mix. We mix, we mix, we mix, we mix, we mix. The last song to cut was um Chiki 10 Love in Affy Day, which is a whole thing to get Chicky to sing in key. Boom. Yeah, we had to cut that song over and over because Chicky had come sing the song for Shock in a key. Shock built the song in the key, and then on the day when he came to record the vocal, he couldn't get back in that key. That's a different day. Uh jumping around and China Dimming, he was nervous, it was the whole thing. So eventually, eventually, if you go back and you listen to that song, he is in a key that is a semi-toned up from the actual key to the song. So it's one of those dancing things where he's in a weird key, but it somehow works. Shock was like it's weird, but I don't think we will get better than that. So Chicky Record, we mixing down Chicky, we had maybe one or two songs left to mix.

Corie 47:19

No, I can't unhear that no.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, and it's driving me crazy. Yeah, and that's why every time he goes, yeah, that's why every time he goes into the singing shop, he drops out all the music because he we have key for those things. Um where we go around that man is that completely wrong key, which is why shock drops out everything and his only drum. But the the chanting send that loving half he die isn't like a where key that's like a semitone up from where he should be. But it it in a dancer way it would dance all artists and do them kind of way. Of course, of course. Um, so yeah, so we finished cheeky, we had two more songs to uh to mix, and then Shock, then I said Shock, wait not Shock, what song are we doing? We go through the demos we have, and the demos we have, every time we we plus play on a demo, it sounds like something that's already stylistically on the camera. Because the whole thing that we are trying to do is have everybody in a different space. No two people doing exactly the same thing, even though it might be multiple rap song, multiple dancer, or whatever, everybody in a different space. Shock was like, but we gotta do a new song. I was like, dude, bro, the night before you ready, the night before you had to present. So last minute we did the song, the everybody goes song. Um Shock came up, Shock had the sample and I went in the next room. I was trying to think, how can I be different from everybody and use what I do as like a plus? And then I came up with this thing where at the time the Dassi Fix, Jiggly Jamie, Ridgetty Riddle, Ribbidi Rabbit, that thing was happening, yeah, and the whole using the cartoon references and songs and stuff. So I, me and Marker and Chris sat down in a room and write down all the fun phrases that we had, like we all live in a capital, ah, and all that kind of stuff. Just write them down, and then I found a way to rap and put them all together thing, and then I recorded it where I was doing all the different voices. Of course. So it came, it was like almost like a cartoon show. But it didn't mean a classic. Yeah, it ended up being um kind of it ended up growing and growing and growing. It was not it didn't start out as like really popular. People were like, What's this weird song?

Corie 49:15

Radio or performing? Both radio or performing.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

It was kind of like, okay, we used to come on, sing the jingle, play smash up, and then we would sing this weird song. They would be like, Yeah, different.

Corie 49:26

But right, just a little jingle. Yeah, jingle.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

When we opened, when we opened in the and they launched the cabin on Independent Square beginning at June, um, June, June going into July. Right. That was it was still Independent Square before it became the prominence. Right? Right in front of this, right in front of Express House there, the square there by the um by the church there. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we launched there, and by this time we had had two months of like rehearsing and everybody critiquing Gary Doy and his genius, had said we can't just show these kids on the stage, we need to bring them to the studio, go upstairs to the top floor where they have an auditorium where you can rehearse and stuff, a P system and thing. And we let everybody rehearse, and we'll all critique each other, like you know, positive criticism, like okay, if you could do that, we can do that better. And in that way, everybody got better and better and better to where we were ready to perform. Then they had the launch and the the and the promenade, and then Gary Door was faced with this who he put in on first thing, and everybody's like, you went on first because the coming out of Ram. Right? It was like a Friday after school, don't school, or um, I think was the last day of school or something like that, and last the last weekend, last week in June or something.

unknown 50:33

Stanfull.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Yeah, Ram, right? Yeah, Jugo Maxi stand full, um Broadway, had the red band maxi. So all them children come down the people after who come and stand up with the briefcase and the thing. Everybody stand up like okay, and and have big 98.9 banner because 98 but 9.9 was your official station, 98 pong, pong in it whole good two, three weeks. The caravan if you like, low compromise, Lat

Forming Blackmail And Caravan Auditions

SPEAKER_00 50:55

love this, da da da um thing. So you can't put general and keep your hand because them is headliners.

Corie 51:00

Yeah, they're the close.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

They may even reach when you think smart because they're best. You know what I'm saying? So everybody, who we gonna amper first? And everybody will put black mail and dead people know them too, they're jingle. So we ended up having to open, and then from that for the first half of the tour, because the caravan was like a tour that went all over Rima Velo Drome, Palo Seco, um San Fernando, Naparima Bowl, um Um St. James Amphitheatre, like every every part of the channel that they did one in Tobago, you know what I'm saying? So they touched the whole country, and then the big finale was National Stadium in the end of July. Right. Middle August, I think.

Corie 51:35

So by that time, when you in blackmail, you're Mr. Vibe already? No, I'm still vibe.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Originally, shock was like you need a name that like signal because I was originally MC Easy Rock, right? And then it takes two by Rob Base and um DJ Easy Rock came out. I was like, that's so much for that name. I changed my name to MC number one, trying to be clever, I was ready to carry us one at a time. Then I dropped eventually. It wasn't cool to be an MC anymore. MC Ham, everybody dropped the MC, so I just number one. And then when he did the blackmail thing, he was like, You need a name that song like you the sing because number one in a song I like singing. Because you're the singers, chant is rap, and we're more doing our boy band, kind of black street guy, kind of something. So then Shock came up with um Shock and I came up with Versailles Young Black Entertainer. So it was already nothing V DY that's right. Shock doesn't like to spell nothing correct, yeah. Versatile Young Black Entertainer. Everybody in the group was marker, M-A-R-K-A, um Jazz at J W A What's And Shop was Shell Shock with um S H dollar sign H E L dollar sign H O K.

Corie 52:36

So I guess with Caravan and the Torin, and your name, well, the group name Billing along with yours. Right. Uh you you at this point you have a career in music, and that's what you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Or no, at this time, all through this process of recording, well, sister on Get Torians, Caravan, Jingle, all this time, I was working as an entertainment journalist for Showtime magazine. Um, I think I was talking with David about this earlier. That was my first and only like office job, even though it was already an office job, because my job was like to write articles about whatever was hot and pop culture, dance or hip hop, whatever, whatever, outside. And when they had concerts, which they used to have a lot in those times, your trub rock, your high five, your air supply, whatever. I would go to the stadium and do a review.

Corie 53:16

That's what I mean when I say when you watch it, and for people who listen, you're at the heart of so much of the movements because Showtime magazine itself was a yeah, it was a big thing. I don't know if I could be wrong, right? But at the time they had Showtime, I'm not sure that they had anything for youths before. I don't remember anything for youths written like that before that. Is Vox they had? Vox was after. They had something before Vox.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Yeah, there was like a magazine thing on a Sunday. Vox was before Showtime. Vox might have been around the same time. I think there was one before, yeah. But Express had a had a had a magazine, right? But it was like two, three pages on a Sunday. Right, you could have got it, you could have got it. Yeah, so but Showtime was the first time it had like a whole magazine.

Corie 53:55

Well, that's what makes me sort of read papers as a youth. When they come, they buy the papers now, they hand me if it was a Sunday Express, it bad they handed the paper.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

I was still working all through the caravan up until the year after the caravan when we got signed to a major label deal, was when I finally quit that job to be like, okay, I'm gonna do this music thing full time.

Corie 54:12

So I'd ask you, like, with because you're talking about a skill set here that people is taking years to hold. The chanting, the singing, now you're writing. Where those things come from?

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Um, growing up, I as I said, I was in the choir in private. So this was like a single thing. I was always the guy where I was good at singing. I was got my good mimic, I could do different things with my voice. I always was good at doing different things with my voice. I used to do stuff. Um my mom has cassette tapes of me at like four or five, climbing up on the kitchen table and singing Sesame Street Voice and doing like. You performing a long time. Yeah, doing the Oscar the Grouch voice and the cool made voice. Like I always had that. I could do things with my voice. And then by the time I'm in primary school, they started giving me Patrick. Not only Patrick could do vocal things, like I pitch, I keep correct, I pitch perfect, but um, I have range, even in primary school. And um, I wasn't, I never had, you know, the people I see a lot of people come on this podcast and talk about boy, we'll have to go on stage as being nervous. I have never that never was a thing for me. I just like put me in, coach. Like, yeah, yeah, stage idea. So because I wasn't afraid and I had talent, you know, thing then my mom realized okay, this kid had talent, she put me in to do um uh classical vocal training and piano with um with um Fussel Macintosh Schools of Music and then um June Joseph was one of the top um piano and opera voice teachers at the time. Yeah, and then I messed music festival, um, secondary school. I was in QRC, so then um sorry to say that you're sorry, that was a great school boy, Rodan and Minsha went to my school. Sorry, don't talk that way. I had to do it. Anyway, so yeah, and I was in the scout band, if the scout band um had the marching band, which I played trumpet in, and also they had Magdalen, the pop band. So I was in Magdalen, it's the same thing. So always going on, and then I joined by form one, two, I joined a rap group at Anton. So I realized, oh, this rap thing, I was always good at writing too. Like I won up poetry and absolutely poetry award primary school. I said, I'm depending on the well. My dad is a journalist, was a sports journalist my whole life. So I grew up in a house that always have typewriters and ribbons, something that had to wait on my dad in his office in The Guardian. He was the sports editor for The Guardian for a lot of years. Um, so I would just I would that was my thing. I used to pick and then them days your board did have nothing on TV, I'll pick up like the dictionary or the encyclopedia, and just what does this word mean? What does that word mean? So I had like a vocabulary as good at putting words together, and by secondary school, like I would forget to do the essay, and then the recess time I would do the essay in 15 minutes and hear A and everybody be vexed. Like I was just always good with words. I won a poetry award in secondary school, so I was always ten yeah. So the rapping thing was like words, and you have single. And then the chanting thing was just like that, but with a Jamaican twang.

Corie 56:57

So yeah, just daddy name they go explain. His daddy name was the journalist, there's the call people named Horace Goodman. Horace Good, meeting. But David and they who will listen. Yeah, they don't know him well.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

There's before your time that happened yeah, yeah, that is the first time. Daddy, daddy didn't know the other time. Yeah, daddy would have been a journalist before ten years before him and my mom, so I understand, I understand.

Corie 57:20

I can see it in the background, and I guess that gives you the versatile.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Yeah, so I grew up just and my parents just used to give me the typewriter, and they'll be like, Yeah, good type of story, whatever, just free up, encourage, whatever.

Corie 57:29

Gotcha. So, yeah. So coming off of Kiskili Caravan, because Kiskili Caravan was white hot, yeah. It did what it did. Same thing with party time where you are part of it. Uh, where going next when it was starting to finish?

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Yeah, so 93 is caravan, 93 Summer's Caravan. By 94, somewhere between 93 and 94, Robert and them um at that time compilation albums was the big thing. So they got a deal with a German, a small German independent label to put out the caravan album but repackage it for Germany, Denmark, all that kind of stuff. Right? Um, so they repackage the album rap so the new trend or the new craze in the Caribbean or whatever. Same songs, everything, just different albums. We can differ manage. Put it out in Germany, and it was kind of like okay, we're gonna put it out in Germany and then Denmark and France and all the different places and see what songs catch. Because what used to happen in those days was a song might be big in Trinidad, but it might be big in New York. It might be big in New York, it might be big in London. So, long story short, by the end of the year, we get back word from the label in Europe saying, you know, what song is the big song over here? That everybody goes somewhere. Them black males, that blackmail song is like a happy song, and like nobody ever hear rapping like that. They're doing all these familiar things that everybody knows, that's me straight on stuff. Yeah, so them white people in Europe love that shit. So um at this point, Robert and then watching us like, okay, all right.

Corie 58:50

Okay, what's to do with this?

SPEAKER_00 58:51

So Shock used that as leverage to be like, okay, so we can cut that, we can record our album, and if all you like it, or you like it before you like it, we'll just shop it elsewhere. Total. Cool, Robert. Like, go ahead. I don't think he was taking butchery time. Like, what's the worst can happen? Shock by the time Shock has his own studio upstairs on the top floor, they gave him a room to just take way up and he and build your own studio upstairs instead of using any pre-production room that you had to show it with other people. Sure. So Shock had the own studio, he was like, take it, do your thing, cut your album, whatever. Beginning of January, we we took um two weeks and cut the album. Eight songs. Narrowed it down to eight songs. We had a bunch of songs we narrowed down to eight. Um, including everybody go, because at that time we know that you song. Everybody go, be like the full singer, and we had a bunch of uh come downstairs, play it for John. John watch us like we're not gonna do this, and Shockle and I was like, Yeah, last two weeks we just split the buckle down, Patrick come every day after work and we just knock it out. He said, Come on now, we play for Robert. Play for Robert, Robert watching John, John watching Robert, we watching each other like what's going on. He's like, Oh, they write and produce everything that this is all all there. Shock is like, yeah, this is all we just do it upstairs in the studio there. So at this point, John and Kiskady as a label was planning to be the first um entity from Trinidad to go and represent Trinidad in media, which is like one of the biggest music trade shows in Europe. It takes place in Cannes, France, where the um all these um Cannes music at the Cannes um film festival and all that stuff, right? With all the bougie white people and vineyards and all that type of stuff. So they were supposed to go to, they had already planned to go to Cannes in February, I think end of February. They were planning to take General Grant because he was like the biggest international grant had there was already on the Billboard Rap Charts and all this type of thing. He was making in road, they had a couple labels interested in him in New York and yada yada yada, right? Had a remix with Kid Capri and a remix with G DJ Ali, Shahee Mohammed from Quest, whole thing. So Grant was kind of buzzing. And at that time when Grant had came out, he had songs like Call Me and So Good, which were like that Shamaranks, Mr. Loverman thing. So a lot of labels were like looking for that. So they're like we take Grant, that's an easy bigger game sign. Um they had this guy called Ricardo Guy James, he used to do more pop, he was kind of like seal or prints, that type of like pop or whatever black kind of training, yeah, vibes or whatever, kind of androgynous, right? So they were taking Ricardo Guy James because he had that pop stuff that they told the white people in France go like. Taking Grant Code, I did flagship artists at this point. He had grand album done done because it was kiddy album and grand first album came out at the same time. Call me and all them things, right? And I showed us all them. So they were taking those two, and then John and Robert was like, yeah, I can't like me. So now we have like a month or three weeks or so, no, two weeks to get ourselves together to be able to go to France, do showcases, perform, and try and get a deal. At this point, I call my mom who um was always supportive but never really got involved in the business aspect of things. But at this point, we had a manager, and we like we clearly we need a manager because we had to figure out we are no clothes, we are we going in the coal, we had no winter coats, nothing. And if we sign our deal, we'll say we're gonna need somebody to help negotiate all that. We need somebody that handle the business aspect, but also Robert and them go respect and not try to play. So I asked my mom. My mom, for the people who might not know, is Marilyn Gordon, the former minister

Writing Everybody Go Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

of education and the first minister of sports, culture. She formed the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs. Um she was responsible for um the GPS sports complex in the national stadium built under her in the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs. Yada yada yada. Right. Yeah. Um by that time, um, she was out of politics and she was working, I think if she was working in insurance at the time. I had insurance, or she might have been working, she might have been the director of the National Lottery Board. One of the two respect. But she was outside of the public, she was still like behind the scenes, but not running for a seat or anything. Right. So I was like, Mommy, we need somebody to manage, and using a person we could think of. And she was like, Alright, fine, I really know much about it, but I'll read books and figure it out. And she came and she had a meeting with rubber. She rubber was like, there are two weeks. Mummy went and pulled whatever strength she could strengthen, and um, she had we ended up getting a link with Zoom. At that time, Zoon was trying to launch a thing called Zoom Outerwear with the jeans and the baty t-shirts and stuff. So we got like outfits from him that look like colourful and Caribbean and but still hip-hop. The baggy jeans, we got some combat boots, and you know, we do get a lot of trendy judicially kind of trying to go for. So we get at my mom organized with her friend that was um working in London um to meet us at Hitro Airport and give us winter coats there. Because we're going into like minus minus below zero weather. We got winter coats and hats and stuff in the airport. Went across to um to France. We go to be them. We we um the guy actually that was our translator over there turned out to be a guy called Jean-Michel Gibet. All right. Who went on to found Richard? Yeah, and then through that trick and all Kendrick ended up leaving Keskidia going over there, Shadow and um Super Blue were there, and uh that became like these movements after Keskid side like. Yeah, which all became the next thing. So, but that's where we met Jean Michel. Um he was our translator and kind of facilitated us in London. Robert and then rented a villa and we did the thing. We had rehearsed a little bit or whatever. First night we go to do our showcase in this little club in Cannes, you know, a couple of people there, the place was like half full or whatever. Um it was supposed to be us opening, Ricardo Guy James, and then Grant closing, obviously, because we had the new jack. Right, yeah. And Grant is a big shutter. But we start our show. There was a some there was like a white boy band from France that that performed before us, they went younger, people there know them, whatever. And they put us on after them. When we went on, by the time we did three songs, by the end of the third song, which was everybody go, the whole place was like people dancing on table, champagne bottles spraying saying, People were nuts. Just because it was the whole happy Caribbean thing, but like we never hear nothing like that. This is amazing. And we had real energy, it was hype at the time. Plus, we now do the album to say excited. Of course, yeah, doing all. Um, by the end of that night, we would spread the second night, the club sell out, place RAM. Um, we had met Hadaway at on the floor and meet them at that time. Hadaway, what is love was like the big song. Um, and then we that's how we found out he was a trinity because he woke up to us like, only from Trinidad. And we're like, Oh, you have a trendy accent? Like, boy, from take from Belmont. So he was like, we have a showcase later she come. He came through. We um Daddy Freddy heard about the time came through. That kind of thing. Also, on the second night, a guy called Christian Cabazer came through and saw us and was like, these guys, the second night they put us, they put Ricardo guy James Fools, blackmail, and then at the end of blackmail, we bring on Jen Audience. Um which went even better than the first night. There was a guy called Koshan Kabaza who came and saw us, and at the end of our performance, he came to me and said, Yo, yo, you guys are very talented and where you're from. I said, Trinidad, you he had never heard of Trinidad really. And it was very intriguing. He's like, I want to talk to the whoever's doing the business. And so I came over to Robert and stuff and joined them. They started talking business, thing, thing, thing, thing, thing. By the end of that, he starts telling them he feels like he what he does is get deals, he facilitates deal. He'll bring somebody to the label, the label sign them, he aircut. Sure. Everybody. And he had gotten at that point, he had signed. I think the biggest Aki had signed was the EDM um group that did um blue that and that. Alright, yeah, that's so much for the time. So when we find out that we're like, okay, this guy's serious. Okay, cool. He's like, I'm gonna bring somebody tomorrow night to see you, like a girl's special.

Corie 1:06:49

And this is for blackmail in particular. For blackmail specifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Yeah, I like round too, but something about the blackmail thing. Because it was the mix of soaker, dance, all hip-hop, everything together. Exactly. Came any second night, he brought um um, he brought the president of EMI Records in France, which was like a big major deal at the time. Um the um he brought he brought the VP. VP sees us, he brings the VP to meet us backstage. The guys like, I want to sign you guys, you're amazing. The talks continue when we go back to Trinidad, yada yada. A few months later, we get signed to EMI France. EMI France is like, we want to do um, we want to launch the everybody go song first as the first single. We wanna do like a promo tour, and um so get them ready to put the tour in a couple months um for summer, da da da. So we start with his simple tour. Right? At this point, Robert and them trying to get uh decide, um, Robert and Christian and them decide because Christian starts coming to Trinidad now because he invested in us and our deal going well, and he's like, Christian and John and them decide they could also get a deal with us for us in North America. They started talking to MCA and all these different labels over there that were more RB because we black, obviously. Um, and the labels in New York were basically saying we like them, but what they do in something more European, like white people stuff, but we will have to get them on Uber Radio here, so you need to get more RB sort of stuff. At this time, um, Teddy Riley and them were recording Blackstreet, and Teddy Riley were recording in Trinidad in in CSB at the time. And we we were real cool with Teddy and the whole Black Street, all them guys and them, because we in the studio every day, they there, and plus they're asking us where the party is tonight, what club to go to. We tell them you all to go lion civic centre tonight, have a big fet. They're like, where's that fet? That type of thing. So we and them good. We got really good with um Teddy's basically second and come on, his co-producer, Spragg Dougie, who did who um did work with Teddy on the SWV Human Nature remix with Michael Jackson. Yeah, so Osan Sprag was like super tight. So Teddy, they asked Teddy, okay, could you like either do some remixes or some original songs for blackmail to like we try to get them signed to early? He's like, Yeah, those guys need to get signed, man. They're crazy. So Teddy was like, I could give them one of the songs that I was gonna use for Black Street, but I feel it'll work for them. Um I already owned that song, so it could it would be like them with Black Street on the backgrounds and featuring me, which is a good look for them labels, we love that. And I'll give your sprague for a couple weeks to like work on the rest of stuff. So we worked on a bunch of stuff and ended up flying to Teddy's um studio, future studios in Virginia after that, working on some more stuff. So we did like a second version of the album, which was supposed to be the North American album. Then there was a whole thing where uh Olivier was the um the name of the VP from EMI. Olivier ended up getting sick, I think he had cancer or some type of serious disease like that. So he had to leave the label, and then the new guy that came and was like, I don't know what to do with this weird career and say that Olivier signed. So we were just kind of on the shelf.

Corie 1:09:48

So that time you're making money when you say signed only paid, like you make it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

Well, we got signed to like about a million dollar deal. Um, and my mom had negotiated by this time. I I like I just want to do music full time because like you know, I clearly I I good at it, and like we go in, play things happening, right? But I still go into Showtime every day, and I kind of even even I even had a meeting with the the manager director Showtime. He was like, Patrick, you're good at your job, but like I don't feel like you're focused, of course. Like you because I I had the ability where I could just come in and write all my stuff for the week and then just leave. But he was like, But then what's the point? Like you're just you just kind of your mind elsewhere, you just kind of rattling off stuff for us to get our paycheck, but you're not you're never here. So like you had to pick one either. The music thing. I know the music thing went good for you, but like, yeah, pick one. And that point was when I was a hilson to go for it. So my mom basically negotiated with Robert and them. We got our our cut of the advance, which we'll put it like this. My my one fourth, because it's four of us, my quarter of our cut was enough for me to buy my first car cash secondhand from my godmother.

Corie 1:10:55

Yes, nice, nice. So yeah, so you're doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

That was the point, and and two, up to that point, convincing your mother who born in 1933, that you're gonna do music for a living.

Corie 1:11:04

Yeah, that's gonna be hard enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:05

You know, who just come out of politics and then you're like nice, nice, nice. Like she was like, I mean, I know you want to do music, but like, how you gonna eat?

Corie 1:11:11

But she clearly negotiated a good deal. So that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:14

She made sure they do her thing and she made us read books about publishing the business of music and stuff about publishing, and how so we all understood the time for towards that because we all understood like the the the business of it and not just the music thing. And then once she read that book and the deal came through, and I was able to buy the car cash at that point. Mummy was like, Yeah, you could. I feel they could, yeah, I feel they can probably do this for a living. I still don't quite understand it, but like they're going somewhere. Yeah, of course. So she basically uh in addition to the our advance or whatever, she got Robert and them to give us like a stipend every week. Oh beautiful. So we could so you can eat. We could you could eat, we could put out the car, we could make sense, makes sense.

Corie 1:11:49

Now, talking about our career in music, because uh even with in looking at your as a fan, just looking at the thing, I have no connection between blackmail and Mr. Vibe. None.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

Yeah, so when Mr. Vibe started, happens later. In between black men and Mr. Vibe, two things happen. Years pass, so one year we waited on to figure out what's going on with EMI,

Touring Trinidad And Going Full Time

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

and then we can't sign any North American deal until the EMI thing sorted all the American. Like we can't touch them until they sort out that deal that's already signed. So we in limbo. We basically stuck. Um, we were still in the again that's type on for a while, but after a while it was like we didn't really happen. The studio started to kind of the kiss leads started to kind of dip. Um, times were changing, they had rituals coming up, this this group da group thing. Um, Jogo had their label with Ghetto Flex and them, things had happened, right? Boom now. I met my partner. Um, I had known Andy Stevenson, the soccer Michael Jackson guy from Party Time Days Again. They had one Andy, he was in our group called, well, led a group called Votely Togue. That one party time lips in category. And then the following year, after they won, he got so many gigs opening for Hammer and Boys to Men, and all these kind of big consistent stuff doing Michael Jackson and Tina Tina stuff, like these big huge shows. Um, he rebranded that into like he made that his full-time job and rebranded Votley Togue into a company called Nostalgia. And Nostalgia used to open for all those big acts, all these spectacular concerts, and all these things. At the time when I was in blackmail, I used to go around with Miss Alicia's older sister.

Corie 1:13:19

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:20

And so everybody knew Alicia used to be in the studio with me all the time because she was interested in the music thing. She didn't know she wanted to sing or rap, or she was a dancer initially, but she just was like being in the studio or whatever. So I used to toot her with everybody knew as my little sister. Because to explain all of that was just like that. Your little sister was not ready, but close enough, yeah. So it's a kind of like a little okay, it's my little sister. Right. So everybody had known her, and then she was in Wotley Tog as a dancer, and then that became not nostalgia. So she was doing all these shows with him, and eventually she had asked me to help them with dropping them to a show sometime somewhere. And me and Andy said this was what we hadn't talked in years, and he was like, Boy, thing. And when one show led to me dropping them for two shows, and they were breaking off a little cash for gas and a little extra, you know. So I make a little change. I was like, all right, cool, I think I ain't doing nothing cool. At this time, Marco went um had signed up for Kiskity used to um R Studio used to have an engineering program where you could learn to be an audio engineer for basically for free, and you would get to in the studio. So you basically gain free training and free experience in the studio working with all the teddy riders and the Diddy's and all these people that passed through there. So Marco went and do that. Chris went off and got like a corporate job, which was his original plan anyway. Um, shock had already had left the country and fly out. Um everybody started doing their own thing. Everybody started do their own thing. So I know started moving Andy and them, and then I did that for a couple of months, and then by October, November, Andy was like, Boy, can't even come in, and I did dry season for me because nobody knows Michael Jackson to do no show in the middle. I can't even wish he said jokingly, boy, I wish Michael Jackson would port a soaker that go real make my day. And I something in my crazy head went, ping idea. And I was like, What if he did? And And he was like, What do you mean? Like, what if we do our song? Come up in your head that's like if Michael Jackson did do one of his songs, but like as a soaker. Right. So we sit down at a rom shop. They were living in a house in Barataria at the time. Um, and we ran, we walked down the street of the ramp shop around the corner, and he had a good relationship with the bartender, so he had a tab. So we sit down, we were drinking some beers, bouncing ideas and stuff. We eventually came up with okay, probably the most signature song for Michael is Billy Jean. So we came up with this parody Billy Jean soccer Michael Jackson thing, which was a crazy idea. But for some reason, Andy and I just were lucky, and we were like, yo, if this works out how we seen this in our head, this could be huge. Alicia was there too. She kind of was kind of a co-writer as well. Going back to the house singing for Andy Wife and the wrestler nostalgia. They're like, it's a crazy idea, but where else we could do? So we end up going, recording it. What was the reaction the first time that song hit the stage? So the thing with the song was that Andy and I built the song for him to perform. It literally is built if you watch the performance. It's still on YouTube where you can see the spectacular Andy's Slocum Manar performance and stuff. Yeah, it's built to where every line has a Michael Jackson specific move that I know he can execute that as a mashup. So we build the song as a performance, not just as a song. It was like I was like, it had to be catchy because it had to play on the radio. It had to compete with like at that time Chutney back and I was like the biggest song the carrier before. So it had to be on that Chutney back and all level production writing-wise. But it also has to be set up to where by the you're performing on your bill and you're building by the end, the whole place. And so, and we also came up with the intro that we did in spectacular, which we would start with the original Billy Jean, and he would come out and do all his things, and then they would start with the so called and the whole place will go nuts. Right, and then the end I would come out and do we came up with this moonwalk and wine thing. I would come out and be the hype man and be like moonwalk and wine, Michael. He would think at the whole place, ah, he'd get a bunch of uncles. Right. So we started doing it in the tent. It was really just for him to be the original idea was this go be great, we'll be able to do it in the tenth, and everybody can eat our food.

Corie 1:17:06

Right, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:07

That's as far as we thought at the time.

Corie 1:17:08

But what's your reaction in the tenth, people?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

10th, uncles, uncle was uncles. And the first night they put him in the food, yeah, spectacular tent, which used to be on Henry Street at the time. The first night they put him in the first half, like halfway through the first half, and he got uncles, uncles, uncles, uncles. Yeah, they're like moving on to the second half. Second night, uncles, uncles, uncles, uncles, uncles. So then now they put him to close. So it was literally the clothes that used to be super blue, David Rudder. So it ended up being um no, it used to be rudder and then super blue. So they put rudder because rather doing more of a colour. So calm me, more slow kind of vibes. They put an Andy to hype up the place, sing whatever roadmap song you have. I can't remember what song it was that yeah, and then people will leave and go. Then the next thing that happened was Andy decided he needed management. So a couple weeks in, song built 10. Every night people come in, so come again. Right. We mashing up in clash and all these kinds of things. And he's like, I need management because I feel me might be able to get some vets too. So he goes to he had a relationship with Big Mac and Ian and them. Um so he went at that this time Big Mac and Ian were together in Legends, Legends, yeah, before Legacy, right? So we went to Legends Mask Camp and he had a meeting with Big Mac and Ian and them. They were like, Yeah, hey, so many radio boy playing thing, thing, thing. And he was like, Come and see the act in the stent, and you go understand. They came and they saw it, they were like, yo, this is big. So they agreed to manage him. It just also happened that they had also agreed to manage a brand new band that was coming to Trinidad for the first time called Square One, with this young lady name her Allison Hines, who had a song called Radomuffin. That she had just won Road Match in Cup over. So it was Alison first time coming to Trinidad as like, you know, with a big song. They had come here before to do the small shows, but like this was their they had a big song, they played on video. Everybody knows what's going on.

Corie 1:19:00

Yeah, Square One and Square One, that yeah. By that time, Square One.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:03

And Alison came here that year, they did this, they would do it, and Big Might and they were organized for them to do Pier 1, Mobs 2, thing, all them kind of shows, like fet. So they came up with a package where it was Square One the band, and then Andy would come on and perform the Michael Jackson song the same way we did in the tent with the Michael Jackson with the Billy Jean opening and then thing, and we would all come on. I would do the hype man thing that used to tear down the fet, and then I'll send with Nred Wagon Muffin plays done.

Corie 1:19:28

Yeah, I remember seeing them and say it. Several fets. That that that's it's that hard to explain to people who wasn't there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:33

Radio, the radio starter pick up because people trying to see it in the fet, and the older people like my mom and them would come in the tent and be like, yo, that's right. Never seen nothing like that in my life. Just you really do it. And then younger people like our age going effect and be like, yo, that's so good. So then now people go, that enter so come on that. We think about that. We're like, eh, we'll end up them days. They still had prelims in our beltroom. So we were like, we're gonna try prelims and see. We get you prelims, we get you semis, we end up doing finals. Andy was like, if I get you finals, I do it like if we are doing boy starting or something, I do in the lift with the fan. I'm gonna do about 20 dancers, like I go in hard. Play me in the finals, we did the finals, tear down the finals, people say they tear first, whatever, we end up coming fifth. After that, Andy toy every weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then somebody a lot of the shows would they were the promoters obviously wouldn't want to bring the whole crew, but a few of them he was able to bring the rest of us.

Corie 1:20:26

Yeah, that's one of them things where it's one of them. Well, people go back on YouTube, right? And and watch it. So before the people go and see, I want people to watch the reaction in the crowds.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:36

I would recommend go and watch. There's a spectacular 10th version of the original performance. Right. Watch that first, and then watch it first. And then go and look for so Michael Jackson, so come on finals 1997. Now bear in mind, this is the year Alison has Ragamuffin. Um, Colin Lucas. I met him back, he's like, Boy, you're still doing a thing. Because he had um Iowa Butterfly, Shadow Wave die. Songs in the place, Masha won Road Match with Big Shock Day. Right, yeah. Um, um Crossfire had, I think Peace Sign die. It was like a big year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's stood out. But and Andy was easily top four or five songs for the year. Yeah, for sure. Toying, toying, toying. We did a bunch of shows we did most of the amphitheater in Canada, yada, yada, yada.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:17

While this is no going back to Carnival, while I run around doing rehearsals, fet show, song check thing with Andy for Carnival, I get a call from Mice. My used to be one of the producers in CSB as well. Martin Raymond. Martin Meice Raymond. Great Martin Meice Raymond, very talented gentleman. Um, who I also had a really good relationship because CSB. So mice basically called me and say, Um, I need you, I need you to come studio to do something for me. I was like, boy, I can't do it right now. I did my head holler busy. I run it on. I need you to smoke up a car. I can take that me. He's like, alright, well, I mean, I see if you can make time with me, but you know, I I we'll see what I could do. Then I get a call from I say a call on my phone, and them days I had like a little no care phone. I get a call on my phone from Auntie Jasmine, Jasmine Boudram. Right, Frankie Boudram's wife, Charlie Boudram's mom. Now, Jasmine and my mom go way back, right? My mom buying auto parts from Speedyway since inception, and she used to go sit down and talk to Auntie Jasmine for hours. We'll go by their house, they'll come by our house. That like Auntie. So I see Auntie Jasmine name come up and say, I ain't take the call. A few hours later, so mice called Jasmine call and take, I tell mice, I can't make I ain't thinking that jasmine and mice collected. Four hours later, my mom calls and says, Patrick, I just talked to Auntie Jasmine, they need to talk to them, they needed to do something, and I need to go and do it. I was like,

Cannes Showcases And The EMI Deal

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

mommy, I in the middle of this soccer Michael Jackson thing right now, taking off and thing we get ready for do to do to get to prepare for soccer man army. They have show, we have tent, we have shoulder. Of course. She's like, Is it Auntie Jasmine? Make time for Auntie Jasmine. At least listen to what she had to say and give her an hour or two, at least. That's the least they could do. I say, Alright, cool. I call back Auntie Jasmine. She's like, Well, we're working on the song with mice. I was like, you know, mice, they call me. She's like, Yeah, and they re mice to really take you out the guy as a song for Shane, and we just need her to come in and like do a little chant on the song, whatever. Okay, boom. I say, okay, this day, this time, in between this and that, I have maybe an hour, maybe two max. I will come in. I ain't promising nothing. Running the studio, mice plays what turns out to be this this French song that was like a big pop song called Joel Taxi, but he did like a dancehall version, a dancehall pop version for Charlie. Charlie had gotten signed to rituals. See everything going first for circle day. And rituals was trying to take her out of the Chutney soaker kind of vein. She was in with like soccer santa and them kind of um, sorry, um, oh la la la mama seat uh that kind of chutney soca vein, she was in and make her more pop because that's where she wanted to be. And so the Joel Taxi was like, she was good with languages, and they were like, it'd be a good thing. Mice was producing it, mice was like, we need a chant on it. So I said to them, okay, they play for me. Mice was like, yeah, chanting here, chanting here, you could do outlets right show, and I go sort out. Okay, I say, well, okay, what kind of style chant they could do? Because the problem with me is I chant, I do all kind of thing. So you had to be specific with me, like what do you want? And we only have maybe an hour. Sharie was like, Well, you just do your thing. I was like, No, no, no. I need a specific, like, I need a stylistic choice, so I'll know which way to go with each other. She was like, Well, I don't know. I just say, Okay, like I'll do it differently. If you could have picked any dance or artists that big now to put it on this track, who you think will fit it? Should I sound like Shargi, kind of like an old Carolina kind of vibe? I was like, cool, I can do that. Go in the studio, I write down the first verse, and a little, well, maybe a two line in the second verse, and I was like, you know what? I'll make I figure up. Mice hit record, I freestyle down, I do the first verse, I do the couple lines of my second verse, I freestyle the second verse, down in the end, mice hit me the thing, I do some more freestyle until the record finish. He I make me do a second, he that hear like I want more chart, just do a little ad some um some yeah, some almost unlocked, all that kind of thing.

Corie 1:25:03

People remember like when you taxi. I didn't know if you're hearing anything like that before then either. Either from Charlene nor from you, the the whole vibe of the song.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

It was a very different thing, but because you put me in that zone of it sounded, it did sound very old Carolina. Um make it yours too, huh? Again, doing a shaggy ish vibe. I'm not trying to actually do Shaggy. Of course, of course. Because I was kind of fresh, you're assuming, too. So I was like, I had to make it in that vein, but also Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:25:32

Yeah, so no, it will congrats on that too. Because we got the one that changed. I cut that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

So picture me running the studio, get a quick, a quick brief, cut the song, basically freestyling song. Say, Mike's you're good. Yeah, he's like, I can work with that. Going back to Andy. And I go and jump back in the car, we're going back and cut gigs, thank Carnival. We pass Carnival done take Andy Fly. Now we're doing gigs. Somewhere in the middle of June, beginning of July, I get a call. Um, John Michelle, Michelle, John Michelle, she be on my phone and Mr. Viber, I want you to come to have a meeting with me. And uh if you have a manager, you to bring them and mommy, we are a meeting. Sure, sure. So it mummy to the meeting. At this time, I ain't even put to take two men together. That is John Michel with the jewel. I forget about that jewelry topic. I just like I probably never hear this weird, shaggy French season. You do that and you're done. I like dying when I probably never hear this again in my life, but that's what they want. How do you meet him with Jean-Michel? He says to me, Um, uh, so I want you and Shadi. Shane was there too with her mom. She was managing her anytime. Uh her mom and her dad were managing any time. And John Michel says, Okay, so the song, uh, they show the taxi song, it's number one in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Fred Guyane. Uh it's playing underground in Paris. And I was like, excuse. Now, to quantify this, it's number one on like radio, yeah, it's like the radio charts and stuff for all these places and playing in the underground stuff. But you have to bear in mind that these radios are like Uber radio stations, like 918.9, and this is the year when Michael Jackson had put out the invincible album. Oh, with um, Michael, you know you did, right? So we we number one and Michael is number two. So in my head, it's like this not make again, this is not making one is like this is like headline all over again. And everybody goes like this not making no kind of so you telling me, like, yeah, they want you to do shows, so I don't know if you all discussed that, but we have to come up with a package because they want to do shows and da da da. So I was like, I I guess I mean the only thing is I already doing shows and Andy and them too. By this time I done started doing that. So I was like, I had a kind of balance, the had a cut they're like, I was like, we had to communicate because I had a I you had a let me know in advance, so I would know you know, we you could do the dates and stuff, so I could do the two. Right, right, right. Try my best to do the two. So we did the first show we did was French Guyana, Guyane. Um we jumped on the plane, a little the plane or whatever. We landed. French we are now. When we land on the airport, little tiny airport, and we're looking at the radio, it have a bunch of a big crowd, people with signs and things. Um, bonjour, welcome and thing, and Joe the taxi. And we like, that can't be for us. We are Charlie, like we know the song is number one, but we ain't thinking about come off the play Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. This again, the song. We like, okay, this is not, we didn't really prepare for this. We have her, me and a DJ, we ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And showing he had it, we ready, came to just do the one song and go home. So now the people, the promoter say, Well, we have to do at least two, three songs because the people, you know, there's a concert over the headlining. We like, okay. So Sharon did a couple of her chutney songs and uh maybe a pop song she had that when released, whatever, and brought me on last. We come, we but we reach the airport, mob thing. Cherry and screaming, they had a hustle us into the van to go to the hotel. Pull up at the hotel, mob signs. People church screaming, ah they had a sneakers in the back today in the hotel. Same thing as a sneakers out in the back to go to the radio station, same thing when you reach the venue. It's just like a big stadium kind of thing. Charlie sings her songs, they they they scream and they weather, but they can tell they're not familiar with those songs as much. And then the DJ startured a taxi, and I say, Yes, well, listen to the original, and hope it's that's what they're waiting for. Charlie, watching me like too. Because she never experienced this in her life. I have a little kind of thing cling because I already did like the stadium and the caravan, all kinds. So I have a better grasp of the diano. But I still surprised to come. Me expecting all that. We do the song, we mash up. Thank you very much. Good night. We walk over Charlene, Charlene. So now we had to go back again. We had some performing the song three song, three, three times that happened there Guadeloupe, Martinique. Um, and then eventually it decided to be a clash where like she started to wanted to do dates, but I already had a book with Andy. So a couple of the shows, um JD, who's now a gospel artist, filled in for me. Um kind of basically. With Charlene, no with Andy. With Charlie, yeah. Okay. With Charlie. Because the Andy was more the the more my baby. Because I co-wrote, co-produced, sing backgrounds, I'm the hype man. Like that was my baby.

Corie 1:30:15

So at this point, you had to kind of make a choice of stuff which we I kinda, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:18

Because kind of it was both of them tugging and pulling. I was really trying to do the two, but sometimes they clash. And when they clash, generally, I gotta choose the Andy thing. Eventually, um, the so that's 97. 98, my son is born.

Corie 1:30:33

Listen, if we know reach 98, David, go tell me 15 minutes just now, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had to find out when Mr. Vibe was born. You had to fast forward to Mr. Vibe.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:41

So 98, um, my son is born. I start, I realized, okay, I'll take this thing seriously. You know, I can't just be hustling for odds and ends like I have a baby to feed. So I started be like, okay, I can write songs. That is, I can do backgrounds, I can write songs, that is catch money in my hand.

unknown 1:30:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:56

So I started write some of the stuff. I ended up linking up with Nasty, who I did produce um Toro Toro for Marshall. He did um he had done chapter for Iowa. So he was like a hot producer at the time. He was based in New York, but he's Trinity born and stuff. He used to be the drummer for Maxi Priest and stuff. So and he also produced um Lloyd Stiff. So he was kind of like that guy. Um, somebody had introduced me to him in CSB and he was looking for writers, and I was like, I go right. And he was like, cool. We did a bunch of songs that turned out to me. We had demo a bunch of songs that I had actually pitched to Cliff Harris, who was the owner of Atlantic, to do um for Tony Prescott to sing. And Cliff was like, Who's singing on this song? Or that's the vibe guy who write the song? Who's who chanting there? That's the vibe guy too who write the song. Um, and so he kept hearing this person is right, that person is vibe and vibe right everything. So he's like, I want to meet this vibe person. We had a meeting, he's like, I want to join Atlantic. We already have Tony and Terry Seals was there, Michelle Graves. This is the height of Tony still singing all about and um all are we together as one and all them things. Um so I joined the band that year. That was the last year they went in Atlantic. They left to form Surface the next year. Um, and then Cliff asked me to stay and do a have a whole new band join. They go ahead and guitars, Samuel Jack, who was in um the original ecstatic with the music farm and stuff, use the keyboarders. Jack was the musical director, Billy D Kid was in the front line, Brandon Sturgeon was in the front line.

Corie 1:32:19

Okay, forget all these other people. Let me hear about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:21

Yeah, so I did. So I did. I produced, uh wrote and produced a song called Um French Man Jam that we got to soccer monarch finals and stuff. So at this point, I in a soccer band, which is a big deal for me. Then that led to from there, I ended up leaving Atlantic, joined Horizon with Steve CD and Anselm Douglas, uh, new Anslim from Kiskid D because Anslim was a Kiss Kitty artist. So he was big brother Slim in the Kiskidie days, so he continued to be that for me to this day. Um so I was in Horizon for a couple

Limbo Years And Reinventing The Career

SPEAKER_00 1:32:50

years, and then eventually Horizon kind of fizzled out, and I joined Mr. and Michelle Sylvester joined um Triple X, which was Eddie Charles band when he left traffic. And at the end of the triple X thing, I was like, you know what? I fed up on this band thing. I think I want to do this whole thing because I have plenty of people in the band, so I get to say that. Yeah, around this is about 2003-2004. I was like, you know, this uh so 2005, I did a song on a rhythm with a young dude named Casey Fellow. Casey must have been 14 or something, 15. Yeah, yeah. Um at this point, I was still cutting backgrounds as like my main bread and butter. I still writing those songs in between. Um, I was cutting backgrounds with Nadia, a bachelor at the time. Um, she hadn't joined um Kessy Ban yet, so we were both just kind of solo entities, cutting the backgrounds, and both of us wanted to be solo. Michelle Foling, because she was in the band with me. So she ended up being in the crew. Terry had known since party time days, he was in new creations. Terry and Michelle were in a Chutney band at one point called Pure Energy, which is how they did the dip down low song. Um, so Terry ended up being in the crew, and then Alicia me with my little sister, end up being so the five of us ended up being in our little collective.

Corie 1:34:01

So this case is before precision and all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:04

He was just Casey, was just Casey productions at this point. Right, it's just Kenny's son who produced it. Now they was like Kenny Son produced any real bad, and he charged, I think it was $2,500. Yeah, so it worked. And them time Kenny and I won him charging six grandes. So we started working with Casey.

Corie 1:34:20

And you're in in this while you're doing that, your mind on a solo career.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:23

Yeah, we done I and me, Nadi, that was the collective reason why we became that collective. Because me, Nadi, Terry, um, Alicia were all um We Wanna Be Solo. Right, yeah. Right? So we started working on stuff, we we called stuff, and then um I did a song called Up and When I Casey's rhythm, the same rhythm with um that Marshall have the song with Dougie Fresh on it, and so I have a song on that called Up, which is like a big song in Germany still. Um and then the following year, that's 2005, 2006. Now, I go by Casey to produce this song that I I wrote the song, and everybody I say forward like do that real match. It's Tim? Yeah, Tim. I had written that. I was like, I want to put the most hooks ever in a soap song. I just want to put hook after hook, Frank versus to hell with chorus, yes, yes, hooks, hooks, hook, hook, hook, hooks. Every every four bars, new hook. And that was the whole song. Down to the end. I was like, I had it because I put all songs before they play.

Corie 1:35:19

Did you remember that song, David? Can't remember that song. Thing, thing, thing, thing, you know, you ain't coming outside. Everything I like about, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:28

So, but yeah, good. I go on by Casey to produce the song. Casey listened to the song, he's like, and by this time, he's starting to bubble everybody, Marshall started work with him. So he's busy. He's hot. He had to do expos, road match, road mix. He was hot. So he's like, Vibe. I burnt out. I feel like I've given him my best and I ready. I just say hey in it. I like my ears gone. I ain't I ain't had nothing left, but I feel I had to go somewhere else and produce. I will still mix it or master or whatever else you need. I'll help you, however, I can help you, but I I my tank empty boy. I nothing, I don't I don't want to just take your money and yeah, uh half ass. Like the song big, and I feel like I just know the pussy of it. So I panicking all work do. Nadi has started to work with this young producer when I name Julio. Julio went on to do um spread your hands and legos, and he also did Fantastic Friday for um.

Corie 1:36:16

I forget Julio, talk about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:18

But yeah, so Julio was working with Nadi. Nadi's like, Well, try Julio. I went down by Julio, Julio ended up totally sale. Like, I started explaining what I wanted. Julio's like, I see I have you. So Julio produced it. I carry by I had to go back and forth between Julio and Casey twice because Casey was like the mix almost there, but not quite like tell them, fix this, do that. So I in them days I know email. So I had to drive back to Julio studio in La Flores and fix, go back by Casey and Sam Fernando. Drive back by Julia and LaFlorison, go back by Casey and Sam Fadando. Finally, after two times, we get everything marked finished. Casey mixed and master Casey master it because Judy had to do the mix, you said he wanted to mix. And when Casey mastered it, in them days you have to burn CDs to drop to drop in one of the radio station again before email. So you had to burn 100 CDs, a couple hundred CDs. Because you had to drop one for every DJ on every ship. And them days was two stations 96 and 98. Yeah, 98.9 years of red was nothing yet. So I had to do a couple hundred CDs. I said, well, boom off a hundred, I will drop the first batch and then I will come back again when I get more money to boom some more. So it's not playing one time. So this is when the Mr. Vibe thing comes at this point. I am still vibe. Just VYPE. I forget the dots and things just vibe. Sure. And already everybody knows vibe for the draw taxi, so I figure, okay, vibe have a big song.

unknown 1:37:33

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:34

Casey in print anything. When I was sitting when I was singing like in previous song, I sing, I would say, yo, you're Mr. Vibe and I dance all again. And think so. Casey now put Mr. Vibe thing for the road on the CD. And that'd be got that be coming. And it was like printed his literally used to print the name on the CD in like ink.

Corie 1:37:52

Casey, any father make a real people name at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:55

And so when he when Casey, I wait for half an hour. Casey come and give me a stack of CDs, hell looking CDs. You can go and start like hand them out. I I open up the tree and I said, But Casey, who's Mr. Vibe? He's like, but I know your name you just say that to you so many times. I was like, Casey, how long you do a song with me? You have multiple songs with me and all them is vibe. She's like, Oh, go well in my head out. I think that's Mr. Vibe, whatever. I say, but I can't put it up. If I had a bullet over, I would have a baby to bullet over. Kenny go over. I was like, well, I I literally had spent my last forever much couple hundred dollars. So I drop it. So I do play that from time drop it off or I drop it off the week before Christmas. Oh week? Nothing. I drop it off. Did you just see Mr. Mike? They don't know who the hell that is. So they take it off. Some I can't remember who I think about shadows if it was the bike of the cleaner. Shall I have a song? Mr. Mike played. Second book, we're not within eight nine times back to back the back and shot the back. So now it's supposed to be when it's about some new access that they have. So initially I said me and I was like the number.

Corie 1:39:18

So but the numbers. The women's a solar core. The booking now just needs some you only.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:29

Yeah, so once once by New Year's, Naya George talked when that was so covered with the stadium like soccer burger, but they used to soccer. Um so the first time soccer was on New Year's night. And Naya George is single song. Because like everybody I know that's you, I was like, you know what? So I'm not a single song, everybody running and stayed like that is bad. So at that point, everybody put funny together and

Mr. Vibe Name Origin And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 1:40:00

then started close to the shows and everything makes sense. By that point after by the week after that, um Janelle Forest used to book um 1.9 at the time, plus um said I was booking a car manager, but I can do bookings for them because I already most of the shows that booking for so come back to me anyway. So in the book book and I was saying, Well, I booking for Bible and take, and that's how I got bookings for the work and that later foreign thing or so called.

Corie 1:40:26

Well, it's a long academy. Ten minutes into the story again. The context of somebody's stories is important than these people.