Kevin Soyer on How Being Completely Paralysed Led Him to Make Thousands Laugh

Kevin Soyer has become one of Trinidad and Tobago's most respected stand-up comedians—but very few people know the extraordinary journey that brought him here. In this episode, Kevin shares the life-changing illness that left him completely paralysed, the terrifying moment he could only move his eyes, and the long road back to rebuilding his life. He also opens up about finding purpose through comedy, growing up in Hardin Place, learning theatre after his diagnosis, performing on stages around the world, the rise of Trinidad's stand-up comedy scene, and why laughter became the way he transformed trauma into healing. This is a conversation about resilience, creativity, family, ambition and finding purpose after life changes forever.

Transcript

Cold Open On Crutches

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This audience of people see me coming out on these crutches. People sorry for me. They're like, oh God, why is this? What happened to him? And then I know it's my job once I sit down to pull them out of that concern and make them not just pay attention but make them laugh. Comedy was not always the plan. I mean, I wasn't gonna run track and feel for children and tobacco. It was paralysis. I was progressing. It started in my feet and we're just moving up, moving up. My arms became paralyzed. By Friday, I couldn't move anything but my eyes. By Friday night, my respiratory system began to be paralyzed. But the comedians they always say they're like intimate spaces. You want to perform for one, two people. I won that my big brother woke up to the bed and I look in to see, like, where I don't know a smile, hello, whatever. He just looks at me and I said, oh, I look at bad. I'll look at bad. He just started crying. And my sister started crying too. First of all, very horrible bedside, man.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Corie 1:16

Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Thank you for all the new viewers and listeners that are tuning in. Today I have with us who I've been I've been threatened, warned, advised, and instructed by people who I consider to be the greatest comedians I ever see. I could call names. I've been instructed by Ms. Rachel Price to get this gentleman here. I've been instructed by Jovel Junior Lee Limo to get this gentleman here. And today we have with us with Sir Kevin. So how are you going to?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Thank you for having me. I'm so sorry that happened to you. So that's life, you know. That's life. One week you interview with Marshall Montano. We're up here. And then life does humble you. It's bring you down. And you have to go to things like that. But it's to make you stronger. What are we gonna tell people is to record this before Marshall anyway?

Canada Show And Caribbean Crowd

Corie 2:00

So I'm brought everything good? I'm good. I'm alright. Happy to be here. Happy to have you here. Happy the church work. Yeah, it worked, it worked, it worked, it worked. We did not do the rest. So we did it, right? How was it Jamaica versus Strong that twice?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Where was Canada? It was Canada, it was Brampton, so it's really, really good. It was um a lot of Caribbean people were there. So um it was really well received. You know, the Jamaican team they were really um you know hospitable and had a great time, it was really good. The the comedy it was good to see our comedy work on uh foreign stage, even though it was a lot of Caribbean people, right? It just went over really well, and yeah, it was a great time.

Corie 2:35

So is this something that you do regularly at Canada?

SPEAKER_02 2:37

That was my first Canada show, thanks to um yeah, Japal, the comedian. Yeah, he likes worked with Russell Peters and stuff like that. He's established, and he's brought across many um Trini comedians there. So I kind of write a passage. I see you know. So I guess now I've made it. I didn't make it anyway, but um, but that was nice. That was nice. Um, and to go there with uh like you mentioned, Junior Lee and his team and stuff like that. So yeah, having jack all there, junior leader. We made up the trini team and it was really good. It was really good.

Corie 3:07

Who was the Jamaican? Sorry, no.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Um, Jay Martin, for sure, he was the captain, and then the other people who were on the flyer.

Corie 3:13

Okay, that is the kind of trinity we want to. We want to we want to when we had Jamaica versus Trinity, yeah. We won the Trini team. It was really about us, and we did destroy them. Oh yeah, we really did, we really did.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

They had they had to admit it, we really destroyed them.

Corie 3:29

Nice, nice, nice. We expect to know this. I was glad to see that though, and salute to Japal for doing it because that was so common when I was coming up. I real stand-up comedy fan, right? Right, and when we were there was a time where after Carnival, immediately it would swing to comedy. The time meeting where they skit vic skit based. Usually it was a combination, yeah. People didn't stand up or skits, but you used to have Sprang along and them versus Oliver, and then it was a very, very common thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder how you feel about it because you you dominating the space here. Dominating the space people. I see, yeah, you know, don't play again. I see, I see, I see. And as I say, I was a fan of stand-up. You sit on in a pocket that I see with the greats internationally. Right. That at all songs are keep up about that. I'm comfort with silence, the types of jokes that you tell, the types of topics that you're willing to touch on so on. So yeah, dominating.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

You think I comfortable with silence? Are you fine?

Corie 4:18

So where similar before? In Queensville? Like on Queenswell, yeah. My show or somebody else? No, somebody else. You just had a a part to play in the show. Couldn't it have been simi? I don't want to call you all set. See, when you just went see me showing me show you like rudeness.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

I like rudeness. That's where you like is a rude man. I hear that about you. Because if you go and see me show, you like real.

Corie 4:34

100%. My mother says she wants to go. I'm glad you say that or no. My mother said, I would like to see that simicale. I said, Oh no. I said the podcast was different to a similar.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Wow. Wow. Yeah, no. So for me, I mean, I do have a reputation of being comfortable with silence. That's interesting. Maybe it was that particular show because a lot of people think that I tend to one, I always move in really fast. So I need to consciously slow myself down. But also, like I like to always punctuate, punchline, punchline, punchline, punchline. Because as you did mention, yeah, a lot of the topics, because I pull comedy from trauma. So I'm comfortable with that that uncomfortable topics, definitely. I will go there, talk about, you know, whatever. Because I mean I pull from my life, so there's you know, some dramatic things to talk about there. But um, yeah, I think yeah, interesting pocket in that way. I think um I've been really well received, so I'm really fortunate in that in that way.

Turning Pity Into Laughter

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Um, people tend to pay attention, but I think I had to earn it because for me, whenever I go on stage, so I'm never really nervous on stage, I've never experienced that nervousness on stage, like performing nervous. I've never had that sensation. But I'm nervous in from the time the announcer says my name to when I seated and have the mic, I'm very nervous because in that moment I have no control. This audience of people see me coming out on these crutches, people sorry for me. They're like, oh God, what is this? There's a skitter. What happened to you? What character is this? Like, you know, and I have no control of what they're thinking, how they're perceiving me. And that so that does be like really nerve-wracking. And then I know it's my job once I sit down to pull them out of that concern and that distraction and make them not just pay attention, but make them laugh. Oh, so it's deliberate that he addresses it as soon as you get there. Have to. I've tried before, not, and people are distracted. They're like, Does he know he has? He knows he. He don't know. I'm telling me, yeah. Like, you know, they don't they don't know that I know. So um, well, they don't know how to react, they don't have permission yet to laugh. So I out the gate, I address it. So once I address it, we could be good. We good. He he talk about it, he's laughing about it, and that makes it comfortable. Sometimes I hostolate as well. Like Wendell Bompat. Um, he would always say something like, you know, I bring it to the stage this man Kevin Sawyer. One thing about Kevin, eh? He's never passed my straight. Yeah.

Corie 6:46

Oh, you do it up front.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

All right, Wendell. Or um, like we sometimes my DJ were getting on it like um Reb Rebel Rango. Oh, Rebels and DJ. He would, you know, Kevin Sawyer. Anyway, when my legs don't work like they used to before you play that song, anybody else will laugh. But it just takes this thing out of it and gives people permission to just relax and laugh. So from then, from the time I hold the mic and I say the first word, I don't be nervous. I it's the most comfortable I feel ever.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Ever. And and I love like people like uh, what the comedians they always say um they're like intimate spaces. They want to perform for one, two people. I want Napa. Really? Napa too small. I want the stadium. I like a big crowd. It's feel like an instrument, it's feel like you're playing them, you're getting them to go up, and then you're getting them to come in, and then you're getting them. I like that.

Corie 7:34

So yeah, I think that's what I mean with the silence. Because for instance, I see you say things that the crowd pull back. So, for instance, you will address the disability almost without the gate. And sometimes the crowd might pull back. I see it on YouTube where people are like, Yeah, you say that. Yeah, and you just you unflinch, you're nerved by it.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

You have to, you have to. And yeah, so I'm happy to address it. Um, and and that's in everyday life, that's just why not begin, especially training and the big go. People will say something, and once they can come, the thing with Trini is there's the genuine concern, then they kind of feeling out to say, okay, are we, you know, can I ask a question? Can I whatever? And they realize my feeling towards it. Oh, everybody's a comedian. Yeah, everybody's a comedian. All of a sudden, is now so yeah. Because a stand-up comedy, but you can't stand up. So give him a change. But no, yeah, yeah. So so yeah, that's the that's like the stages of it. But um, yeah, it's something I'm very comfortable with. It's just it's just my way of I realized very early addressing it. Um, and it's what it's just how I did it out the gate. Yeah, you know, I guess when you get in any backstory, I don't want to because I ramble too much, David. If I'm talking too much, yell at me. Scream. If I talking too much, just tell me, shut up.

Corie 8:45

You could never talk too

Adjusting Material For New Markets

Corie 8:46

much, yeah. So is it different when you go out to the audience in Canada in terms of because you're comfortable doing it here, any less comfortable there addressing it?

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Listen, I I do have a I will tell you real, okay. So for me, I when I went there, I was preparing a using material that you're custom using, um, that you know solid. So that's one thing. You get towards making it university, no, universally understandable. Sure. That's another thing. But I think I was a little too fixated on that, right? So I went there and I was the most important note before I left here in the airport when I reached Oliver, slow down Kevin, slow down your speech, right? So I went out there thinking so so uh for this Brampton show, there was a 2 p.m. and a 7 p.m. 2 p.m. I went out there, um, got great responses and everything. Um, you know, they enjoyed it and everything. But the note I got from some friends who came to some see me, they were like, you could be more yourself, you don't need to pander that much to them, you don't need to try to make your references so Canadian or try to make it so universal, you don't need to, you know, um pull back so much because they understand. And even the people who are not Caribbean, they get in the context, they could read into it so you can relax. So even though the first one went well, thankfully there was a 7 p.m. And I just went out there and I was just fully, and that one killed. Both was good, but the second one, I felt good, they felt good. I just knew like, yeah, it was this was really, really good. So yeah, I think um my approach going forward. Yes, you have to be mindful of you know speaking too fast or anything like that, and using references that people could understand, but apart from that, it's comedy. People, yeah, they they know what they're coming for and they and they could understand it.

Corie 10:25

And they try to relate, I guess. Uh a comparison for me would be I went the other day in Queenshall again to see Donald Rowling. Yeah, oh, you went to that one, yeah, yeah. It was real good, though. It was good, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've seen a lot of American comedians on the Trini Trinian Kivot was real good on the night. Kivo is our boss, and um Jerome. Who's the man who's doing the backflip? Jerome. He was Jerome just in very, very good. Yeah, yeah. Simi was there too. They were good, but but Kivo, again, it's just I I maybe I read it because I'm very nervous about stage. I read the calmness that all you light up when they say Kivo.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not like up when they say Kevin Sawyer. You see that we can't get Kivu, we can't get Kivo on this video. We have to have Kevin Sawyer.

Corie 11:05

Now he does good, he do good. But I felt as though I mean Queens Hall didn't sell out. It was about half the audience, and even the half that was there, half the arena. What's called the hall? Yeah, the auditorium auditorium, half of that. So the block off the top side, yeah, and then the bottom side was maybe about uh halfway full. So the uh he wasn't coming out to a warm audience, I'm gonna put it like that, right? Because I saw Donald Lawrence before in Florida, he had opened for Chappelle. Okay, and I mean that's that's where you're talking about there, 7,000 people, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's go, go, go, go, go.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

This is it's

Learning From Local Comedy Greats

SPEAKER_02 11:37

energetic. Um, as you mentioned, Kivo, Kivo was the first comedian. So, how I got into comedy, I don't know, you'll get to that, but I went immediately and did it on television for the first time. Immediately for the first time, then my first five minutes on TV. Um, it worked really well, and from there I got to go to open mics. But in the open mics, everybody was trying nothing. Right. And my impression of comedy was like Trunis are trying nothing with comedy. And the first show I got booked where Kivo was on us, like, oh my gosh. Like he could actually do this, yeah, he could really do this proper. This could be a serious thing. He can just, you know, Kivo managed it. It was like, yeah. So he was my inspiration, my first inspiration for like local comedy and what it could be like. And of course, after that, I saw Errol Fabian, and I was like, okay. I see. Okay, yeah, this this thing.

Corie 12:17

So Kivo is only OG, that's what's going on there. Oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Oh, well, Erl, it's more the OG is but Kivo kind of in between the OG and peer, gotcha kind of space. And yeah, a lot of people a lot of us have a lot of reverence for him because we would have seen him at a different level when we were just coming in. Understood. You know, and he's always very accessible, he's always very supportive. Kivo is uh Oh, he's not just saying that then. Nah, he really is supportive and accessible and that kind of thing to us, you know. So yeah, it's a good one.

Corie 12:40

So eventually, when I saw I was trying to figure out okay, what Donald Rowling is gonna do here, because the crowd's still cold. He woke off the stage coming from the audience and did it from the ground, which I've thought uh watching it as mastery. I was like, okay, this man figuring out what to do as he goes along. Yeah, and you're trying to fill out this small audience now, and he went all the way in. Right, right. He said, he said this man sent me a message, he said we can't cuss on this guy together immediately. And from the time he said that, yeah, I think he kind of owned the crooked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always wondered how it was for you, and and I appreciate you talking about that because somebody complains about Junior Lee when Speed was here. He's like talking too fast and talking like too much of a trini. And I wonder if we have to adjust for every market that we go to.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

I am the wrong person to ask. I'm a junior lee apologist, and he can do no wrong in my eyes, and he will not try and be ego is wrong, and junior lee is right. Too bad. Um sorry, sorry, but nah, but it but even if I try to be objective, I still think he he he he was doing the right thing. He was, you know, um sharing what we have with the world. I mean, accents and and and I mean, okay, just slowing down could be one thing, but people wanted him to speak like speed, like speed, like somebody said I'm I don't know. Oh gosh, he he said somebody said Carla Fodringham or somebody they said should have done it.

Corie 13:58

Salute to Carla Fodrinham, but I don't know that uh I don't know that in it tonight.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

He was the perfect, he was the perfect person for that job. He was perfect person for that.

Corie 14:06

When he was here, he said that when he sees you laugh, he knows he could do this thing. He said he said you always perform on the comics and stuff, and he said you're good on any crowd. Yeah, yeah. So wait is a hard audience, or you're just I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

You know, I think even for you, like maybe in your life, people have a perception of you, or maybe like your peers have a perception of you, or they seek something from you. I don't know why, because I know you as lost as I am. But Kevin Soya, I know, I know you're struggling, right? But no, I think um uh yeah, yeah. It's not a I I I think I I'm a big fan of our local comedians, I very, are very um protective and uh possessive, and and yeah, I I I really um I love them, I genuinely love them. I I've I've been up close and got to see what a lot of people haven't seen, seen the growth, seen the journey. So I feel genuinely invested in all of them. Um, so I don't know. I feel like I really they would they they would have to speak to what it is, but I do hear many times people um come off stage and be like, ah yes, I do good tonight. Kevin was doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. People he said it. That's exactly what he does. And it's not, it's not on purpose. It's like I laugh like my grandfather, he's laughed, he's cackle, he's laughed from like his soul. So if you make me laugh, I am just yeah, I love to be as somebody always trying to make people laugh as well. You know, it's good when people can make you laugh. Gotcha. So I just, yeah, I just laugh. So I guess maybe that's what they say. I don't know. I'll wait till you're with you. So it starts off on TV. How that comes about? Because nobody, I mean, that's not the place that most people start. Yeah, that's not what I started and performing, but uh comedy, yes. So I was jumping around the story. Should I go to front? Oh, yeah, okay, right. Yeah, it's a very good thing. He's appropriate.

Corie 15:43

I don't know what that's we always do is edit it together and make it look like a good story. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah,

Going Viral Then Landing On TV

Corie 15:48

nana is okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

How it's end up being on TV being that first big game. Yeah, so I was doing videos online, and I was so initially I started doing videos where I would talk about issues facing persons with disabilities as a person with disability and infuse some humor into it to make it more palatable, make it more you know digestible for people. People were saying, huh, still sad, but um I would do it right. I made a valiant effort, and then I started to make you know a little one or two stupid videos. So I remember making this one video where I got three bullbones in a pack, which is a devastating experience for anybody, you know. Um hardest day of one of the hardest days of my life. So I made this whole video recording it, right? 400,000 something views online. So from that, um CNC True reached out to me and they were like, we have this segment on the rundown call Make Us Laugh or something.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Um, if you're funny online, come and see if you're funny in person. I'd never done cinema comedy before. And I was like, okay, I'll try it. So I went there and had to do five minutes, and I did five minutes about again the funny things with having a disability, and about my grandparents, because my grandparents, when I ended up with a disability, were you know, a lot of my mom, a lot of my family, but my grandparents were like that support and stuff. They really came and were there for me a lot, like, yeah. And so, um, and of course, in that situation, I'm just observing them. So I've seen funny things about them, the nuances and their behaviors and everything. So it was very easy for me to mimic the behavior and find humour in it. So I infused that into it anyway. The set went very, very well. Um run down, you mean the only run down. Afterwards, all those walking me to the elevator and all telling me, yeah, man, use the best. And here somebody go, I was like, Oh, yeah, well, too old was the best so far, and it was Junior Lee. That's the first day I ever met Junior Lee. This short little gentleman came up to me after my set. This is a true story. Came right up to me and said, That was real good. We're gonna be real good friends and all. I said, Okay, thank you. Thank you. And I went. I couldn't get without it. Linfas enough. I was like, okay, thank you, thank you very much. Right, little did I know. Oh my gosh, that man, what you know, listen. Make sure be careful all there, be careful. What people want to be a friend, say yes, but you never know. But um, yeah, so apparently me and him had really good sets on your own. Right. And yeah, from there, I started to do the open mics, met up with Simi D Trini, Kwame Weeks, Jerome Richardson, Kess Ramsey, a lot of these people, and um, yeah, we just started to work this circuit. Simi was the first Simi who like went on like a business venture. Simi started to do this show called Holly Mike, right? Where we would have um weekly comedy shows where it would be a competition, Simi hosting it, and the rest of us comedians will come and we will compete. Funniest person will win, I think it's like $500. Um, I competed five times, I won five times, and um then I gave it a rest so the rest of them could win. And um, yeah, and then from there we formed this other group called Laugh on the Ave. And since then, with a little break for COVID, but since then we just had you know these seasons of having small shows, and then we'd have like one or two big shows and just build this family and this community, and from there we just started to bring in new comedians and nurture them and get them going, and it just became this whole you know thing. And people have branched out and gone, and of course, like junior league going, you know, gone trailblazing. And yeah, other people have had their own ventures, like me. I have my own, you know, my own shows that I have called Therapy and Intervention. Simi went on with all her different Corey Shepherd favourite shows that he has go to, and then I'm it have Kess Ramsey, our resident Christian comedian, dear, dear friend of mine, and my brother. That's my brother. I ain't got that one. You ain't got that one. After they go after you go a similar. After they go a simmy show, you need to go directly to a Kess Ramsey's show.

Corie 19:44

No, the thing is, right? When Junilli was here, is a contrast because he was saying that he only does skits to promote his stand-up comedy. When you started doing these skits, like I see some of the early days of your skits, you had stand-up in mind at all as what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

By the time I was doing these skits, not necessarily no. No, no. So for me, I never wanted to do comedy. I initially, so before all of this disability and all that stuff, but yeah, back in the day, I wanted to do serious music, I wanted to be a musician, and I wanted to be an actor. I tell myself, I go now and be the next Sydney Portier. Till I hear Sydney Poitiers tell, I think he tell Oprah or Caribbean people have a sing song, he accented horrible, and he ashame a bit and all this kind of thing. And I was like, Boy, and look how I sung him, you know. And I find a next way to go. But um, yeah, but but but even you know, throughout life, comedy was the way I navigated life. It was always how I navigated the world around me. So it always kind of circled back. So, you know, when I was re-entering the world and everything, I kind of lean on comedy and you know, kind of life was just kind of guiding here, just guiding you, you know, again, and again, those directions, and I kind of follow it to that. But no, comedy was not always the plan. Um, but making people laugh was. So I remember when I was at my lowest point in my life where I just felt like I was just there, everything was over, and there were all these people around me who were pointing to me. When I kind of guarded myself and realized, okay, I want to give back, I want to be of use, I want to make a contribution to this world. When I when I was checking, okay, what do I have to offer? Um, I wasn't gonna run track and feel for Trinidad and Tobago. So what can I do? And I was like, okay, you know, I could make people laugh, I could make people think, I could kind of hopefully educate and entertain. And yeah, so definitely I wanted to add that. I just didn't know what form it would take. But um, yeah, and I still think it's something that's evolving because you know, uh I don't know what the next chapter will be. Makes sense, makes sense.

Corie 21:35

I should have taken a page from you, and I forget everybody to tell me it's the best. We should have talked about it, it didn't begin and we should talk about and get out of the way. This is why you walk on the stage and talk about this. So as well as it was transverse my light. This is what you were diagnosed with. So what what what was it? What was it that made you realize something was wrong? Because and what age this happened?

The Illness That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Oh gosh. Um, I was in my second year UE. Okay. Um years ago, I was in. School, I was with my friends, Whitney, and Pookie, and Nikola. Yes, I have a friend called Puki. Um, so in school, and I was telling them, Yo, my legs tingling, and um I was kind of ignoring it. Also, I had like this persistent kind of sick feeling for a little while, ignoring that as well. Just going, I mean, I was young, you felt invincible, you know, even back then, even drinking water, you just go in and you know, just living your life forever. And um, as the sick feeling kind of stayed for a while. Well, behind my eyes and things was hurting. And so I went to the UE Health Center, and they were like, You possibly have dengue, but we can't do our test, we don't have any tests. So you could probably go and check our health center and get a dengue test. I went to an unnamed health center, and the doctor there said, Well, they don't have a fever, so we are just going to give you some of these medications for the flu. Um, because we don't think you have uh fever, you don't have a fever, so it's not it's not dengue. Um, was very, very wrong. And you say come back if anything, come back the next week if symptoms persist. But that didn't end up, you know. Because um, yeah, I remember one day in school, I had really bad lower back pain. And uh leave our class in the night, um, walk out of school, not knowing that the last time I'd be walking independently, walk, you know, take my transport, walk up to where I was living. I was so like in so much pain, I just slide on my work clothes, then come on, my work, my work clothes. And um woke up the next morning and everybody had left the house. Nobody felt anything was wrong. Almost everybody had left the house, my brother was there. Um, and I got up and I was just falling, getting up and falling, couldn't hold up myself. And I telling him, in fact, I was in the kitchen, and I just get really faint and he had to kind of catch me. And but him and all, he I don't know if he felt it was exhaustion or just like really, just really, really bad flow or bad degree. Yeah, so he didn't take it that seriously as well. So, in fact, I realized something was really wrong. I called the ambulance, and um, the ambulance came for me, and he didn't even think any nobody was taking it that seriously. I was presenting very fine. So I had to walk into the ambulance and everything. They was like, Well, come now, you know, and he was like, Yeah, later, Kevin. I walk, hold on to the wall, walking in, so much so that because we were living in sour at the time. And by the time we drove from where I was living with the first time of money structure, taking more vitals or information or whatever. By the time we reached the quasi, some people flagging them down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk our drunk man here. Let's take this junk man now. The ambulance people asked me to get up from the church and sit down, like the rest, like them holding on, and let the junk man sit down lie down anything. Because I was looking fine. Yeah. So went in the hospital, yeah. I knew something was very, very wrong. I just didn't know what it was, but yeah, it was long, long, long story short. But uh, but yeah, even in the whole process getting examined, the doctors wasn't even taking me seriously, they didn't think anything. I don't know if they thought I was inebriated or something, because even when the hospital did take it too, where is this? Well, next thing I say, bad things. No, oh, okay, all right, go ahead. Sorry. Public hospital.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Okay, Richard.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Because yeah, they wasn't taking me too seriously at a public hospital. And so, um, yeah, I remember the doctor was examining me. I was sitting on the table, and he and he just very nonchalant, he was like, Okay, well, walk from here today. I was like, Well, doc, I can't walk for long. He said, Just try now. I said, Doc, I really can't walk. I will fall. He said, Try, try. I give up, think, back, chop on the girl. And he talked more than assisted. He just told me walk. Yes, and he laughed. And he went and called another doctor, and like they laughed, they told them laugh. I don't know what they were speculating, but they just laugh. And I said, You say, All right, all right, well, fix up, go up and they not help me back up or anything. I tell myself back up and sit down. I I don't know what they thought it was, but then he in any case, it took a while. That was like a Wednesday by Friday night, so it was paralysis that was progressing. So it started in my feet, and it was just moving up, moving up. My arms became paralyzed. By Friday, I couldn't move anything but my eyes, and then by Friday night, my respiratory system began to be paralyzed, so I could barely breathe, speaking, barely. So that was the night, and I was like, okay, well, is it? And I already was kind of disenchanted because nobody taking my seriously. I've just been observed. This is it for me. I didn't have any really um deep thoughts. I was just like, oh god, my mother and them gonna have a fight up and thing. Like I wasn't really thinking about anything grand or means, you know. I was just like, okay, well, is it? And it so happened that a nurse came on the ward who had a crush on me.

ICU Night And Breathing On Purpose

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Oh nice. And yes, because since I came in the hospital, she used to come and um bring grapes to man, feed my grapes, and subway and thing, which is normal nurse behavior in the hospital. I believe it's normal thing in the standard, out of their own money. So she was on the ward when I was, when I was um, you know, I was kind of trying to get a nurse attention when I realized, okay, things getting really, really bad. I could barely breathe, and you can't move your head or anything. I couldn't, I couldn't even move side to side. I couldn't move totally paralyzed. So I kind of was ignoring me. But when she came on the ward, she came straight for me and she realized something was really wrong. She raised her alarm, the doctors came and everybody went into action. Then, of course, now as patient number one, most important, came along in the ICU, and um in the ICU, they had a nurse at the bottom of my bed watch me the entire night, and her job was just to watch me and make sure I breathe. So I was not like you're not breathing anymore on your own normal.

Corie 27:40

So up to this point, you're on a normal word, you know, in ICU.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

So her job, this news, just sat there and she was like, um, Mr. Sawyer, Mr. Sawyer, breathe, breathe whole night. Yeah, and threatening that if I stopped breathing, she would have to intubate the other well, she gets the doctors to intubate you. And um, so yeah, she stayed, stood watch whole night, and at the data I was breathing. I was always saying like that night I had to breathe on purpose, and in so many ways, ever since re-entined wool, this new life, I had to breathe on purpose ever since. You know what I mean? Because nothing was ever the same again, nothing was ever as natural and organic and whatever, you know. So that is what happened to me. I mean, after that I was hospitalized still for yeah, I said a year and three months. I was moved to St. James, the infirmary there.

Corie 28:21

Oh, things went good because you call the name.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

I call any name because I got things to say. This man's smart enough. This man's smart. I could call nurses, I could call nurses like Miss Latasha, Miss Lewis, and Miss Let and Miss Labadia, and this. And my do call nick, because then no salacy didn't call my name, Miss Pascal, everybody. Right? So um, yeah, they were amazing. I'm I mean, I was an award, all these other fellas with um paralysis as well. Those were like my brothers. I mean, we're just there, yeah, you know. And um so how long is they in ICU, you remember? In the ICU might have been, you know, I really didn't have a lot of a concept at time. Of course. But it wasn't that long, maybe a week or something.

Corie 28:58

But they put family, your brother, your mother, everybody visiting because you're there for a little bit, right? What's their thoughts on?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

So they were later the night before, I believe. And then um, but they came the next day because they told them I know they had to do whatever with me. So when they came, so I didn't know how I was looking, I didn't know anything because I'm just eyes floating above the bed. I can't feel any of this, right? And so I didn't know what my situation was, and I didn't feel like it. I didn't know how bad it was, but I remember um my big brother and one of my sisters walked in. And when they walked in, my big brother, my big aggressive bad man brother. No, you're not bad man, very, very clean cut, but big aggressive brother. Walk up to the bed and I look in to see, like, where I don't know a smile, hello, whatever. But he just looks at me and I said, Okay, look at bad, I look in bad. He just started crying and my sister started cry too. I was like, well, okay, first of all, very horrible bedside manner because you make any patient have very little confidence right now. This is not needed, uh, but yes, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and I realized, okay, at that point I was looking, he wasn't looking good. So yeah, they came and they checked me in the ICU. My mom, of course, came and took care of her son, and um had co-workers who would come, you know, my dear friend Shant Miss Lal from work. And yeah, yeah, they they they came on, you know, they were yeah, yeah, yeah. So my and my grandparents, um, relatives and stuff. So yeah, they came and they they they check you, they would check me and move from there to the HDU Thai dependence unit where you know I had to go through at that point in time. I mean, I still wasn't able to move really. So like we would have time for them to move you to each rub your dumb weather, put the earphones in your ears and leave. If let me your phones fall out, that is it because I can't pay back, I can't pay back. So I don't hold our music and take it in while it lasts. Because once that falls out, it can't move.

Corie 30:52

Um I'll tell you a random story. If it's a sign like this, I'll take it out, right? But my little sister will got an accident and she's still learning to walk now, right? And when you talk about her for the story, because when you talk about even ICU and that step down to HD, we elated that that happened because every day you're going to ICU, you just don't know. Why is that bigger brother in that space? Are you going to trying to be positive by draft? Yes. She's 20-something years younger than me. Young, she's a child to me. Right. So my brother, who salute to him, he takes care of her completely. He just owns it, right? Right. And we used to go to the iPad now because now I know she wanted. So we go on the iPad and we put um we put the headphones in, right? My brother bilingual. Right. The iPad in Spanish. Oh my god, no. So yeah, Netflix in Spanish, right? And she was intubated. Okay. So she couldn't say yeah, this thing in Spanish. So we put any thing in the trying to do the boy. Listen, it takes about a week to figure out what's wrong. Because she's trying to tell us something wrong. Every day we're glad to go. So the girl's favorite shows she's taken in Spanish for the whole time. You find a humor in the trauma because the emotion. But yeah, I guess, I guess you said it in the beginning that it's it's it's about, you know, you use your trauma. I wonder if there's uh somebody said the other day, something I launched on to the comedy is trauma plus time, or something something to that effect. I'm wondering if in moments like those, because you something like you in that moment trying to piece it together and and putting them things, how serious it is for you then.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Um, I am I'm not very formulaic anyway. I do comedy. There are people who are like comic, quam, quammy weeks. I think they have all like a formula. It's very intuitive for me. I think maybe if I dissect it, I might find that there's some way that I, you know, but it's very intuitive for me. So it's not that intentional per se, it's more feeling and flow of consciousness and feelings, or is there no, and that's why I am not the best person for crowd work. Yes, watchmen like Junior Lee and Taddy Boom and Kess Ramsey, they are very good at crowd work. They could be half no material, walk out to the audience and talk to them for 45 minutes or whatever. I am not that, and you don't want that because I will say something to hurt somebody's feelings. I don't know why it will just, I don't know. Like, I am not like so. I can, you know, talk to you, but it is uh yes, I don't trust myself because I I I like as I say, I like that control. I like to I like to be prepared, I like to be, I'm not that free, and I would like to be that. I would because I admire people like that. Seriously yeah, that's what I love about like yeah, like people like Taddy Boom and Junior Lee, like I always I feel like, and I could be wrong, and maybe it's a lot of like you know, we have a little bit of imposter syndrome sometimes, and maybe I I need to just come into myself more. But I look at them and I think like they are the product. So Junior Lee, Taddy Boom, they are the product. You they could just them being there, that's it. That that is it. He his presence, how they carry themselves, how they look, that is the entertaining thing. For me, I feel like my work is a product. So I'm pretty just regular in my opinion, and then I could produce something that is entertaining. That's what I kind of feel like.

Corie 33:55

Yeah, it explains a lot to me. That's why it feels like a set.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Yeah, like put together. Yes, I'm definitely a preparer. And I think when you prepare or when you put in a certain type of work, um, the result a lot of times will mirror that. Gotcha. So that a lot of people who wing it and they get wing it results. I'm somebody who puts, I think I put in a kind of ridiculous amount of preparation. But it is because I don't want to be embarrassed and I don't want to be misrepresented. Um, yeah, I think that's that's the thing about me. And I think um there are some people who I mean they're comfortable winging it and they're comfortable trying to think, and nothing wrong with that as well. And some people need to do it in the moment. Some people exactly not one exactly, yeah, yeah. So I am uh I'm definitely a prepared. I'm not somebody who has a formula, but I'm somebody who will think and observe and make sure I have you know my internal notes and whatever going so that yeah, I don't show up without an arsenal of something.

Corie 34:50

Makes sense, yeah. Find a way to bring up arsenal, man. Yes, right. Yeah, yeah, generously courage. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. At that point where, for instance, I I I guess from my experience as a big brother, I see that, right? And you're talking about your eyes alone working for a point in time as you start set down, you're starting to regain feeling. Yeah, so um, very funny podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Hilarious video, so it is hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Oh, people home. Oh, go at my belly. Okay, sorry, no, listen. So, so um, yeah, so it was a whole process of yeah, I mean having to pick up spoon and they give you like the the fruit of bottle to try to lift it up and see if you can move it for a little while and brush your teeth and move your hands, so yeah, um, I had to relearn all those things. All of these things took time. Um, it was quite up, yeah, it was quite a process. Uh we have a tendency a lot of times when we go through something in hindsight, we could kind of be a little bit dismissive about stuff, flippant about it. I'm very guilty of that. But in the moment, it wasn't like that. It was like you counted every second of every day, waiting for like, okay, when is tomorrow? When is the next day? Because you just want to get better and they want to get out. But it's forget. Yeah, you still and then you just summarize it. Yeah, yeah, this has this bad thing happened to me, but I'm gonna, you know, she needs this, yeah, I did it. But no, it was, it was, so yeah, it was a lot of um rehabilitation, at least as far as they could offer you. And a lot of a lot of it is just yourself, your own will, and your own you're you're pushing forward on your own. Um, but yeah, so that was that was the whole process. And and so, yes, you get you get feeling and sensation back. I have feeling and sensation back almost totally, but diminished in some parts because it was a progressive thing. So like the legs and stuff definitely was the longest in that state, and so like you know, there, you know, there's more numbness because of that. But but yeah, I mean, I got a lot of progress from where I was to where I'm now. So I mean, that's it's very that's very good.

Corie 36:50

Yeah, from what I read about it, they said that there's no nobody knows why it comes about. Exactly, and they said it could be progressive. So there's something I was I was uh I was encouraged when I heard you talk about it, and you say that for you, you start by gain feeling, you start by gaining strength, and so on, but it it is not the case for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

It's not the case for everybody. Yeah, I think I feel that the people don't get experience any, and then I feel the people um recover immediately almost immediately, like in the first 30 days, and I mean like you partial recovery.

Corie 37:16

And recovery will be back to normal stuff. I think so. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Now they might have some some small deficits, right? But I don't think, yeah, so I'm definitely in a partial set here. What you said in the new um communications.

Returning To UWI And Theatre

SPEAKER_02 37:28

I was a communications major and uh theatre minor. Because I mean I had the well, I guess I'm gonna let you do your job to the interview it. But um but in UI, I did I did the Pussy D theatre Minor. And um so uh when I when I got sick, I had already started it. Was away from school for some years, maybe like two years. Came back in a wheelchair, full in a wheelchair, and um, well, I have a theatre minor to do, you know. And I had already left, I already left the the hospital with this mindset of I want to make a contribution, I want to be of use, I want to use my talents, I'm going back and pursue this. But I wasn't gonna give anybody a chance to tell me no, wasn't giving anybody a chance to tell me all the reasons why it's gonna work because I mean you could imagine it's a physical thing, it's a physical space and you know that kind of thing. And so I didn't seek any academic advising, I did not ask anybody permission. I registered for my courses and I showed up at DCFA, which department for Candy Pan Festival Arts. Um, and under Mr. Louis Mac Williams, Mr. Marie, yeah. So um I think my first class was with Louis Mac Williams, who is an amazing, amazing, amazing gentleman who I just had the honor. A lot of us had the honor and the arts of of learning from. Um, and so um I showed up to his class, I said, Sir, I come to take her. He said, Yeah, I saw that, you know. And so the first class, they had to so it's steps, it steps to go in a class in a dance studio and I in a wheelchair. So they helped me in the first class. Come back the next week, they put a wooden ramp so I could get it, you know, and then when eventually we finished that course and we go to another course, and then other course was in the black box. That helped me in the black box. But then eventually they came and I put a concrete permanent ramp on the black box. And I am so grateful for people like that for Mr. Louis Mac Williams. So I mean the communication side, yes, I did that, that was great, but that DCFA side, that that that creative community really, really helped me. I think that's a has a lot to do and kind of catapulted me into being able to see what I'm doing now as viable and see myself as still having something to offer in this space because of that. Because I when I was in that class sitting down there, I remember Louis Mac Williams. One of the things we had to do was our production at the end of the semester. And while everybody's getting roles, I was expecting stage management or helping with something in the background, which is feasible in my mind. And he made it very clear you are not doing anything in the background, you're front and center performing. I didn't know how that was gonna make this happen. I was like, okay, you're gonna fight with Louis. And uh they built a script, they made a musical, a soca musical, and yeah, I had a starring role in it. I was uncle, uncle in the wheelchair, uncle of a palar. And um, yeah, they so I was able to navigate the campus to go to my classes, the ramp, the ramp. And when it came time to build the set on stage at LRC, Uncle had a palar on stage, and Uncle Paula was raised. So that was the action happening, but Uncle Pala was raised, and Uncle have a ramp to roll on for me. Paula onto the thing. And to get tired, Uncle had musical numbers, Uncle sing a sparrow and a shadow, I sing dingole, I sing both of them, full choreography and dancers and thing. Uncle was proper performer, like fully included, fully integrated. It was a really amazing experience that I will never forget what you know, Louie and just everybody who was involved in that process did. And um, it was amazing. Even from that performance, and people thought that I was a regular actor who could just really maneuver our wheelchair. I see. That's like you were real good. Oh, you do that wheelchair, boy. That was real good, boy. It's like I have not acted in that part, you know. But they thought it was, you know, and and um, yeah, from there, somebody thought I was doing that so well. They booked me for my first um outsider school, you know, gig. Um, getting to do sappa and a big musical and thing. Was it good? That's not the point. But we did it, we did the shows, and um, you know, um, it was it was uh yeah, that was alright. So yeah, yeah, I had to get a little spiel because I wanted to pay homage uh to that speech.

Corie 41:45

So when you're you it going through this process, there's a lot of things that people talk about fears. Like David Cader fear not being able to itch a scratch, which is a fear had nothing to do with nothing, nothing to really price arise. That's in every day, but I wanted to know like going back into theater, because I would assume from my experience in UI communication classes is in regular classrooms, right? Correct. So LRC, I'm no LRC, and I I don't know that it is easily accessible by anybody who has any kind of disability. Um at least in my time. Yeah, no. Can I remember right? You had to go upstairs and come down to the theater. Is it the stairway theater?

SPEAKER_02 42:17

So have an elevator there. Oh no, which is yeah, kind of old-timey elevator that have to be operated by, but I still go to the auditorium.

Corie 42:23

You mean operated by what?

SPEAKER_02 42:24

Uh no. So it's almost like that's a no, uh somebody have to you have to go in, they shut in with this gate thing and anything, and then somebody else had to like then send you, and then somebody had to release you up there is a whole thing. But so that's but that's to be an audience member, right? I see so, but to be uh to backstage, no, there isn't a ramp to no no wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, yes, yes, yes, yes. But they do, yes, they have a ramp to the backstage. Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, yeah. And so accessibility wasn't the only issue is okay. I say so yeah, for the so for LRC, the only issue is if you want to go from backstage to on stage, but it could go from backstage to the audience and it could go from outside to backstage and from outside to the audience. There are ramps that facilitate that, but it wasn't one that went from backstage to yeah, backstage to the on stage.

Corie 43:23

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

So for that, yeah. I mean, they I just students, I remember this one student, Mr. Dwayne White, who would actually carry me on his back from downstairs, and I don't like live up a toilet till I as a control as a control fake. I don't like, but I had to for the purpose of uncle have to go and sing it then, good. Of course. So yeah, get my Jackie back up. Or what I would do most times is just take my time. Once I have that time to like, you know, because Uncle had to do all the old man thing and whatever. So once I have enough time, I'll just take my time and go up bit by bit and whatever. Um, but yeah, so but accessibility is our biggest when it comes to spaces. Um, we do have some accessible spaces, but we have others that are. Really not, and that's something I definitely had to face and overcome. Um when one thing is going, so I think what happens is when you go into a space and you take up space and a press on there, people would see you and they kind of because you're there now, they're able to realize okay, these are the shortcomings of this space. If there's nobody like me there, then it's not an issue, nobody cares, you know. So well, I guess you say, like in the billionary ramps, because I suppose if it never came up, it might have, and and I'm I'm very certain. I think at least one student after me would have had a disability. Although it might have been after the no, no, yeah, she might she might have been there, and so she would have utilized the ramps as well. So you see it worked for somebody.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

But um, yeah, there are spaces. I mean, I have had to do

Accessibility In Trinidad Beyond Empathy

SPEAKER_02 44:40

the whole thing. I have I've have dragged myself all over this country in all kinds of spaces.

Corie 44:44

Yeah, you're talking about just theater and alone, you're talking about anything you're doing next.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

There's a an a regular, you know, a building, uh a bar, uh club, a casino, uh anyway. I mean, we've done it all, and uh there have been times we have to like in front of the audience, go up, sit down on the stage, then pivot myself onto the stage, then go up on a chair and pull myself up on a chair, and then from the chair, go up on a a whole thing. I mean, I wouldn't do that right now. We kind of work on some more logistics, but I've done, yeah, because to me it's just about the how to make it happen. After they get the phone, we have to start my performance, right? So I just had to do whatever. I have these limitations that the other comedians don't have, and I just need to manage them.

Corie 45:24

But I wonder about that sometimes because I had a guy here, Glenn Niles, right? He advocates for, you know, Glenn. Yeah, yeah. So Joe Family Network. Right. And he he spoke about his advocacy for people with disabilities as a whole. Yes. And he was talking about the fact that we don't build with those things in mind. And one of the things that stood out to me, what that, and you've experienced this as well, you just feel your life is gonna be the same way that it is. You don't think it applied to you? No, it don't apply. So you run up some steps, you think it's until you realize like you're sick or something happened, even if maybe temporary, yeah, you start to realize what it is in these spaces. So that's that's the reality you face at that point in time.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yeah, I mean, as I and it's not something I faced, there's something I facing, it's something it's not something that happened, it's happening, it's all the time. It's because I'm affected by that, you know, in my everyday life as well. Uh, but trainees are I find out trainees are people who care, so they will see you and you know, try to assist or you know, be concerned, but we're not very proactive. We're not anticipating, okay, this is a need that this space, you know, or uh a deficit here, or like, you know, sure. We so it's a lot of times they met with empathy more than empowerment, and um, you know, uh uh assistance more than accessibility, right? So it's not so much about making a space where we are able to navigate and experience a certain quality of life, is more like, oh god, a real bad boy. Yeah, that kind of thing, which is not necessarily not ideal. You overestimate the power of your company, you know. Um these are still 50 stairs, you know. It's not you not helping me alibi. Take it time, take it time, take it time. Take it time, take your time, take your time, take your time, take your time. Sir, this is not helping. We feel it's helping. We feel it's helping. Yeah, then you're doing your best as an MTS security, but I just I want to alleviate her, you know.

Corie 47:18

But um, yeah, no, yeah. I wonder sometimes when I hear Glenn talk if we take any right steps when we because I mean what built, built. But I wonder what new construction, UE is a whole different place than when I went to UE in 2000, early 2000 kind of thing. And I wonder now that they have all these new buildings and things, if there's the efforts take into consideration that all of us are not the same.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

I hope they are. I mean, they facilitate so for me when I was in UE, there is a department um that deals with, you know, um, we could go there if we have any issues. Um but I think the the only thing I I really uh kind of benefited was from was, and I liked it, was um we could have separate exam rooms. So yes, I had my private exam room. I love that. Okay, I don't test well. I don't test well. I don't like uh so empty room to myself, the envisigilator, I'm happy with that. But to say, like, you know, everywhere was accessible, not this, not necessarily. I kind of had to navigate or you navigate some spaces, but I'm sure that I'm sure there are sure there has been um advancements, and I'm sure they are aware. I know there are great people there who are aware of the needs, and I'm sure they work in towards it. But on a whole year, training that has a lot to be desired when it comes to accessibility for sure, for sure, for sure.

Corie 48:31

So that's the physical part. I'm gonna talk about the mental part for a little bit now because you when you're going to UE initially, you're going in good. No sign of anything wrong or anything going to happen, right? Communications with theatre, your goal for life in terms of where you want to be is what I still all that time wanted to do music and acting.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Um, and I always was somebody who was very practical. So, I mean, I said top point. So it was like, okay, I'll do this degree because if I need something to fall back on, I have this. But I really want to pursue my dreams. Um, one thing I miss, and I'm getting it back little bit by little bit, I think I regained it. But ever since I was very young, I had an unreasonable, ridiculous um uh ambition. It was uh kind of like a delusion, I would say. But I think that's good. I think we need to that that delusion, we need to dream big. You know, I never had any doubt as a child that I could achieve my dreams. For some reason, growing up in in in you know, uh a lot of depravity, in a very impoverished situation, I still felt like, no, this was temporary. I go and reach where I go, you know what I mean? Um and I think the only time that really changed for me is when I had a disability. Then the ceiling started to get lower. I just want to get better. I just want to be independent. I just want to not be a burden and I go just, you know, and it took a lot to start to move that goalpost back where it was, and it didn't back where it was, but it little bit by little bit. Because yeah, for me, for somebody like me, the way I create, the way my mind works, that kind of practical thing don't really work. So I kind of aspire to get back to that dilutional space where everything is attainable, and why not? Why can I not do all these things? You know what I mean? So, yeah, yeah. So, so um mentally for me, it was a journey. I am not in a place where I'm comfortable to say like I could be anybody life coach or tell them how to navigate situations like that because yeah, I don't I don't know that I I've done everything the best, I've managed, I'm here. But a lot of it I think was just um innate kind of tools I had, you know, the way in which I navigated the world benefited me. And uh things where it was instilled in me, what I just had aided me. But I don't know if I know like the formula to like, okay, how you how you how you how you stay positive, how you manage, how you this, or you that, you know. I don't know why for me, it came from being of use. Like I was if I'm gonna do the staying alive thing, I want to be of use. I want to make a positive, I want to make people happy, I want to do it, you know. That's where it came came from for me. And that kind of motivated me. That as well as because I always say cannot be prepared for something that like what happened to me, it couldn't be prepared, but I was equipped because I already born into this support system, this family that you know, uh like I have that you know, my mom who was my first inspiration actually for wanting to be um a performer, uh, my brother, you know, my siblings, they're great. And again, my grandparents, and I will always circle back to them because they they they really, really poured into me. But them being there, they were always at my side telling me, they're getting up from here, you know, you're going to do this, you're going to do that, you're gonna do every single thing. They believe that I could take over the world. They believe that there's nothing out of reach for me and still believe it right now. And um, with that kind of backing, with that kind of confidence they have in you, I just felt like yeah, that just set me up to, you know, really push forward. Makes sense.

Corie 52:13

I hear you talk about them. I hear you talk about your grandparents anyway. You talk about your mom is interesting. And you know, Kevin, when you say you're ceiling high, you call it illusion, right? It's almost what I hear when you say we went through that whole process of a year and something to just learn to be again, you know. And you going back into theater, there's a kind of audacity, you know, most like myself. I don't like my ceiling, so I you know, I would adjust real fast. I looking for different types of jobs or different career paths. So I think even though you're saying the ceiling getting lower, I suppose mentally some of that's still just a new. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

After it was, yeah, because it was a whole that was a whole life. Like when I was in the hospital there, like initially I went in there with life is over, life is done. This is it. Because I couldn't fathom that somebody could be in this situation and do anything. For me, it was done. And uh it was a it was a mindset that was shared across the world as well. I have other friends who I when I started to get into a better mental place, they weren't and had to go and shake their bed. Say, come on, the bed now, bro. Let me go, let me move outside. Nice, staying in day. You know, who emotional, who upset, who give up. Yeah, people who literally give up and then give up because yeah, yeah. Remember, I used to go in the physiotherapy room and have these pictures on the wall, and they're stretching the hands. Hey, who's the picture on you? Who's that picture on you? Who that fella? So and so he dead. So oh, but he fell on the next next picture. Yeah, yeah, he dead too. Yeah, everybody said I stop. Ask everybody, but the next one of the he dead too as okay. All right, so I see what I see how this is going. So you know you have to. Yeah, of course, of course. I told my first nah boy, let me move, let me think, let me, you know.

Corie 53:43

Yeah, people understand me that hospital is a support system in itself, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Yeah, I mean, nurses, yeah. They were, I mean, I was entertainment for them as well. And the best patient they have ever had in their entire lives. I could imagine. You know, I had this nurse, you even when I was at my I because I was I could be sour, I could be a little hard-headed. So when I really mean when I really told myself it's done, it's done. I just did, you know. Oh, like the times are not very depressed, or thinking, okay, life over. And this nurse, Latash would come in any morning, and she came up to the bed. So, yeah, how are you feeling? Fiat fine. Fiat or fine, feature fine, how you feel, you know. So, I feel it fine, whatever. And if she seemed like you know, looking like thing or so, I'm like, listen, you have life, you know. You have this, and she'll just go on like you know, building you up and telling you all these things, and it's just like, yeah, that that that that that having somebody like that there to like pour that into you, like I was very fortunate. So I feel very fortunate for the people that was around me, Dr. Buffell, all these different people. I calling names and people say I forget their name, you know. Yeah, but anyway, um so so by the time I was on that ward doing that and feeling of use there, like you know, whether it was just you know being the most active patient, and because because in the in the in the in the real world, I was the one who depended or though 15 or whatever, but on the ward, I was the active one, the one moving around helping other patients and that kind of thing. So by the time I left there, my mind still was like, Yeah, okay, I have something to offer. I can go. And I have like recordings that I used to be telling, you know, talking to myself and telling myself, like, yeah, when I got here, all I want to do is entertain people, I want to make people laugh, I want to do this, I want to do that. And so, yeah, by the time I was to go back to school, um, I already knew that that's what I wanted to try to pursue. So the audacity, yes, it was there. I mean, I still have the feeling, but I mean, because I have friends who don't even like to be seen, they don't want to be outside, they don't want people, you know, they're afraid of these stairs, stairs and these stairs. Um and so for me, I had to go and face I had to face both. I had to face both. And so, yeah, there was that. I don't know what does take over. Like, I feel like if we all are capable of more than we think. Because I mean, I was aware, I was aware of rolling through you, and people watching my passing, and I'm a kind of spectacle, and I'd there, but at the same time, I was there on a mission and know what I wanted to do and what I was trying to achieve. So it was not a deterrent, it was a big adjustment. I was somebody who was very independent, very quick, always very fast, always very helpful, and then I was this kind of whole other person, and people see you in a different way. Um, so it was a big um change, but but mentally I felt like yeah, had the fortitude at the time I did, and thankfully I entered a space like the CFA where they nurtured that, and then thankfully I found other you know spaces and people since then who have also nurtured that.

Corie 56:27

So makes sense,

Harden Place Roots And Early Performances

Corie 56:28

makes sense. Yeah, let's talk about some of the original days of nurture now. What area you grew up? Like in Narodong, this hospital and where this was now. What area? Yes, bro.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

So that's the thing. We put say where you're from. So I always claim hardened place cookery. Oh, so yes, that is where I claim now I spent some of my childhood there, and I didn't spend my life there, I spent a part of my childhood there, but I think that is the that's the place I would say that I'm from because since then we move all over the place. My mother, with her five kids, we move everywhere, and and that's because I don't know if a lot of y'all know this. A lot of people might know, but landlords are water money. But if you know that, and when you don't give them it, let's tell it to leave. So, like, she didn't know that. So, yeah, so we had to move plenty, so it's all over the place we move. Right, people keep coming. We and mother, I'm like, You back again? She gave you last month. What's your problem? Yeah, one on the job. Yeah, no, we didn't understand it. No, he he right. Um, so yeah, we moved plenty, but um hard and place cockrid. I went to Cock Creek Government Primary School there, and then there is where, well, first of all, so in that in that community, we had a very strong family identity, community identity. My grandfather is Mr. Corporal, Holly Sawyer. Everybody knows Mr. Corporal, everybody loves Mr. Corporal. He is the man in the community, he's the one you try into to complain. He's the one that the woman in the road waiting to hear. No, no, darling, she's starting. My grandmother more stoic, more reserved, but still very, very respected. And um, because of who they were in society uh in that in that community, we already had we we were just known. We were known as young corporal, all of us was young corporal corporal, I'll be young corporal. Tell you no, I'll leave here, right? A lot of pride in that. And um, so in school, so I had an uncle, Uncle Nigel Sawyer, who was a gospel singer, right? Right, and if anybody, I am here to be anyway, he's not a Christian, right? So anyway, need church. All right, so um in Coquit Government Primary School, um, teachers like um Miss Driggs and Mr. Clark and Mr. Forbes and Miss Stephen, Miss Avalay, Miss Yeah, all of them, they they they would pull me out, single me out to do things, you know, whether it's singing calypso or um poems or playing recorder or whatever, like they put me to do things. I guess I had those, you know, the aptitude from that they they recognized it. And um so that's the first thing I would do, like I used to do a poem about mud, I do a poem about my daddy, and my daddy do this, and my daddy do this, and I I used to do this poem so well, they put me to do this poem all over the place so well that everybody in my school used to call me my daddy. The cleaner miss roach called me my daddy, everybody called me my daddy, and I didn't even have one. So for it was good, first I was convincing, like talent for me young, and so um that is where the bug would uh kind of bite me, but uh kind of simultaneously, or a little bit before that, my mom, my mom worked in treasury for many years, and you know, you have the treasury singers and you have the Sanatana Webbers. So she would always show her talents in work and well, mostly in church, because my mother is the national Christian of Trinidad and Tobago and she's doing everything for the honor and glory of God. She always talks about it. And I saw you, please, come now, man. So my mother, the first time I ever wanted to perform, I remember being, they had a concert, and my mother used to dance in church, and they asked her to dance for the concert. So it was in the central bank auditorium. Somebody had me in the back lifting me up, watching my mother can't remember who it was, but they had me lifting me up. So mommy comes on stage and she whites and she dancing. You know, you know the kind of church, she dance kind of thing, right? So they have her dancing, uh, where she dancing, and um she in the middle of the dancing, she dancing that Helen Baylor song. I think it was more than a front of one of them songs, and the music stopped. In the middle of her dance, the music just stopped. So please like, oh gosh, what gonna happen now? My mother didn't stop, she didn't miss her beat, she did nothing, she just kept dancing, and she sang the rest of the song and dances. So she sang and danced the rest of the song, and she was in the peep was the next day. I full spread about it, and I was like, and people was applauded, people so starting overshadowing. People say, Oh my god, you're so amazing! You sing the song and dancing. That's why I was watching my mother. Oh my gosh. I just remember the proud moment of watching her own stage, right? You know, singing and dancing, um, Ram Ram by Lady Shaba. Uh huh. It wasn't, it wasn't that, it wasn't that, it wasn't that so it wasn't that sound, but um she, yeah, it was it was another moment. I was like, whatever mommy doing there, I want to do that. I want to make the people happy in this space, you know. So in primary school minute, I was doing it then, and yeah, and that's how I kind of, you know, and I I think I think having an uncle whoever used to be like, oh, your uncle, uncle um Nigel Soya's your uncle. I used to think, okay, well, music is something. He he did it, I could do it too. Right. So I would write songs for me first since I was small about whatever. Because I think, I think, yeah, I think he made it seem again like how Kivo, you know, it they make it seem like it's attainable, it's it's something that can happen for you, something you could aim for. So that is where the arts I think um started for me.

Corie 1:01:35

As early as that. Yeah. And I guess it's the response is you want to see make people happy, make people happy.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

I want it. And that was the role I would play in the family. Like, I um the person who try to lighten the mood, and you know, at least for my family, be the clung and the joker and the whatever, and the sarcasm and the this and the that. Again, I for my grandmother to my grandmother's that for sure. She's very, very funny, very, very witty, very, very smart. Yeah, and so whenever we are a family guard, and yeah, people know Kevin Gunansay. But I still never saw, like, my mother would be like, Um, you could be a comedian. I think I never she I feel she said it when I was a bit older, but she said she said it ever since. So she win. Okay, no problem. They always win, they always win. Yeah, yeah. So so yeah, they would tell me that you know, a funny answer. You're comfortable, and he was never nervous then, like small. You used to be nervous to go up. I cannot remember being very nervous. I can't remember being very nervous.

Corie 1:02:27

Yeah, then they probably wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

Yeah, I think they just the confidence of like those teachers and things, and those teachers who will see me who come to see me in comedy shows and things since I'm asking me, um, you remember me? I used to be mad about of course I remember you. Teachers need to remember that. I mean, they probably, you know, they deal with all the students, so they come come to the school, okay, whatever. But you play such an integral role in our lives. Like, we don't forget you the same same way. So, yeah, yes, I remember, I remember very much all of those people, all those people. So, yeah, yeah, they gave me that, yeah, definitely that. And I was like, yeah, I was very well utilized and and supported. And I mean, I was a valedictorian in primary school. I think so. Like, yeah, I was, yeah. So I think all that added to me knowing that okay, I I could I could pursue these things, I could do these things.

Corie 1:03:15

I was very, I had that ambition that I was gonna so valedictorian mean you're passing for your first choice on things when you went secondary, so it just means it could get speeches.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

Listen to me, I did not pass for my first choice, and everybody told me I was gonna pass for my first choice. That's why I kind of hear the pressure we spot on these kids when it comes to these these exams. But um, yeah, I was built up that I was yeah, and he's smart and he this and he this and he thought he's gonna pass for. I wanted to pass a QRC, and nobody can tell me I was gonna pass for QRC. And they used to call out the results. I don't know if they were. So I used to sit on the and I wait in and they call out The Go Martin Government Secondary. I see, oh god. I see okay, I go dead. I started crying. I cry, I could not believe. I could not believe that they are sending me they might as well ball out Emperor Valley government secondary. Oh my god. They send in my YTC. Oh God, what I do. Not knowing, I didn't know anything about this school. I didn't know anything. Let's say secondary, because I thought that, you know, I just have to go cursey. That means, yeah, you know, I that means I smart, that means I I did it right. That's mean I, you know, and I used to I used to be nobody motivated me to study, nobody helped me. I didn't come from a household like that where I could have that, where I had that, that'd motivate myself. So I really thought I'd done everything right and I did, you know, take wally boxes. So yeah, but no, do not buy into that. Every school has something to offer uh mentality, it's a good school, it's a great school, big up to everybody if I went to Digo Secret, and you know, um, yeah, yeah. But but the mindset at the point in time, I was like, Yeah, boy, uh live over boy. But yeah, just deal with disappointments, you know what I mean? That's right, that's how it is.

Corie 1:05:08

It's 11 years old. We forget that sometimes. And when you so I find that to achieve anything, for me, I'd be single-minded about it. So when I say I want to pass for QRC, yeah, I can't think about nothing. So yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be happy about controls and no, I would I go in and get this.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

100%.

Corie 1:05:23

So you're doing add something in the go side, where you're doing calipso. So competition, you're going through all them kind of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

I was reading. Reading. I didn't go. I I think I should have got yeah, I should have had a more outgoing personality in school, but it was a big difference. Like I did I already felt like if this was where I wanted to be. So I went in with that. And then I don't think it had necessarily the mechanisms. I didn't think I don't think they had those things in place just yet. Um, but yeah, I kinda I kind of was I kind of kept my head down, was quiet. In fact, I remember when I was, oh God, he go here that's yes. I won't say the teacher name. I remember one of the last days before I leave in school, and the teachers was like, Kevin Sawyer, you know, nobody's gonna remember you. Say that to it. But not in a bad way. He's like, you know, like I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But he was, but he was wrong. He was wrong. People always show them out and everything. But um, yeah, definitely those. I was more church-oriented for those years. Because my mother gave us a huge like church was everything. My mother just embedded us in church. I think parents offer you what they have to offer. And my mother had church to offer us. If you had different arms of a body, you know, our church arm was very, very strong. And every other arm was finny, finny, finny. But the church, we know about church, you know. So in those years, yeah, I was I was looking and emulating and wanted to be like and wanted the approval of, you know, the church people and the authority there and whatever I think for those for those couple of years. So yeah, I think in church, I did do some performance. Oh, so you're still doing that. A little bit, yeah, a little bit there. And then um, yeah, once I was out there, I mean I was I was like, you know, I I I started to get into music and trying to do music on my own and stuff like that from there, and yeah, but yeah, but not in school, not in secondary school.

Corie 1:07:12

Understood, understood. Yeah. Random question, but they go second. Like they have a thing where I went Fatimo and repeat everything. I couldn't get into A levels. And I went tranquil for A levels, tranquil, thankfully, accept me. And I always remember when I went to try, I had that feeling you're talking about. I was a bit too old to think like that, right? But I had that same feeling as like, you know, you had all this going for your past, fearful stress. Right, right, right. You play, you repeat your play. I was on myself a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:07:35

And my father told me, listen, go in tranquil every day till they accept you. It was dreaded every every single day I went and did eventually did. Okay, okay. But I remember my mindset changed when I saw a mural on your wall. And I saw two people, Russell Latpi and Pat Bishop. Like I said when I saw that they went tranquil, I said, nah, boy. That was the first time I thought like there was a whole outside of Fatima schooling is concerned. Yeah. Digosak have something like that that tells people who went there before and so because they go sack of a legacy that needs to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

I guess they have a lot of people who came from there. I don't recall a mural. Yeah. But at least the Hall of Fame.

Corie 1:08:09

I feel like schools need to do more of that. You need to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

I might have had. I might have just been going to class and going home. I don't want to speak. I don't want to speak out of things.

Corie 1:08:18

Chat, chat, put it in chat, put in chat. Put in chat, put in chat. We need to do that more. I think schools need to do that. I don't know if it's a national program or something like that. Bringing people into the school, yeah. I uh yeah, I don't think you must know the legacy of the institution you're going to.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:32

They would have brought people to the school. I'm not sure if they were alum, but um, I think we would have seen people come to the school. But I think those things are very, very necessary. 100%. And I love I love when I got to do it, like um, like being in a part of the 40 and the 40 um with the Ministry of Youth Development and National Service. We got to go to school. And um, yeah, and and and I think it's really impactful, you know, to see somebody get to ask them questions, see what you could aim for, and that kind of thing. So, yeah.

Corie 1:09:00

Yeah, change your mindset. This y'all as well. Yeah, that would be encouraging. Yeah, yes. 100%. They the the way they look up to you all is is is interesting. They ever call it back in Digo Seglides to talk to them, yeah, yeah. Okay, good. How was that?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Um, good, good, good, good. And and any any school I go to, I'm always amazed because I know there's a feeling people always perpetuate, you know, the youths and them, the wild and the aggressive, and this and that. But I always encounter very curious, concerned, ambitious, interesting students. So it was no different. They had you know questions, they had, you know, they asked me, and they and they see me genuinely um kind and nice and stuff like that. So yeah, that yeah, it's more they don't just you know through the security need the in the garbage and them kind of thing. Testiny papers, propaganda, propaganda.

Corie 1:09:50

Yeah, think about it. We we celebrate life. Like if you make the front pages in the papers, right? Yeah, you'll celebrate that for the rest of your life, right? Yeah, so making the front pages are outliers. So anything you see on that front page, that's not the true story of the stuff. It's not what happened. So then they go second when good in school they say you're reading your your your grades and things. That's where Yeah, fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:08

It was fine. It wasn't, yeah, I wasn't the the I don't think I was the smartest student, but uh came of passes and uh went on.

Corie 1:10:15

It was that kind of way and subjects, you didn't get to do anything that was related to theatre or drama or anything that you wanted to do. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Yeah, it was just like yeah, my subjects wasn't even, I don't even think it was geared towards anything, it was just very generic that I could go on to study something else and do whatever. Because I think again, I was just doing all these things as a kind of like a backup because I still wanted like I had this dream I was going to do music and acting and whatever. So that is, I mean, and I still want to honor those. Yeah, I think like you never know where life will take us, and so I still want to honor those those dreams as well.

Corie 1:10:46

I feel like you're honoring it here, any journey. Yeah, that's supposed to you know where everybody is.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Corie 1:10:52

So from Degosek, you went on a fly and go UV one time and started working, and I definitely had a little bung center around.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

I did working, I did other studies, then I landed in the UV. I was always okay, so my environment and what was available to me, like I had to work. So since I was 16 years old, I was working. I've not been working ever since, except the time I was in the hospital.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:13

I've always taken care of myself since that age. So like there wasn't anything about not working. So there was the intermissions of working, studying, and then doing the tools and that kind of thing. So yeah, so I did that until I reached into university. I was still working and I was in your university. So it was part-time and you're working. I was sure, part-time, yeah, sure. They call it that. They call it that now. I was working, I was working, I was I was working, I was working in the system, but I was man, yeah, yeah, but yeah, yeah, you essentially doing both, and and yeah, so I went on to get my degree there, and yeah, still working

Skits Parodies And The Music Thread

SPEAKER_02 1:11:52

on that.

Corie 1:11:52

At this point, when we start seeing any skits on the early days was pink, yeah, them kind of skits we see. What part of life is then you that's before you or that's school days?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:00

When when you start becoming public, yeah, nah, that was after I would have grabbed. Well, that was yeah, that was right after. Uh yeah, that was. I think I might have had like some stuff to finish in school, right? So maybe it's right before I finished school, but yeah, I started to do those skits kind of accidentally. I did one skit where I just wanted to people would be like, um, Kevin, you make a you make a good dad, you make a great dad. You know, you should be, and I'll be like, Oh, what if the child runs up somewhere and how I getting them down? What can I do? Well it no, and what could do? Come and get me. How? You know? So I was like, that's not feasible. And so I said, let me put that in a skit, you know? Right. I'll make a little skit with his child leaves in this filter. Come down here and put it online, thinking just one or two of my friends would see it, and that'll be it. It went all over the place, and people was like, Yeah, so here what now? There's what you do now. This is who you are, that's your whole identity, there's it. And so, yeah, I mean, as silly as it is, that got its own whole niche community. I find it very niche. People say, you know, they a lot of people always say they know it and that kind of thing. But for me, it was like, I thought it was pretty niche. But they have people who were really invested in it. People built friendships off of it, people built the office, office dynamics off of it. Who in the office is pinky, who is shillings, who's this one, who's that one, and the comments. I I think that was the whole thing. Like seeing that at that point in time, that was the most immediate uh validation of like, okay, I post something and then he comments. And see now, people invested in the story and they're living in this world, and this is so real to them. Much like how you know they do it now with um, like, you know, champion is this and this one is that, and whoever, you know, they they believe in these characters. So, you know, that was that was a really that was a journey in itself, but people have never let go of that, right? I will, I don't know if I'll ever be as popular as those characters because I would be anywhere. Hundreds of people views is that Nishna people are not letting people anywhere, you know. So when they're bringing them back, when they bring them back, they are not they yeah, they they they love it, and I I'm grateful for it as well because all that time I'm that is also added to me thinking, like, okay, yes, I have something to offer. Right, I can make people happy, I can make people laugh. So I I loved it for that. For me, it was a chapter. Right. People don't find so chapter close, people do find so demon find so at all. People find that bring that back because people come and see me live. I'm like, this was real good, but so when they bring my page, you know, like, oh my god. Yeah, yeah. But it just goes to show like how invested it speaks to it, you know. Um, but for me, I I I just felt like I had done it. Yeah, I had done that, and I felt, you know, but I I understand that that's not the perception of a lot of people. People are like, if if the I can hook, just keep going, keep well. And I know there are our other um contemporaries who have never stopped, yeah, yeah. And they will do it right on, and I find that's amazing and commendable, and because of that, they get certain things and they deserve all of those things, and I don't have those things, and that's why I don't have it. But I just uh like I just feel like yeah, you know, I just felt like you know, I think it's Marie Kondo, who's supposed to mean you if you had a troll with items, you hold the item in your hands. Does this bring me joy? Yeah, and if it doesn't bring you joy, thing whatever. So, like, it's not it's not uh I could see it and appreciate it, but that's not where I am right now. Understood. And who knows where I'll be maybe I might be there again in the future. I don't know, but that's not where I am right now. Right now, I I've I feel more drawn to other things and I want to pursue those other things, and I want to honor other parts of yourself. I feel like there's many other parts of myself that I have not even tapped into. So that's the thing, like when people talk about like you know, there are people who know me for and have belief in me for different things. There are people who remember when I was pursuing music, I'm like, when are you gonna get back into the music? That comedy thing, good and all about when are you gonna go back to the music? Other people like, when are you gonna come back to theater? When you're gonna do something in theatre, you know, people who and it these skits, but like when you're getting back to these case, like people, and I just see it as there are many different mediums I could use to be of use and contribute or whatever, and I just and different parts of myself and that I could honor and I could like you know that I could yeah contribute through. So I don't see myself as just one thing, and I'll see more my um trajectory just going one way. So music coming back, maybe doing it. I don't know, I don't know. Maybe, maybe. So when they say but it's kinda it's kind of filtering anyway. Can I filter in past ourselves? So I end up singing in some performances, do parodies sometimes and that kind of thing. But yeah, I definitely still would want to at some point, yeah. Yeah, so the thief Susuman is oh my lord, yeah. That was me. Yeah, yeah, we do that deep research. I feel it's I think David do need they need deep research.

Corie 1:16:42

Something I'm writing my mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:44

That was the big, I think that's the biggest parody I have done to date. Yeah, my face wasn't even an on it, so you know, people wouldn't really know that was me. Right, but yeah, yeah, that was um the heighter COVID, uh I think, and um, the whole Susu thing was going on. I had this video released that is this, and the thing is that was so when I tell it that happened so fast. I saw that video, the idea come into my mind, and that was done. I I feel like in half an hour. Serious. I feel like that was really the writing it, recording it, everything was so fast. I it's always been those things, those things that they think are just like a throw idea that people really catch on to.

Corie 1:17:18

But you say it, you say even any joke telling is intuitive. Yeah, yeah. So you feel it from the time you see the thing at that point in time because you're you're you're building your brand online and you're doing it in COVID, everybody home is the ideal time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know that they had a story bigger than DSS at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:32

Yeah, right, yeah. I think that's yeah, yeah. And and that song was very popular too, that Jerusalem.

Corie 1:17:37

So everything just line up, and not just that, but on you, because I feel as if when I see that video, you say in half hour, I feel like when that video came out tonight, the next morning, that thing was viral.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

So you think of it doing immediately. Like when I saw the video, yeah, it was right then. Yeah, it was really, really fast. I did not think it would blow up the way it did. Yeah, I had to go on a I think I was on the radio talking about this thing. They bring me on a segment on uh on a on a on a television station at what I think something ended up not working, like the track wasn't playing, right? But yeah, people really um brought me out there to yeah, yeah. Well, I love I love doing musical parodies and stuff like that.

Corie 1:18:13

Yeah, but the thing about it is like when people go, they will go back and listen to it now, right? But you could sing. Oh, okay. I appreciate that. Thanks. Yeah, also from like on this clip when I really smile one. Because Jerusalem I was popular, yeah, yeah. So it I mean the parody thing, which I like doing too, like parody songs. But one of the things is that if you don't hit it, yeah, it's not gonna fly in the way. Yeah, yeah. So you hold the notes, you're making it. So you have to have some, yeah, yeah. So where does that start? Back to primary school and saying again, church at least.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:41

Yeah, I was always our big brother, Dominic Sawyer. He was the singer boy, he was the popular one, right? You know, and I was just in the shadow. So I and sometimes I would write songs and he would go and sing it figures and take the credit, right? But um, yeah, it would always be background to Dominic. And um, but we would sing, he would have me, you know, we would sing since we were small and performed for me for mom and performed for my aunts and them. And um, yeah, I think and then also just having that thing of like, you know, you have an uncle who you know people know as a gospel artist. So it's that is and then see my mom. My mom has been singing all through life. She sang in church, she was in the yeah, the choir in church and everything. My aunt as well, like my uncle, like, yeah. So our families are very musical families singing. So no formal training, it's just no formal training. My mother would do this thing when we were younger, we had to have family worship every morning. So we get up and everybody had a single, and that's the part we'd be lively for. And then she started reading the Bible and we fall asleep. For the singing part, we yeah, we we vibes and we vibes with it when they start with thus here. And it came to pass with the song, yeah, but um, yeah, so music was always yeah, ingrained in us, and then I was sort of like write my songs and thing. I and and yeah, I remember my brother would, I guess he he would have had opportunities where he gets to like maybe record the people of being involved in studios and would pull me in. I remember I um I ended up recording that track. Oh, yeah, really take my back here. I was young. This is this is yeah, very was young, no, no late teens. And I um I think through my big brother, he found out about some opportunity to come and record music um at Media21. That is Jonathan and Robin, who produced Dollar Wine? Robin Imamsha. Imamsha, there you go. And they was like, we want to do dance music, and we're gonna get it towards like I think it was Sweden and Germany and that kind of thing. So they're writing the dance music, and they want me to sing the dance music. So you go be a thing and they go do this and that and that the other one. And um, yeah, I remember doing that. I remember, and then I get to do music of my own there. So I wrote a song myself. I'm dancing my writing my own dance song, and the background singers for that was Carl and Carl Jacobs. Oh, so yeah, I sing in my dance track, and then uh uh uh uh me and them. I said, Listen, they don't even know I see them saying then they wouldn't know that they wouldn't know that's me, they wouldn't know it's me. I did listen, we spoke I so blue all the cafe blue all the time. And Carly would know that it's Carl and Carl LC. Carl would never know that is me. None of these people know that is me. Because I hold it from me, they wouldn't remember me and that little that little boy was me. Of course, but um, I didn't see anything, but I'd be like, Yo, what's singing background on my song? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, that I get to do a T-Sax um recording there. And after that, I remember another time. I I think through my big brother as well, I think um I got connected to Advocate, who is Kit Israel. Kit Israel, who his father is um Roger Roger Israel, would have done all those songs for those old TV shows and that kind of thing. And so yeah, when Zan recorded a song with Advocate, we were actually in the process of finishing his song. I think he was mixing and about to create a master. And that is when that was going on, is when I was in UB and also working and all this thing. But in that moment, I was like, okay, then my first track came a track out. And that's when I got sick. And this man was, yeah, I think he was texting me and stuff when and all that time I can't move my hand and think. I don't wanna I don't wanna say he was getting vexed with me. I don't want to say and I don't have the proof because I don't have a phone again, but he had this person, he he was helping with this track, and the person was not responding. They know that I was, you know, and so by the time I get back on Tim and gave him a life story, like, oh wow, so that that kind of you know things, and but so what kind of track there is like soccer. It wasn't so it wasn't so, it was I don't even know what it was. But in I think it may be some kind of island pop kind of something, but it was again it's so interesting, but that was it was the the the name of the track was hard in place because again, I even before I guess even before I was in the situation with my grandparents, they were such an inspiration for me, and it was that kind of love song pulling from their lives and you know from my life and everything, and it was something kind of new and experimental, and he heard it and he was like, Yeah, I want to do something with this, and so we were working on it, and then I got sick. So by the time I came back out, I mean that didn't yeah, that didn't really um follow true. Yeah, but I was yes, I was actually I was actually pursuing, I was pursuing the music.

Corie 1:23:11

But I'd love to hear a track named Harden Place. I feel like I grew up in St. James, right? So special place to me. Okay, okay, Harden Place, then really, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when people tell me. Yeah, people ask, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:22

Oh, okay.

Corie 1:23:23

Yeah, it should be these.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:24

You know what they're expecting. But for me, but but no, because is everybody have a different experience. So there are people um, you know, who come from places where they build, you know, nice parks and nice houses and nice structures, and other people like myself who come from a place where, in my opinion, they build character, right? From from my you know, my grandparents and my and my the people out around and my community, like yeah, I I learn a lot of you know stuff came from that. So um, yeah, I'm I'm very happy about where I where I came from. And that's that's our claim there, even though I've been all over the place.

Corie 1:23:56

Yeah, I hope I hope more people do that because we must I like the way you put it too in terms of building character. Because I mean, look at the things that come out from these places, yeah, they should be studied rather than discarded.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:06

Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:24:06

So, what does a career in music look like for you, or part of your career in music? If you're doing it now, you're a soaker man, or is it generalist?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:14

I would want to do, yeah, I would like to kind of be generalist, I think, and unless I find till I find whatever the pocket is. Um, but I wouldn't be against like I have of my own recorded soccer before my own little thing, shared with friends and thing. And it might not be soca because I remember when I record some soccer and I played for Junior Lee and I played for Jerome Richardson. Some friends of mine, I remember Junior Lee say, Yeah, boy, you should really do clips, so you know, you guys should do clips. It's like, alright, so that might that might mean you really see me so for me. I ain't really know. I didn't really know. I didn't really know. If you play a soccer for your friend and your friends say, You should really do clips over. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're trying to tell you stop. Yeah, I know. But no, no, I I don't know, I don't know, but but as I went, I wouldn't rule it out. I have a great um reverence and appreciation for you know that that whole art form. And um, so yeah, I would love to see what, especially as a writer, because I like to write. Um, and that's why I could kind of like find myself falling into the background a lot, being a more of a background person because I have no problem with that. I'm I'm learning the assignment from a lot of my friends and a lot of my family to try to be more front-facing, get some main character energy and stuff, like you know, pushing. Look at this person, he's gonna be sort of be like, okay, look, look, yes, I try to work on that. First step coming on the Cory Shepherd podcast. That's the first step, first step. First step, first step, right? But um, yeah, so I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to put a but it have to be the things that suit me that I could do and execute well. Yeah, I get that from you a lot. It's how to be it's gotta be you. Yeah, it had to be authentic, authentic to me.

Corie 1:25:58

Poetry is something you

Spoken Word As A Serious Outlet

Corie 1:26:00

also do. That's why you went to put uh the poetry slam as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:03

Yes, yes. And I will, yeah, I I had no intention because to me poetry had always seemed very corny. I look at these people there coming up there and talking about every year after year. Father, why are you abusing me? You are 38, move out, rent somewhere, rent somewhere last year.

Corie 1:26:25

You say the landlord, that's funny, you know, but it's just still messing.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:28

But no, I just kidnapped, I just kidding. And I don't want to trivialize anybody pieces, every all these things are powerful. Um, but that's that's where I saw it before. Right. And I remember one of my friends, Justin Michael Barker, who happens to be somebody with a disability, he said, come and you know, he's like, I entered this thing, this poetry slam, I would like you to come and see it. So I attended at Central Bank and I saw him again. Then I know accessibility and that kind of thing. So I had to lift him on stage. It's his piece so happened to be about the difficulties of being somebody with a disability. And it was not a funny piece. It was very much, yeah, he went in on the people, it's very, very biting piece, you know, and the whole room was like, oh my gosh. And then I kind of but but to see him come up there and because I mean he would share things with me and I know how he felt about different things, but to see him articulate it in that way and formulate it in this way, and then get delivery message to the audience and have them, you know, feel it. I was like, okay, okay, so this is useful for something because I have thoughts and I have opinions and I have feelings. And and as much as majority of the time I'm being funny when I'm on stage, this is somewhere, and and it could be funny doing spoken with as well, but I saw it as okay, this could be my serious space. So my approach, I really didn't think about making it through or winning anything. I just went and I tried it. I thought there's somewhere I could hear my feelings about certain things. So my first piece also was about being somebody with a disability and not just being somebody's inspiration, but you know, and um yeah, I got through to the semis, and for me, semis, I get on to the finals, and the finals I came second. And and I again for that that first piece I did well, that first final piece I did, it was talking about that whole breathe on purpose thing that experience at any hospital, right? From then people flooding from Facebook who send anything. I was crying all night. This meant so much to me. This this touched me, this moved me, this inspired me. I was like, okay, yeah. So this is the place where I could for spoken word, you just need a your point of view, your convictions, your voice. They have they provide the platform, and you could speak directly to transbigo. You could speak truth to the power, you could articulate, you could share this with them, and also you could win money. Which do it. No, it does not. So I was like, yeah, man, I want to I want to use it. So I did it the first year, came back again after that, came second again. Um, yeah, and and continue to do that, continue to use it to to touch on all the issues that I felt like, okay, this is this is what I'll normally do. I rant on social media social media about. Let me make it rhyme. I know you're listening to me. And you know, yeah, yeah, that digest it. So that was what spoken word has been for me. Um, I haven't entered recently, but um, well, this year I didn't enter this year, but I definitely have a lot of respect for that space now. Having seen it, it's more than what you perceive it to be here on the outside. Yeah, but um, you see, people a lot of people think um spoken wood is like, you know, like kind of corny and weird and thing, but that's it because it only ever been exposed to Kyle Hernandez. But if you get past that, if you get past that, that's good. I just kidding. You give him a shout out. I just joke, let's joke, let's joke it. Big up Kyle, big up Kyle. Big up Kyle, big up guy. You know, he's a good one, he's a good one. But it has so many, so many, and like this year, it was so cool. It had people come from like had more fears, it had like it had so many different um points of view, so many styles and voices and that kind of thing. So it it really is something that a lot of people should definitely support.

Corie 1:29:59

I think so. Like it's like when they tell you do this so crazy and it should be a calypso. I parallel it a lot in my mind that um that space. Uh meaning the the yes, yeah. So what calypso was doing, yes, and uh see, for instance, I like when Darren Sandy does breakdowns of calypsos, right? But I wonder if you all see that because there was a space before where you could go and stand up on a mic and complain. You had a band behind you, but you could complain and you could sing truths of power, whatever it was. Yes, and I feel like all of you just doing that in a way that because it I like the way you just biting it little, yeah, it's gonna make it check yourself sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

Yes, and this year, uh I can get to I get to sit as a spectator, not backstage, not not figuring out my piece, but actually just getting to watch and fully enjoy it. And yeah, there was a lot of that. There was a lot of they didn't hold any punches, didn't pull any punches, hold back. Um, and yeah, so I have a lot of respect for that as a as an art format for the people there who just kill it with that, like like Darren Sandy, like Alexander Stewart, like you know, all these people they're really um really talented. Important space, important space. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, big up all those people. For sure, for sure. Amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Building Comedy Community And Honouring Legends

Corie 1:31:06

No, again, going back to Junior Lee, when he was here, he said y'all he's he mentioned you and Simi as working the bar circuit, like just trying to find mics and trying to work that. And one of the things he says specifically is after you do our open mic where man just poor, he had but he found out that you had to go on and do comedy.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:22

Uh, so he, yeah, but so in our in our way, Junior Lee is my elder in that sense, in that he started before me. I see. Yeah, so sign up. Yeah, so he would have gone and done that before me. So he would have gone and find found open mics that were for other things, and they performed there. For me, by the time I came on the scene, there were open mics for comedy. Oh, I see. So I, but we also went and created our own spaces. Like you said, like we listen, we perform in front of people's house under tent, we perform in people's office, we perform in casino, which is the worst. Do not put I would do it still because I like that. I like the challenge. But what they're not laughing, they they will tell us shut up because who wants to laugh when they lost any money? You look who fighting, they'd have nothing funny when they're losing their money. Casino, because I think they would say that we have had shows with Hanobody and that kind of thing, and that was you would casino is like negative attention, like they you performing and they want no part of that, and they're irritated by you, but you had to perform and do your job. Now, I I am on I don't that don't bother me. That's why for COVID for me didn't really shake me. I could perform for a camera, like nothing, like it's for Napa. Like, I don't need the feedback, but other comedians didn't need that. I love it, I enjoy it. That's very validating, but I can still do my job, so I would do my job anyway. Yeah, um, but yeah, so he would have done those kind of where we yeah, we work, we work it everywhere and we've been doing it. A lot of people, it's it's very, I mean, it's interesting. A lot of people come and they say that they don't know comedy is going on here at all. Yeah, because we are have been all over the place doing it. But I mean, yeah, it it you know it is niche, it it still is niche, um, which we have to we have to understand. Um, but we've definitely built in a community and we've done a lot of groundwork, and that's why you know now we have our individual brands, everybody has the individual shows. A lot of comedians have their individual shows, but there's so much talent when it comes to comedy here. Yeah, there's so much good material.

Corie 1:33:18

Um, yeah, well, we've shot the material in this country. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, really well. I think for me, like the parallel, and I hear people say it all the time because I have not seen an era like this for comedy in Trinidad for 20 30 years, David. I've not seen this at all, like a movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, like I saw something last night I was watching, and they were honoring Tommy Joseph or something. Then men went in that space, and maybe it's the same parallel I draw in my mind because the comedian then was a host of the Calypso Ted. Yeah, and you know, so so there's a parallel there. But but it's good to see Tommy honored um 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:49

Two years after we honored him, and that's the thing the youths have been, yeah, nah, nah. We have to be honored. No, all the honor is good. Any honor, all the honor to him. No, but it's important. But yeah, but yeah, a couple years ago, we definitely so we did um we did Larry Joseph first. So what we did, we created a show called The Big Comedy Show. And at the Big Comedy Show, we would, you know, get a big venue and we have um the newer generation as supporting acts, and we honor and pay homage to the the veteran comedians. And so the first one we had Larry Joseph, and we brought him out and we presented him with a big stone award. It's an actual big stone award, but it's a proper award. It's a proper award, a big stone award. Thank you for paying anyway. Big Stone Award, thank you for paying anyway. And he was just moved to tears, currently stage and everything. So he's like, Who's next? And we have to do Tommy Joseph next. So we brought him up, did the same thing. Um, he came and he did his comedy, like a nice 20-minute set for the audience, because these are people who wouldn't normally go to they haven't been to that tent and they're not really going to anywhere where they wouldn't normally see Tommy Joseph. So we brought our audience to see him, and it was very good to see like all the generations paying attention, fully respectful, fully engaged and enjoying him and exposing him to that. So, yes, I'm glad that you know other people are also, you know, because we want to we want to, you know, um celebrate these people while they are here. I've been very, very fortunate. I don't know, I can't speak for any other comedians, it could just be me, it could be my situation. I don't know. I don't know, but I've been very fortunate when they come to the people who have paved the way, like like pricey. I can't say and like she has been overwhelmingly supportive. I don't know if anybody the moment she meets me or caught window me, it just has been pelting love my way, pint, pelting in your absence.

Corie 1:35:37

Positive too.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:38

It's not just what I'm absence, yeah, for sure. Yeah, nah, she's a really good one. So I don't know about anybody else's experience. Listen, oh a pricey customer. Well, that's you. I'm so sorry. What did you do? What was your part of playing getting custom pricey? David, yeah, because she's a fucking triple center. Oh shut. Well, David. But David is custom. What did you do? But yeah, nah, love. Yeah, I mean, I remember people tell me, you know, they had certain experiences working with Marshall on different things, and that's you. Marshall was very nice to me. Very nice. I don't know him like that, but you know, in shows, and then when I work with him, writing film for um his show. Very, very Eral Fabian, very, very writing film for his show. Is it comedy roast? Yeah, the Rosa Marshall Montano, yeah, I wrote for him and a couple of other comedians. Yes, I wrote his response and and a couple other comedians on that thing. That was very, very nice. I wasn't there, I didn't get to go. Oh no, but something and what are the points. All right, no, we got no, we got no, but I got to see the clips again. Another validating experience. I'm not there, yes, but my work is there, and I'm seeing these people in this theater roaring, laughing at something that I wrote. This fella from Harden plays cookerit, you know? So that is like, yeah, man, I I have something to offer. You know what I mean?

Corie 1:36:53

Is evidence that you could do the thousands of people that you intend to do? Is evidence, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's your thoughts?

Roasts Racism And Comedy Lines

Corie 1:37:03

Because I seeing all the backlash straight now. Again, I want to put the caveat that I'm a real fan of stand-up companies generally. So I've watched Rose for a long time. I uh I know what I'm getting into, I know what I'm going to see. Yeah, like what's the man named Jeff Ross? Or yeah, they have a few of them Chelsea Chelsea handler, Chelsea handler, they're always on that circuit, but I think Tony Hinchcliffe is the one that people fall onto. Yeah, so the backlash has been uh And the other the horse who was um check the name for me not, David. Kevin Hart roast host, but yeah, he's part of the Paul Rogan team, yeah, yeah, kind of. And the backlash has been that there's too much racist jokes against Cheryl Underwood and Kevin Hart in particular. What is it what's in it? Because I might throw, and just before you say that, I I remember seeing Marshall doing that roast, yeah. And I find he should have never done that. True, yeah. No, unpack this, unpack this word. Why I say it? Shane Gilles. She and Shane Gilles, yeah. And again, I watch Kevin Hart and I do feel the same way. Okay, I feel like Marshall is belong to me. I want to keep him in cotton. Agreed. I don't want nothing to happen to him. Yeah, I don't want nobody say nothing about him, you know, because the same way you're talking about honoring Larry or Tommy Joseph. I see him as a uh icon on a giant.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:16

I have I have I do not get starstruck. I don't know why I do have the star struck gene. But the only person I get starstruck for was Marshall.

Corie 1:38:24

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:24

Was Marshall. I I'm I don't know what it is. He is a different level. I just pull him in that kind of regard. So yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, and for me, I just felt like what why I took away from watching him do it is like a performer is a performer is a performer. This man would have been the best at whatever he did. We we lucky not in comedy because he'd have been the best comedian. He is just really good. So you've seen him deliver this stuff and seeing him being able to like laugh at himself and that kind of thing. I was like, Yeah, even more.

Corie 1:38:51

Yeah, suppose when you write it is one thing, but how he delivered, you still have the yes, and I was really impressed by that.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:57

So for me, I could understand how like you feel like he's untouchable. That's why certain people shouldn't say certain things, but yes, it's it was more like that. They would more like be like, Who is you? The Toba Bash, who you who is you are qualifying, you know, maybe it's that. Maybe it's that's what I thought. But if he wanna partake and and you know, go through a different, you know, I I don't mind that or like if he wanna, you know, yeah, for sure. And then I had him here and I ask him about it.

Corie 1:39:16

That was the shortest answer of any question he gave us. But he was coming, he's like, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not comfortable at all. Nah, nah, nah. So what's your thoughts on your racist backlash on what happened in the states now with uh Kevin Holtzing?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:29

Listen, I kind of come from the school of anything could be funny, evidently we learned that today for you, right? But it had to be funny. So that I think the the main feeling would be like if it just wasn't funny, if the audience did not find it funny, but that that's also very subjective, too. So I don't know, I'm not somebody who um supports police in comedy, um, or censoring comedy, really. So I feel like if I was not that offended. Like, yes, there were offensive things said, I was more bothered by when it was like the bomb saying it. Like it was like, okay, all of that, you bring up all our trauma, all our racial trauma, and the punchline was not proper payoff. Gotcha. That's the so if the if the payoff is good, I don't mind. Yeah, but yeah, so that thing dies, yes, you comes in for me. But um, I mean, Sherlon would, I think she killed that Daro. She was, I think, the best one for me. But um, Tomorrow like her dead husband and that kind of thing. I mean, like, that's what comedians do. Is that comedians? There's, I mean, the audience will be here feeling however about Kevin, and some people might feel very protective of Kevin, like Kevin, Kevin, go talk about this boy, you'll talk about Kevin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then have a comedian be like, yeah, but think about how Kevin would look if he's trying to be romantic and walk off the stage and then they'll come back on the stage on her elbows rolling. But and it bang, bang. Like it they're gonna do that, you yeah, and I laugh and I scream, and yeah, I am screaming, but also thinking, how I'm gonna get them back because they're rather check the rollercks now. But yeah, so for me, I would I would more come from the school of thought of like address the thing, talk about the thing, like don't be so offended by everything, and yeah, so I I don't know. I I uh I mean I wanna also don't want to invalidate people's feelings if they feel triggered by something, but then that probably was not the show for you to be watching. Yeah, don't see something called the Rose and know that it is where, like, in a rose, I think is everything every everything.

Corie 1:41:22

Yeah, she said if you sign up for this and you look at this, this is what it is. I also read in Kevin Hart's book where he said, if you get to be backstage and in a comedy club, that is always see how comedians talk to each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:33

He said if you're feeling offended, no. That is it, yes. Yeah, that we we do at each other all the time. Like, oh what hopefully the group chats never make it up, will destroy me. The group chats will destroy me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because yeah, that's all that's our language, and it was so cool to find other people who speak that language. That that in itself was an amazing thing. Yeah, that's how we just that's how we navigate. Like, we are those ones, we just say the the kind of outliers or the observers, and the kind of ones who just like say whatever, and yeah, it's a to find a community of people who sure are like that.

Corie 1:42:05

Yeah, yeah, that observing thing is something else because you had to stay that that observed thing that comedians have and see it very differently from everybody else. So you spoke about Larry Joseph, Rachel, Price. Those those are people who again they like Marshall. And there's more penny Spencer and all that. You would see these people, you would see them, you would have been young.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:22

You'll perform on the I would not see him performing live, but it's just youtubers and that kind of thing. And yeah, and I would and and yeah, so actually to meet them, each probably have a story of each other. But yeah, like to see when I first meet Larry, Larry. I I went back, it was Naprima Bowl. So come up this state, Naprima Bowl, they go in those nice, nice dressing rooms, and yeah, I stand up in there and I hear the voice, and he comes, he's like, I just wanted to meet you to tell you you are so I can do what you do, though. I say, Well, I can do what you do. He said, I mean, just back and forth, like you're just so nice. Like everybody, I again I don't know if it's just them or if it's me or if whatever, but I've always been very fortunate. You know, everybody, everybody, Rodie. Rodie meets me. Um, he hired me for her, you know, I used to write on the Rodie show. Um, do his shows. Um, like like everybody, everybody I've come into contact with who has been uh you know forerunner or a trailblazer, they have always been very, very uh generous and you know, supportive and that kind of thing. So I can't say a negative thing. And I think I don't know what the other industries are like. I think I would uh get a sense that maybe music might be a little bit more cut-through, but the comedy part, real kumbaya boy. We were real, yeah.

Corie 1:43:32

It's something I wonder about because Larry, Rachel, Nikki Crosby, they're a good bit of them who's gonna be a very good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:37

Never met Nikki, but would love to, yeah, love to meet Nikki. I uh I looked at a lot of her work from back in the day. Solid, solid, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like she is back in the day better than plenty of we who are now.

Corie 1:43:48

You know, it's a funny thing because now when you say watching them in ads, it makes sense because so much of their work would not be recorded, like how y'all yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:56

But no, I have to there because I'm I was in a show um with um DJ Rocus and who's somebody like when you talk about clips or something, like I want his his encyclopedic knowledge of clips. So I really, really appreciate that. Really, really, really great guy. Um, and so he had challenged me to go back and find the comics of the past, or or like you know, their work from the past and share it with the audience and that kind of thing. So I would go and I would research and find them and that kind of thing. And yeah, every time I look, I'm like, oh my god, they are back, no internet, no whatever. They where they was pulling these things from, and so sharp and so you know, so good. So yeah, Nikki, Errol, um John Agitation. Yeah, bad, bad, man. All I mean, um brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. So I've got to go.

Corie 1:44:41

Even Paul Kings Douglas, I know you're gonna be able to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a storyteller. Yeah, hell of a storyteller. He's gonna laugh at some point, but he's taken a place, boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I and and these, I think my daddy that I did, that he wrote that. And so I thought I was having a full circle moment the other day because the last time I did the poetry slam, he was a judge. And I thought, yes, man, have the best piece because all poets think you had the best piece. So I was like, I'm gonna win this poetry slam, and Paul King's Douglas gonna present me with a $30,000, and I have to tell him, you know, you start this with my daddy. Yes, and you're gonna say, Oh my gosh, I'm passing you the mantle, Kevin Sawyer, from me to you. Are we gonna be in the express? I say, oh my gosh, look at this. I backstage thinking this and claw it. When the call results, I am come to. I am come nothing. I say, but was just my fantasy went on the window. Somebody has gained them the $50,000. Check. I said, I'm not going back. I'm not going back. But yeah, I hope to meet them someday to tell him though I did I did get money. No, make that out. I didn't get plenty mileage out of the my daddy.

Corie 1:45:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean, maybe him and VS Night Paul, I've never seen people paint a scene the way they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then tell a story and you're visually in the space in the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Producing Solo Shows And Bigger Dreams

Corie 1:45:58

for sure. So do y'all as a unit now, or if it's individually, it seems to be that you make an effort to do your own shows, shows that support one another, individual shows, and y'all are the supporting cast and so on. Deliberate in terms of how y'all approach the business part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:09

Yeah, I never wanted to. Because again, I'm a play it safe. I'm very strong, but I don't feel like I'm very brave. I don't like to risk embarrassment and failure. So I never wanted to take all the risks of the producer and then have to deal with if people didn't come out and so forth. Um, so for years, people like Simmy D Trini and Kess Ramsey, who would have been doing their own shows before me, Junior Lee, who did their shows before me, saying, Kevin, you need to have a show, Kevin, you need to put on our show. And I'd be like, Yeah, when I reach that level, when I reach that level, it's like you're the level now, you've been at the level, put on a show. And um, yeah, so they really pushed me. Before that, what what we had what we have and had then as well is Laugh Undy have, which is this company. All these comedians come together, okay, and uh we would have the shows, and what we will do is literally split everything equally for everybody, no matter what level of a comedian you are at, or you feel what kind of following you have, no matter how long, you know, everybody gets an equal, equal share of everything, and everybody, you know, contributes in some kind of way. Um, I found myself though, naturally, because of my personality in a kind of leadership role in that, along with like um Kwame Weeks and uh Loris Lee Sing, known as lyrics. We were kind of the heads of that. Um, and um but so I was kind of like comfortable in that space. I could do this, I want to push everybody else. I'm very comfortable pushing other people. I could talk about you know the people I'm a fan of Kes Ramsey Junior Lee, everybody for hours and hours. Come to talk about me, uh, except for me except but you, because you're so competition. Yes, of course. But um, so yeah, I was comfortable with that. I want to just do push it, push everybody in laugh when they have a we just come up together and together again. But it was like Kevin, you need to branch what you need to do. So I took this step and I booked my first show and went really well. And it just it was a whole other thing. It was a whole okay, no, this is my direct thing to the audience. This is my baby that I get to share with them. There's a whole other experience.

Corie 1:48:03

This was this adult show, or that was yeah, with the first one.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:06

This was in 2023, right? Government Plaza. That one was sold out, moved to Queens, or that one was sold out next year again, Queens Own, that one was sold out, add another one this year, that one was sold. I've never not sold out. I needed to, I needed to be doing this all the time, right? Because yeah, the people who were coming, they yeah, they were seeing me. They were seeing um how I perform and what I what I offer and that kind of thing. I I just wasn't aware. So the support was there, and I was able to tap into it, and it's been very, yeah, because now it's me doing the hour, now me talking directly to the audience, and know that not just they're appreciating it, but they're coming back the other year, um, and new people coming in because they see the work, they appreciate it, they resonates with them for whatever reason, and it's my own thing. So uh we would have different themes to laugh on the half and this and that and the other. But for me, my show is therapy or therapy and intervention. How can I come? These kind of themes, gotcha. But you know, and therapy was really just that. It's just me sharing with the audience. We we will are gonna take you on this journey, talk to you about these things that some of it might be heavy, but we're gonna laugh through it, and you know, uh it's just been evolving since then. I get to incorporate parody and music and all into in including improv and spoken word and all the different facets of me into my show. So, yeah, that was the journey. And I think every and and so, like for Simi, Simi uh was motivated, I guess, by some a lot of the same things as well. As I know for her, as a woman, as a single mother, she had to be somebody breadwinning, earning, and that kind of thing. So she, you know, producer shows, and then Kes Ramsey, he has this whole open space. There's nobody doing Christian or at least Christian friendly comedy. So he, you know, did that thing, and then Junior Lee, the soaker. I'm sorry, the corp the comedy fet, you know, because yeah, somewhere, because we need somewhere to cuss. Yeah, and that is what you know we have. Hey, fill in that whole way. He helped me a lot with that here.

Corie 1:49:58

Yeah, yeah, nobody wants everyone. Everybody came here and said, boy, you don't think I know you don't cast on it? I never told anybody what to do, but after Juniely, everybody knew what to do. After Marshall.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:07

After Marshall. I sorry, yeah. Not even after Marshall, to be honest. Can't ever really meet Marshall like that. Yeah. So for me, Julie is the best thing to come out of trying to be good. I tell you as a real, yeah, I just think he's a huge, huge star. I just think he is, yeah, boy. But he needs to keep the eyes. And that's why the other day, when people were attacking the gentleman, I had to tell some people some choice things. It's insane. I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of the things I said, but you know.

Corie 1:50:33

Yeah, I don't tell nobody nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:34

But to see his journey, boy. No, no. And it's crazy. All people will be watching the videos and things like he's known for the videos. He's a skit man. Yeah. The weirdest man was life performing before that. I just him as a whole, the entity that is him. Like you have seen people, no matter what the demographic is, he enter the room, he just brings joy. He is joy as a person. Yeah, it's a problem. He is human joy. It's a problem. Yeah, nah, he is. Yeah, yeah, for sure. He is simultaneously this old weathered businessman who just like and nine-year old boy. Just walking with this. And it fits it a helicopter. Come, and then a big truck come, and then you know the thing I move control car. He is those two things at the exact same time. It's an interesting dichotomy. He's making movies.

Corie 1:51:19

It's interesting to hear you say that about him, and he talks exactly like that about you. So my question is we call two all of the pinnacle then. And in terms of putting it together or and doing your own shows and stuff, I wonder if you see us in places like Netflix. Like I can't wait when I see a comedy special come out on Netflix.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:36

And the thing is, we have so much to offer. So all these fresh perspectives and all our colloquialisms and our history, we have so much because a lot of the other stuff is played out. And that's why I always tell comedians don't try to be an Americanized American comedian. Don't aim to be a good stand-up American type comedian because already have better American type comedians because they actually American comedians. Now we have this whole pool of stuff to get into here. So absolutely, I see more than just the Netflix, but that's not the pinnacle for me. I see it going wave with I see movies and television and stand-up tours and and and you know arenas. And I just I see I definitely see skies the limit, and I just see star quality in so many people. Apart from Genial Lee, I think Taddy Boom is another one to look out for. He is, I think he can have such mass appeal. People need to get on board. He's another really um great, great one again brother of mine.

Corie 1:52:33

Yeah, yeah. So but something that um I want to come in here for the work that you're doing before you go, but also you see that little part where we talk about the way you see the world and the way you dream. Yeah, I feel like we're gonna need you though. Yeah. Because the audacity to come up with that. So, for instance, I just want to see you on a Netflix special for hour. I want to click a trini and see that come up, and I'll be able to watch that over and over like I do with Chappelle or build. Well, you'll watch it? Uh-huh. Or you will go looking for the key for one. What are you saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:53:01

You see Kevin Sawyer big ones.

Corie 1:53:08

Would you like to watch Kevin Sawyer? It's nothing at all. You know, next episode, yeah. But you're dreaming that the way you see the world, it needed first to get to that

Closing Thoughts And Thanks

Corie 1:53:18

space. So, congratulations. I appreciate that. I appreciate you coming into it. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. We did it. We've got him right. Okay, stand down, stand down. Stand down, stand down, we did it, we did it. I appreciate it.