Vaughnette Bigford on Depression, Petrotrin, Menopause & Finding Her Authentic Voice

Vaughnette Bigford is one of Trinidad & Tobago's most celebrated performers, but behind the sold-out concerts and standing ovations was a deeply personal journey through depression, perimenopause, identity and rebuilding her life.

In this powerful conversation, Vaughnette opens up about the hardest year of her life, why she believes more women need to speak openly about menopause, the devastating closure of Petrotrin, building her own brand without waiting for opportunities, and how studying at Berklee changed the way she viewed Caribbean music forever.

She also reflects on entrepreneurship, confidence, parenting, community, jazz, calypso and why finding your authentic voice matters more than trying to become someone else.

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Transcript

Why Your Voice Still Matters

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I just tell people, not everybody's going to like your Cory. Use not Faris. Use not coconut ice cream. And I just tell people, Cory, I have an average voice. It's a 750-toe. I tellin you, I have an average voice. I don't have the greatest range. What I have is something special because it is my voice. I think we are beautiful people. I was seven years old. And since then I realize I like people clapping me. Sponsors really take me on too much. Too much. He said, Why in Goldman with a Milson boon? I was the first female fire officer in all of Petrogram. First female. I don't really call myself a jazz vocalist. No, no, I just want a big foot. I just think I want. What if I feel this thing these days? I pray mana pose. Call me anything, just don't call me collect.

Corie 0:47

You are now applying to us on the Cory Shepard. Corey Shepard.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Corey.

Corie 0:52

Sheppard Cory Sheppard Podcast. Mommy, look all from get through. Don't live with that.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

It's gonna be sexy.

Corie 1:03

Welcome to the Cory Shepard Podcast. My name is Corey Shepard. I'm over drinking. We have with us today. I don't like to say jazz vocalist or just bad, bad, bad vocalist. Entrepreneur, HSC expert. I hear is a five-time school calypso monarch and them parenting to know. So I hear I want to welcome to the show, Miss Vaughn Dickfoot. How are you going, man? I go. Well, it is nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

It is great to be here.

Corie 1:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to ask you how you're going. Since I had TC here, I realize I still ask people how they're going, and I just move on. Yeah. So he tell me, ask people how they're going and really meaning spot. So how are you going? How are you going?

SPEAKER_04 1:41

So I tell people that these days when people ask me how I'm going, I'm answering in the now. Answering for now. In this moment, I'm fine.

Corie 1:48

That was good.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

I'm good. I can't answer for tomorrow. And what, but in this moment I'm fine. And for me, that's good enough.

Corie 1:54

Well, alright. You're always in this moment. And when you think about it, you're always in this moment. So you've been up to lately. What

Rest, Recovery, And Coming Down

Corie 2:00

have you been up to?

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Oh, plenty of rest, you know.

Corie 2:02

Good.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Um I'm I'm really intentional these days about rest and restoration. And I mean, I'm and I'm sure we'll talk about why coming down, but I I'm I'm very focused on resting. And of course, I have an event coming up that I that I'm planning when I'm not resting.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

These two things are sounding like you're going together, you know?

SPEAKER_04 2:26

Yeah, but it has to, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

I've learned that by force that they both have to go together. Uh there must the rest is just as important as the work, you know.

Corie 2:34

Yeah, well, the work is one thing because when people see you on stage, you're known for giving everything. It's like you bear your soul on stage. Or was that a time David Roders just like you're going on and on and on? It's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when I see, when you talk about rest, I wonder what is like coming down for you after performances like those.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Yeah.

Corie 2:53

Was it?

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Somebody coming down is not always a uh a loving feeling, a happy feeling, eh? No, not always. I mean, as much I've I've learned to rest because I've been forced to rest. Rest wasn't a thing that I used to pay much attention to, but I was forced to rest because my buddy just we just sit in stage where a perimenopausal and say, You just can't go. Yeah, you can't go as you used to go before. So the rest has been intentional.

Corie 3:19

So I know I I saw your interview with Neolo, and it was great, but I know that it's also important to shoot to you

Perimenopause, Depression, And Advocacy

Corie 3:25

beyond just what you're dealing with, yes?

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Of course, of course. Um so I'm in I am 52 years old, Corey. I'm at the period where I I'm considered perimenopausal, and uh it is really, really important for me to use my time and space and energy to speak about, to advocate for women's health in general. I mean, and depression, depression for uh for me, I think it's it was also uh a side effect or something that happened to me because I was in in perimenopause as well, too. My hormones were not functioning the way they should. And things just think uh things that I I was coping with all the time, I just I just couldn't cope with anymore. So it's important for me to talk openly about it, about what perimenopause does to the body or what menopause does for women because number one, me didn't go dung by massion menopause or no. I didn't buy it.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Come on, reach it.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

You understand? This is something that happens to women, to all women, not all women will have the same symptoms, but all women go through perimenopause and menopause, and there's something that is so secretive or so taboo about talking about it. Of course, we know menopause is really um um associated with the end of a fruitful life for a woman. You can't make no more children after menopause. So, because of course the value that they place on us is so much about whether we can make children or not that when we get to the point where we can't make children, we sure you're sure you can't make it, you don't want to talk about it. But all are we going through that? Why is I talking here now? I my head spinning, it have thousands of women who take in stematil for spinning head just like me. People can't sleep in the night, anxiety and a number of different things. And the less we talk about it, is the more people feel like they're alone. So I I I talk about it very openly. I try to advocate to tell women too, men to go and do your checks, go and do your assessments, go do your pop's mail, go to your mammogram, go figure out what's going on in your body and stop guessing. Stop everything is not to be cured with galaxy. Go to your doctor, and yes, you do have money, there's their health centers, yeah, but you know, it's really important for for me to talk. I talk openly about my depression because I think coupled with a number of different things, the perimenopause and the changing my uh hormones in my body contributed to that. Yeah so it's it's it's it's important for people to take that seriously.

Corie 6:06

Yeah, I think so. I think it's a good it's a good thing for you to call on people to do as well. Because I find that um even talking about structuring these conversations, right? People come, we could all talk and saying whole day, yeah. But somehow when we get to topics like these, people I guess rather not discuss it. So when I see you talking about it, so open.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

Oh man, I I still am I take one for the team. Yes, I ain't have no shame, my shame. Tree cut down and the dig out the root. I don't, and shame for what? Over menopause. So I do something wrong to get to have menopause symptoms. I ain't do nothing wrong. Yeah, you understand, and that's how we had a view it. This is a normal thing that women, more and more women should be talking about. There's a group on on Facebook called Menotiti. I think it's about 3,000 of us, and you the conversations are happening. Hey, who had spinning today? Anybody sleep last night? But there's a sense of community that you feel, you don't feel alone, and that that for me is the most important thing that you do not feel that you're walking this

Isolation Versus Supportive Community

SPEAKER_04 7:02

road alone.

Corie 7:02

Yeah, and if meno TT is a space for that, is something that we want to endorse as well. Because I I do remember you in in talking to Niola saying that a part of what you were dealing with is just wanting to go internal.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

You don't want to talk to anybody, you don't want to do that, and the isolation for many people, for most people, isolation is not the cure. Isolation makes it worse. Community is what makes it better, knowing that you're not alone. And I did the opposite. I pulled myself away. I didn't want to see nobody, I don't want nobody come and look for me. I don't want my parents, and that isolation was the death of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so no, I don't I don't want that for people. So I want people very openly to know that yeah, yeah, alone in this road, all are we walking this road? Well, not all are we, not you, but what I mean, but you walk in the road too if you have because if you have a partner, you have a walking.

Corie 7:51

We learn more about it, of course, of course, because that's some of our reaction. Let me talk for myself. Some of my reaction or the way I might react to something's home might not help with the with with what her situation will be at that point in time.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

And and let me tell you something, Cory. You all survive when you when you when you survive another day with a perimenopausal woman, you need to pray.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, you get true.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Yeah, you get your GT because Cory only could dead on any given day. With how we feeling.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

I feel in that way for since I meet my wife, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Sometimes the energy and and and all the vigor associated with producing an event or a performance when that is done and you do really have something to look forward to. It could be a little depressing sometimes. You know, it's it's not always okay, well, yes, I'm happy to rest. Sometimes it takes a little while to get down from that high and then to kind of balance off.

Corie 8:45

Yeah, we were talking before about your young days and looking to go party and you say you never do too much of it, you know. And I like I read about this um introvert versus extrovert now. I remember talking to David about it at the time, and David said, but oh, you so don't get talking for two hours. How you just be so tired when you're done? I say, David, I don't know. It's just be drained. I feel like you give everything for it.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

It takes a lot. Yeah, it takes it takes a lot.

Corie 9:06

But the book said that um, and it's something I never knew. It said that uh it's not I learned introverts as people who like to be inside, and extroverts as people who like, and they said it's not that they say introverts tend to absorb more of the environment. So they get tired.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

Right, of course, of course. I tell people that after a performance, or sometimes after an event, I feel I must just lie down on the bed with my hand outside for days, you know. Because I tell people, Corey, that I love people, people are my business, but sometimes I could stay in my house for seven weeks at a time, too, huh?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Because it takes a lot, because when I when I'm there, I'm there and I really engage and I really love you in your space and I want to know what's going on with you, and I want to share energies with you. But it could be a really, really tiring thing if you don't know how to manage it. So I just lie down sometime and I can't catch myself. I can talk plenty too.

Corie 9:57

Well-deserved rest, well-deserved rest. And then you come off the stage and you meet and greet with your fans.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

I I tend to do that all the time because here's what I just say these people is how I just pay my bills. You understand? I can't be separate and apart from the people who I depend on to feed me.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

So I find the time, and it is also very intentional. I come out after I perform, even though it's tiring, and I engage, I take pictures, we stand up, we talk, we laugh because people have a choice how to spend their

Fans, Meet And Greets, And Respect

SPEAKER_04 10:30

money, especially these days. And when they choose me, I had to choose them too.

Corie 10:34

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.

Building Signature Events Through Image

Corie 10:36

And something that let me talk about the business side of it now, because uh putting on your own events is not easy. I think is maybe not especially not easy in this space and in our in our world. Yeah, and you've been doing it successfully. I've I've been seeing your events when people say the met gala of trend and tabago, right? When they talk about sorry, right? Is that intentional when you when you was were designing the events or coming up with the events in your mind?

SPEAKER_04 11:02

Never intentional. I I I tell, as a matter of fact, I have tried to to dissuade people from dressing up and coming out, like telling them, Olio, we go in in the amphitheater on the steps in Naprima Ball. Naprima Bowl only had to dress up so much, and I get responses like we don't tell you what to sing. Mind your business, mind your business. You can't tell we what to put on to come out. But it started more so because let me tell you something, yeah, Corey. Image and and the look is really, really important to me. I tell people I just wear lipstick to go and sleep. I just wear lipstick to sleep, and I'll tell you why I do that too. Let me tell you that one night, well, about three o'clock in the morning, I take in with an anxiety attack. Well, I didn't know the anxiety attack at the time. I thought it was a heart attack. And my husband, of course, takes me up and we go to the the the emergency room. But Cory, I was looking like something from hell.

Corie 11:58

Well, I think in nothing you say so far, a song like lipstick would have been needed. That's all what was going on here.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

I was looking like something, but even with the anxiety, I am very vain. Vanity is my favorite sin. So I was as soon as I reach me in the emergency room and the nurses, use van at big food. I said, not tonight. Because I was looking like something from hell. So image, I mean, and that might be pushing it a little less. So I just sleep with lipstick just in case something like that happen again. I must go there with my lips bright red or brown or some kind of thing. So it's pushing vanity here. But image in this business is very important to me. And I think it came from, I think the the fans' response or the the audience response came from the way I present myself. Because I it's it's very, very intentional that the image is part of the business. People see you before they hear you. And I just tell people, Cody, I have an average voice. It's a 750 tall. I tell you, I have an average voice, I don't have the greatest range. What I have is something special because it is my voice, it is the only voice like mine, right? And that's that's what makes it unique. You understand? There's a way that I present, there's a way that I sing, there's a way that I do everything, and that it's unique to me. But in the schema voices, I have an average voice. But but, Corey, you have you're seeing me first, and and the seeing me, the response from the seeing me had to be just as good as the response of the images, a big, big part of this business. So I think it came from that too, and of course, from COVID, people couldn't go nowhere, Cory. So they had a nice cloud. They had a nice, nice clothes in the wardrobe, the two years they can't go nowhere. So when was time to come out? Listen to empty the wardrobe. Well, shoes, it was everything, and it just got it just built from there.

Corie 13:45

So, what was the first year you did it?

SPEAKER_04 13:46

The first so I've been doing my own events since 2011, right? Um, I think the the the the thing, yes. So my first event was called Shades of Honor, 2011, then we did 2012 in Aprima Bowl. I skipped 2013 because I was pregnant, and then I came back in 2014. And I've been doing my thing since then. But I think in in its current dispensation, it would have been masquerade during COVID. So when we we could have at least 250 people at the bowl and stuff like that, that's when it kind of took on an entirely different form. People were desperate for something too, and desperate to come out and desperate to hear music, you know.

Corie 14:30

So well, when you say not intentional, maybe it was because I'll tell you the first time I see you, right? That when it's about image, right? Long before we start interviewing people, I have this in mind. I want to interview people, right? So look at me now, David. I go and salt by a place named Nekosos, right? And I see Vaughnette, but I say I want to interview Vaughnette, but I'm frightened to come and talk to you because you're so put together. And I dressed in the same clothes I've got now. I said, Oh, probably go tell Vaughnett. I didn't feel like we're the right place. I say we'll circle back to Vaughnett at some point.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

When Nekosos is actually one of my favorite spots. Um, it's like a second home to me. I I go there all the time. Sometimes when I want to sit down and think, when I'm thinking about my song list, and uh when I want to overdose and the calories I'm going there too. Shocks.

Corie 15:11

She's well known for that. You go overdose with some calories though.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Yeah, and it's repent, and it's at the repent when I'm even there. I apologize for that show of lack of discipline.

Corie 15:23

It's another discipline, though. It's another discipline. But I guess it's intentional because the way you look and the way you carry yourself is like very, very real. I want to use the word regal, like when I see you, it's like this is like this and real.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

That I and you know, it's because I think we're all beautiful people. I think we're, I think, I think my body, my my my ancestry, I think everything about me is worth celebrating. And and I think that there's a certain kind of respect that comes with how you present yourself, generally. Apart from the fact that I was raised by a grandfather who was also always well put together. It is what I saw as well. My father is the opposite. My father must own one t-shirt and he's a big one. Mr. Generation. But that's not his son, but still, yeah, it's yeah, Mr. Generation. My grandfather who raised me was always very well put together, too, even at home. So there was no bear back in the house and them kind of thing. And it may have been uh, you know, we might see that as something else, but but there was a particular way that he raised us to that I think informs the way that I present myself.

Corie 16:26

Gotcha, gotcha. So I guess that informed people how to come, yeah, to come proper. At least down to the feet, you know, the shoes go out.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

It went well, yeah. Baby, nobody's shoes here. No, me and Shoes and were friends, but it it grew from there really.

Corie 16:38

Yeah, and still growing, still growing. Because I I look forward to now seeing the um the albums on Facebook that come out after the event.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

Listen, let me tell you something, Corey. I just say, well, it's them how I look into my eyes because when I have an event, them just being Roger inbox asking well, ready pictures for VB Event. I don't even harass them for the pictures because I know it tastes.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

People come in for it.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

But they ask him, well, where do you picture from VB Event? But it's it's there's an excitement or buzz, and it's because we all like beautiful things, and the people present themselves in a very unique, it's splendid. It's sometimes I I I remember the first time looking back at Roger's pictures and look into my eyes' pictures after an event, and I think that was that event was masquerade, and I cried. And I cried, well, apart from the fact that a perimenopausal and very emotional, but I cried because I was saying to myself, this is something that you have done. You have created the space where people feel confident to step out and be beautiful, and and I it was a real emotional thing for me because it's important for me for us to see ourselves as beautiful, you know. So I understand why people are enamored by old Rogers' pictures. Of course, of course, of course, of course.

Corie 17:56

It's you and the fans, it's you and the fans. So from an investment standpoint and from a business standpoint, it makes sense for you to do your own events on that type of thing. Sometimes, Corey.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Sometimes. Not all the time. It is extremely let me tell you something, yeah? And I'm sure you know if every single event I do, it's gonna be the last one, you know? Every event I do, I mean doing the next one again, and a bit stress associated with that one, you know.

Corie 18:19

Where's it one coming up now?

SPEAKER_04 18:21

This the one coming up is called Uzuri.

Sponsorship Struggles For Afro-Themed Shows

SPEAKER_04 18:23

It happens on August 2nd. So I do two major events for the year. Right. They sorry after the mass, which is what either the Saturday or Sunday after carnival. And this one is African themed emancipation theme in celebration of us right after emancipation. But everyone I do, I I just say, but how are you doing this? I tired. Not only that, I don't know, but maybe because the events have 500, 400, 500 people, sponsors don't see it as a viable investment. I mean, it's not 10,000, it's not 15,000. I mean, and I guess it's it's it's it's lucrative for them to go where the numbers are. But I I'm still to figure out why sponsors really take me on too much. Too much.

unknown 19:12

Too much.

Corie 19:13

I have something I want to read. I forget to tell all in the introduction of one is also a social media influencer. Just short on that. Well, you time coming, time coming too late to know. All kinds of issues going on, they might be looking forward to.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

All kinds of influencers get walk, nobody's gonna be a good one. Where was the contract?

unknown 19:32

I don't have got them blue, I don't have got them blue.

Corie 19:35

It's one of the most interesting follows you will see on on Facebook. Funny informative. I like Alex Senior Page, Ariel Makway pages. Right. They say, My loves, I have a question, it's a sensitive one. What is or why is there hesitance to support Afro-themed events by corporate entities, large or small? I mean, corporate don't really jump on too much these days, but it's even more difficult with these types of events.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Yeah. First and foremost, um I've approached a number of corporate citizens, and the response that I generally get from what I should say is that they don't particularly jump on events or buying to events that seem to be beneficial to one group. Me and social, I believe that. I understand the idea of not wanting to seem like you're partial to a particular group, but there are several groups existed. Support all support all if you don't want to seem very partial. You support our emancipation theme or you support her the one you want, you're so but but this is a thing that they say, and I have yet to understand. So I am more likely to get a sponsor for sorry than I am to get for the emancipation themed event. Apart from the fact, uh, and you know, for me, this is it it goes to the heart because I also thought that when if I'm doing uh uh an emancipation event or an event that celebrated emancipation, that the businessmen of Afro descent or might may be more inclined. It really doesn't come. And I guess they will have to tell me why. My thing is I remember once when I when I decided to do this emancipation themed event, someone asked me why you want to do a specific themed kind of event, why you want to do this afro event? Doesn't it seem a bit exclusive to you? Or like excluded people. And you know why I say Corey? I have been to the Diwali Nagar on many occasions. I know what the Nagar is about. I know it's in the Nagara opens like a week before Diwali. Diwali is a Hindu festival. I've never felt strange or excluded when I or like the odd one out when I go in the Nagar, Corey.

Corie 22:27

You're gonna enjoy yourself.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

I go in the Nagar to enjoy myself. I've never I've never felt like as much as I know what the intent of the festival is, it never said this is for Hindus only. You understand? And I go because I live and work amongst a very multicultural people, and I had to be able to dive into what they have to feel it too.

Corie 22:55

Yeah. Is the equivalent of saying a routine shop is excluding people? Or you know, I I don't understand it. So a Chinese restaurant is being excused.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Why is it that if I do an event that celebrates my ancestry or history, it is deemed as excluding others. It isn't pro emancipation, don't mean anti-anything.

Corie 23:20

And the thing is, I feel like we have the unique, we have a unique space where we could benefit from all these things. Because if I go in Nagara, I come in out richer. I go in Hussey, I'm coming out. If I experience only my culture or my race or my type of food, it doesn't matter what the thing is. I feel like I'm worse off if that's all I experienced.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

My culture is part of my culture is going in Nagar too. Yes, I'm I'm Afro-descended, but I'm a Trin Begonian and we all live here. We live, we work, we love here. So nothing about my event that celebrates emancipation excludes anyone. It's called Uzuri, a celebration of us. Us is just what us mean. Us.

Corie 24:07

And is it Swahili?

SPEAKER_04 24:08

It's a Swahili for beauty. You understand? I I I'm still to figure out. I'm still to figure out. I also feel that there is something about the African descended that people sometimes feel, even the African descended, sometimes feel that we should be a little more hesitant to celebrate. I mean, wait a week to celebrate. It has plenty for we to celebrate, Corey.

Corie 24:39

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

It has plenty for we to celebrate every single day. The resilience of a people is something to celebrate every single day.

Corie 24:47

Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_04 24:49

So I just bypassed that. And you know why they say, Corey? If I get a sponsor, I'm thankful. If I don't, I mean, uh uh, because uh for this year I was actually contemplating not doing it, but but but but I also have a really tight unit of people who say my team, and I mean people outside of my team. I have Carol from Prindelers, Lynnet Common, and a number of different people who said no, no, we had to we had to fight and do this. Yeah, I like a corporate.

Corie 25:20

I remember we can see a ct and uh I want to say it's lupus, uh I hope I'm not wrong about that. But I'm sure in boardrooms it's gonna be a very difficult discussion. If you have some budget put towards a cause, it's going to be a difficult discussion what cause we're gonna support. Right. So as you say, it can support all. I understand, but it's tricky, yeah, of course. I understand. But I don't think that if I say I'm going to put everything I could put behind lupus, it necessarily means that we don't care about all the other things. But I guess I don't know. I don't know. It's strange.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

And I think it's maybe limited budget because we we also have to face the reality of what exists right now. Yeah, you know, they they may have limits. A lot of corporate citizens um um are telling you now that they can't support nothing as it is right now. Of course, yeah, in this time, they they've been asked to hold back, and yeah, you understand? So we just have to figure out a way to get it done in spite of because events are extremely expensive, and there's only so so much only so much I can have 95% of my audience's pension as pension. Pension is a um pension don't go up. It is sure, is a short income, but it's of course it's only so much I could carry up my price. I want to, I and I want people to be able to afford to come to the events.

SPEAKER_06 26:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

I want the people who normally come out to always be able to afford it. So it it takes it takes a lot of doing to kind of try to, but yeah, we had a some of it, some of some some I don't make any money at all. I I I've done a couple of events where where with the prettiest of pictures, it's been it was a very, very, very beautiful, difficulty loss making venture. That's a difficult thing when everybody tells you how great it was. This is just loss making venture, Corey.

Corie 27:02

But from where you sit from a business standpoint, just something that you because between your bookings and what the things that you do for the rest of the year and the shows that you put on, you have a viable income, it can be done.

Leaving Petrotrin And Entrepreneurship Anxiety

SPEAKER_04 27:12

It can be done, and let me tell you another thing, like so post-petroen, I I decided that I wasn't gonna work for anybody again. That was my decision. I mean, sometimes, sometimes when when I realized, like, I have a gig for June month, and them bills come in and sit for me. What kind of decision was that? Go find a job, right? You know, because of course, when this happens, it means that if you don't work, there's nothing coming in. You understand? But it's it's a decision that generally I'm happy that I made because I just felt like the energy that I could put out for somebody else, I could try to invest it in my own space and my own event. It it as I said, it doesn't always work out, but I'm primarily able to pay my bills, you know, um generally. Yeah, very much. You know, I'm I I may not be making a great profit all the time, or I may not be making profit all the time, but I'm generally able to pay my bills. And and these days, that's okay.

Corie 28:11

Yeah, and it could be a scary tool because when you're talking about places like Petrotron, yeah. There's the kind of places where your parents, grandparents, people's advice, don't whatever you do, don't like without Petrotran whatever. People going Wassa, you know, it's secure.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

I remember once mentioning to my grandfather nearly get a coronary when I tell him, I think about pursuing the music. He watching me like, is you mad? Yeah, when you say, like, what you're leaving? Trinma to go, it's like, are you crazy? I eventually ended up taking no pay leave. So they granted me a year no pay leave, and I went away and studied the music and but I was seriously contemplating it at the time. The thing about Petrin is that I also love my job there. I loved what I was doing at Trinma. I love it, I love it up to this day.

Corie 28:57

You have 16?

SPEAKER_04 28:58

I love it. I loved, I love the people, I it was a family, so it was also a very hard decision to even think about leaving because of course you have the security of a salary. And then I actually loved what I did, you know. So um I think had Petrotrin not closed down, I may not have ever left Petrotron. I may have tried to balance the both, yeah, you know, but Petrotrin also gave me the security of Petrin also gave me the ability to do things with the music that I would not have been able to do otherwise. You know, go away and study, find a private tutor, and and those things cost money, and and the security, the the salary helped with that.

Corie 29:36

But yeah, it's one of those things you hear people talk a lot about an entrepreneurship. They talk about jumping off this ledge, yeah. Which um sometimes you pushed off the ledge. Yeah, that's the truth. And you have to figure them things out. Yeah, I tell people all the time too, it's not like if um, it's not like if when you jump, it's just fine wings and fly. I feel like it's it's feel like you're constantly jumping off a ledge. It don't feel like it's about day to you.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

I'm going to steal that analogy. That's exactly what it feels like. Because for me, it doesn't really settle. Like I thought that maybe after a few years I would feel less anxious every time I'm but no, every evening. Let me tell you something. When my my my graphic artist designed my tickets and he prints my tickets and I go to collect it, two days after I just be in depression. I didn't just be long so saying, Jesus Christ, Vonet, but who buying these 500 tickets? How are you selling this? So every time you see my husband see me come home with tickets, he just watched me like, okay, yeah, then leave she for two days because you know she's gonna everybody will say, Oh God, Vonet for Getty tickets they were set, but it feels like that every single time. And of course, now, even more so, because people have limited spending power. Some people really can't pay their bills and and buy phone, and it's a different time now. So entertainment is really a luxury that people could afford people could afford to do without. You know, so it's it's it's it is constantly yeah, that's a good description all the time.

Corie 31:07

I find particularly with events, events is give me elsewhere. I can't I can't do it. It's too much work, yeah. Too much work. You mentioned trend mass. How long you were

Petrotrin Stories And Grief After Closure

Corie 31:14

in petrogen?

SPEAKER_04 31:15

21 years. 21 years. Yeah, aye, aye, yeah, from 2000 until no, a little before 2000 until well, until the closure in 2018. It would have been about 21 years. Three years as a casual employee, and then but listen, love it, Corey?

Corie 31:32

Yeah, you like the work, you like the environment.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

I loved everything about Petrotrin. I tell people that if I stayed home from work, it was because I am genuinely sick or has something to do. There was no reason for me to stay home from work. I love listen, I loved walking through the gate and just greeting people. That of itself is a whole is a whole kind of I tell people we're talking about therapy. That of itself is therapy. And we have a whole conversation before work start. And then looking at those men leave the gate on a daily basis in one piece also gave me a tremendous source of pride because I felt like I was contributing to that on a daily basis. Um I work shift, I go offshore, and and and so so when I went to Petrotrin, I was the first female fire officer in all of Petatrin. First female. I wanted to get into HSC, but the HSC department didn't have uh uh uh vacancy at the time. So they said, Well, we only have vacancy in fire. So I said, Well, I going in because once I get a foot in, them can't stop me from going to HSC because I know I got in. You understand? Okay, okay. So I went and trained at the government fire service, and I was the first female amongst 40 plus men in petrotron in Trinma. Well, and of all of Petroin because they had no woman there.

SPEAKER_06 32:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

There was no bathroom for male and female, there was no specific locker for male and female, but those men welcomed me. They taught me life, they taught me the job, they taught me what community and working as a unit meant. And I'm forever grateful for that. I moved on from the fire department to the HSC department after uh about nine months, and and and it just it just grew from there. But there is nothing that I didn't like about that space. Well, I mean, the first week of work, of course, I was all of 120 pounds in in coverall and hard hat and I'm going offshore. And of course, you're not supposed to cross the boat without a life jacket. And there's this gentleman, he's dead now. His name, I could never forget. His name is Oliver Klinker. He's from Mova. And Oliver Klinker has his life jacket over his shoulder, and he jumped over the boat and he gone. And I say, Hey, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't jump over the boat without your life jacket. So you watch me, he said, Well, who you? Because of course, there was no announcement that there's a new face. So I said, Well, I'm the newest, so so and so. He said, Why you go man with a Milson Boone? Corey.

Corie 34:16

That's his orientation program, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

And that men start a laugh. They say, Vonette, you will you will be you will understand who Clinton is. Nobody read Clinton.

Corie 34:27

He's he watched me, he's gonna why you go home and read a Milson Boone Hey, listen, corporate environment or something is hard to describe.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

I'm working and working with men in oil field too. Uh, I mean, it's not that I didn't know how to use bad language before. I always knew. I I I I I am of bad language. When my grandfather is dead, I can say that publicly now. But by the time four or five months, I was I I was so confident in my abilities, even to command the respect of those men. You know, uh, petrochine.

Corie 35:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You tend to hear about a lot of people talk about petrogen like that.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Yeah, we were a family. Right, yeah, um, and and contrary to a lot of the reports that went out there prior to the closure, um, they're extremely hard-working, dedicated employees at that place. We we loved that space and we wanted to see it get better. And many of the decisions that led to the demise of petroleum were not made by people at our level. But yeah, that's not usually the case. That's not usually the case. We didn't make the bad decisions. A lot of bad decisions were made in in all different iterations. Yeah, but uh, but we we felt the brunt of it. And of course, the people who felt the worst of it were the people who are my age. My so both my husband and I worked there, him for 26 years, me for 20, and and we were middle age, I still have a young child. The boy knows because I wait long, long, long to make baby call. Me, you know, I wait so long for neither. I wait long, so I basically make this boy when I'm almost 40 years, and you know, you now start a bill, we're now paying off the mortgages, and then bam. Of course, of course.

Corie 36:04

Like I tell him my mother's a big fan. Yeah, and when you talk about petrotron, I hear them talk about telco and TST like that. And I always remember seeing young them days, so you don't understand the fullness of it. Well, you don't understand the responsibility part because I'm as you're a teenager, but I feel like a big man in the mirror, she's still feeling some responsibility for me. So she's big, I'm doing my thing. Yeah, but I saw how difficult it was for her coming to terms with what TST became in the end because there was a point in time where it was a sports day, it was a children's um they had that Santa Claus thing for Christmas and in where Kidon is now a big, big Christmas party.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

It was a whole uh a community and and people who loved each other. That's right. Yeah, sometimes when I see my my colleagues or my ex-co-workers, I just feel they cry. I miss them. I miss them. The the the it was just it was not just work for us. It was not just work for us.

Corie 36:53

I was listening to you talk about it on with Niola as well. My partner, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here you talk about it. Wanted to describe like what was your feeling? Because one of the most difficult things I ever do in corporate life was there was a time we had a client who was downsized.

SPEAKER_06 37:06

Yeah.

Corie 37:07

And I had to talk to each one of these individuals. I I make it a point to I talk into them for myself. Let me talk to everybody. I don't care what's going around in WhatsApp groups or whatever. Let me see the people. And when they scheduled this thing, the first two people they brought was a husband and wife. Yeah. And I had to tell these two people that you know they've been retrenched.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Never, never a good thing. Again, it's both Shillon and myself. You know, so what do we do? What how how I mean your plan your the trajectory of your life to retire at 16. All the investments that we made, the things that we did is with the expectation that we would be both be working till we 60. I mean, um, Corey, I had when and and and what was hard for for us too is that announcement was made on August 29th. Petrotron was closed on November 30th. So for many months from August September, you also have this hope that this ain't gonna actually happen. I mean, I had people who say in this company we never close down. This company ain't gonna close down. This this ain't gonna actually happen. But you saw people getting sadder and sadder as the date approached. I had the the week before November 30th, I had two big men like my friends sit down in the office and cry tears because their wives are not working. Um this is this is all they've known, this is the only job they know. Um, they they're not particularly skilled to be able to go back on the market, and going back on the market is uh is a next set of things too.

SPEAKER_06 38:40

Of course.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

You understand? And these men, and what do you tell them? Because I'm also in the position where I could be crying too, but of course they trust me enough to come and sit and talk. And I and I'm trying to be strong too. I'm trying to be strong for people who maybe need that strength a little more than me in that time. But it was, and you know, it's something I was telling Neil as well. Sometimes we associate grief with the death of a human being or somebody that you love. But I still, I'm still grieving the loss of petrotrin. Yeah, I'm still grieving the loss of my job. I'm still grieving the loss of the security. I have never, I tell people, I I don't think I slept well one day after August 29th. My sleep pattern just went all because I was always worried. My husband too. And he is a kind of spiritual fella. He prays, and so I used to see he sleeping and snowing, and I used to say, But he work in Atlantic. Because how he's sleeping, but he deals with things differently. For me, it was the ang there was constant anxiety and worry up to this day. I mean, and petrogen has been closed how many years now? But it is a grief for a loss that I really didn't expect.

Corie 39:55

Yeah, and I think in the public space, like the discussion, uh, a lot of it was about they're making real money. As far as people are concerned, people in Petrogen make real money and they should have money put away and they should be able to retire to see something.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

So the the thing about it is that um, and and that was a very intentional communication plan by the government because what I mean, and me again I'm wrong, Corey. I meant I do I might do the same thing too. Because what they wanted to do was to ensure that petroton workers had no support, right? Strip away the sympathy, yeah. So you strip away the sympathy of the public so that every people were generally. I tell you, I I have people who were my friends saying that good, and I saying, but you ain't make that connection with what you just said there and me. And uh you understand because they did say. You talk about it like it's a current affair, like it's only papers. But but you know, but I'm saying, but this is where I work, you know, this is where my foundation is being built. This is what is helping me. So how how you how you're saying that, you know? But they did a really good job of of alienating the public. So everything is about um, I see something about a cleaner making $45,000. Number one, Petrotron didn't hire Petrogen. Petrogen has never, petrogen no, no, owner cleaner, petrine, the janitorial services has always been outsourced. So I I wasn't sure where they were getting that information from. Yeah, but petrochine workers were well paid. And I make no apology for us being well paid, Corey, because I tell people that I worked in a facility at Trinma that was over 50 years old. Over 50 years old. There are 2,500 PSI gas lines that I could step over on any day that could blow out on me. There's any day that my husband could go offshore and not come back, as has happened to several people, Kenneth Merrick, Ricardo Felix. We have had stuff like that happening. So you have to make a connection between the risk and what people are being and how people are being compensated. It's not as if they're going in a everybody going in an office and sit down. There are people who are facing real risk every single day, and you had to compensate them for that.

Corie 42:05

Yeah, of course. I find it's a strange argument. If I find I ain't making enough money, I don't want anybody else to make less for me to make more. I want to make the more.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

But there's a yeah, yeah, there's a there's a man. I don't know what to say. But as I said, the job was well done.

Corie 42:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the same thing with TST I was referring to because I saw that rhetoric then. Yeah. That TST people making real money, and the men of them are too family and all these kinds of things, right? But I saw what my mother went through, and it had the money was a thing, and you're you're concerned about it. But what you spoke about was more of what I saw home: the relationships, the camaraderie, the things that the company became. Of course.

SPEAKER_04 42:40

You know, that that was more of just things, and those things are extremely valuable. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Extremely, extremely valuable. I had my husband was offshore when I take in with a pain with my son. He was offshore, and I could call a colleague to come. Hey, boy, I feel like this child wants to give me some trouble. And and and that's a call, a colleague, somebody I'm working with, of course, yeah, yeah. To come to Vesany, to pick me up, to carry me down to medical.

Corie 43:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

That's if you you you there's no value to be placed on stuff like that.

Corie 43:12

That was the first time I learned that as well from Niola, that it could grieve. I thought grief was death. Yeah, me too. And she explains it well, talking about grieving for things that or people that still exist and still

Arts Education And The Lost Village

Corie 43:22

hear it could be more difficult. So, in your in your early days, I heard you say in terms of what you wanted to do and so on in life, uh, you was doing accounting at one point in time.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

I wanted to be an accountant.

Corie 43:34

Oh, so you wanted this?

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Yes, this is this is the I was pursuing, I think I I did AAT level what and I was heading to ACC until one day, Corey. I spent about five hours looking for two dollars. Trying to balance an accountant looking for two dollars. And I said, Vona, this is not your Jesus didn't die for this. This shouldn't be your portion. This is not for you. I can't find that two dollars nowhere, and I go and then I say, mm mm. They say you're what's it? No, no, no, no, no.

Corie 44:03

Yeah, if a content did not have a balance, maybe I would do it. I can get nothing to balance.

SPEAKER_04 44:07

Two dollars and all.

Corie 44:08

I can't understand it's a big one. So it's then he decided to go and pursue HSC.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

So as a matter of fact, HSC came quite by accident. There was, I was working for a small contractor who had a health and safety committee. And they asked me to sit on the committee. Um, I mean, I'm working in the accounting department, and I say, Why am I sitting on this HSC committee? But I sat on the committee and I realized more and more that this was something that was very dynamic and very interesting. HSC is one of the most dynamic fields there is out there, more so because the human element is plays such an important role in how to get the desired result. And I say, I kind of like this, you know. And I started kind of, I went and I did a couple short courses until I then I say, nah, this is for me. This is for me because I I really, really I I love assessing risk. I love, I love being able to come up with solutions for how we could manage this particular risk. Because as I said, we're working in an environment where the hazards exist. You manage it in some way, but you have to figure out how and how to get people home safely every day. And it didn't always work, but it worked for the majority of the time. And it's it's it's it's a field that I'm obsessed with. I love it.

Corie 45:27

Yeah, yeah, you talk about it now as if you would want to do it still.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

I I still, so up till a couple months ago, I still I still did HSE. So I worked for for the energy chamber, um, doing some private, private work for them. So I I I wasn't outside there on the field, but I was still working my my my mind around the processes and and stow T T. And um so I was still involved, and and I would still, it's something I would still do. Okay, it's something I would still do. Interesting, interesting.

Corie 45:59

I guess maybe it's the stereotype. When I hear somebody in HSC and Petro Trenner say check next, I don't think of it as something that people love and want to do. But when you expect it, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

It's an extremely exciting feel. Exciting feel.

Corie 46:10

And the love for music in it is since you know yourself.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Since I know myself. Yeah, my first stage experience, whilst not music, it was drama. Um, I was seven years old. And since then I realized I like people clapping me. I like to do things and keep people entertained. Since then I realized I like this, yeah.

Corie 46:29

So was your drama? School play and take it on.

SPEAKER_04 46:32

So uh as a matter of fact, I won best actress at San Fernando Arts Festival for a couple years, even in primary school when I was nine years old, because I'm a very good actress, which also helps with the the music as well. So of course, so that's like last week when I tell you I nearly passed out on the stage. That was all acting because I was feeling horrible. But I always knew that entertainment would be my portion. I I liked it right, right from since then. Um, I knew I could sing, and I was always singing all through so I primary school calypso. My first calypso was written for me by my teacher who's now paralyzed. His name is Trevor Huggins, and it was a um about a Rastafarian guy singing to his girl, and it called it it went like this I may say Eileen make an ital for the I Man.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Some kind of some it was it was it was weird.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

But it but I win the competition. What school is this? What primary school? Brighton AC school and library. And then I went on to secondary school, and secondary school was where all the art played a major, major. I was doing everything choir, calypso, drama, everything art related. I was doing that. So what school? Yeah.

Corie 47:50

So the art program was strong there.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

You had a very, very, very, very strong. Uh listen, Corey, it is so hurtful for me to see where art in schools, especially in specific schools, have reached. Um, we we have totally missed the connection between the CCTV cameras that we spending, we're spending millions of dollars to put on the streets to hold to see if we could see who's banded and who's not banded. And the absence of these programs in schools. That's where it starts, Corey. It starts there because we don't understand the importance of art and sport and stuff like that. So we don't make it part of the curriculum. It's something you could do and decide if you want. Yeah, understand, but we don't understand how music helps to balance the brain, how drama teaches you discipline.

Corie 48:41

Yeah, whether you're looking for a career in it or not.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

Exactly. You don't need to do it as a career, you don't need to, but it helps to develop a well-rounded, emotionally intelligent human being. And we don't make those connections.

Corie 48:54

No, I remember going to New Tong Boys, and we had what I learned later on in life. Our music teacher was Muldi Kotz. Oh, you don't know who she is. She's just in you looks like the 27 wrong girl. Yeah, yeah, the real McCoy. You know, it's not appreciated later on in life. But music, um, doing the plays and theater and so on was such a that was just part of what you did at Newtons Boys, and it and and it helped you to be a better student as well. Of course. It helped. Well, I was not a better student, but of course, it could, it ought to.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

To be honest, Cory, not me too really too much, yeah. But I might have worse student, yeah. It might be a bit better to them, but I might have to be a worse student because I still used to couple that little 34 in test and things sometimes. That is me. Yeah, what? Correct. I used to be proud of my 34th. My grandfather was dismayed.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

How much people is in the class? 300 and something.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

36. And I'm proud of my 34th because as far as I'm concerned, I don't care how much I place. If I pass in my subjects, will you care how much I place in tests? You want to be able to tell somebody I come I come 34. Yes.

Corie 49:58

That's what about it. So, secondary school, you're taking it, you're enjoying it. You're loving the stage.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

My secondary school experience, and and I tell my son every day I I really want him to release his secondary school. My secondary school. Secondary school was the best time of my life, Corey. In secondary school, no? He is in form one. Okay, okay. That was the best time of my life.

Corie 50:18

This man known as a big man in there. Israel Marco, you're talking about your son and I watched so much about him. I told he grown now.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

He feels he's a big man. But he's just in form one. Nice, nice. You understand? Secondary school was beautiful for me. I met my mentor, Arthur Lewis, who mentored me up until his death in 2024. Uh when I was 11 years old, he was my drama instructor. You understand? Mr. Colville Cintele, I'm in the choir. I sing in Calypso. I tell you, Corey, I win Calypso first form, second form, third. I really win all calypso.

Corie 50:54

You say five times. I said about five years in school.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

People telling me about um phone. That's why you should check calypso. I say, I is of calypso, Corey. Of the dam boy. They feel like they're telling me something. Calypso was my thing. So I was always involved in art. I feel I was balancing the books were secondary for me. I was man, and I was so, and and this is where I developed my confidence. You know, my ability. I Corey didn't have nobody afraid. No, I I could go on any stage. I don't care if I singing after Whitney Houston. I don't care. I know that I have something to offer. I know, and I know that it is something that nobody else has. That came from that foundation that I had in that school.

Corie 51:41

And so an ultimate example of that confidence, right? I think the last time I see you perform, it was some time ago, yeah, but it was an Etienne show. A next man who is a man of fashion and song, you know what I mean? But um he had done Kitchener's Easter in Trinidad, if I remember right. And you came on and did that Kitchener as well. I can't remember what song it is now. But I remember seeing you walking on the stage, right? And I in the audience there. And you take your time. Yeah, your songs are on you. It's almost like there's a supreme confidence that when I watch it, I'll say that's what I need to be looking like when I go out there. So you're saying that that comes from that comes from there.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

That comes from teachers telling you, this is how you do it. You can do it. Yeah, you have something special. That comes from people constantly instilling in you that you have something special to offer. My I remember my teacher saying to me, I remember this particular time. His name is An Slim Lessie of the Lessees of Point 14. And we were playing in class, playing in class. I don't know what we were doing, but he came and of course he catch us plainly full, and he pulled me out of the class, out of everybody else. And he said, Yo, what are you doing? He said, There's not your path. He said, Von at you have no clue how special you are. You say, Why are you wasting your time? That has stayed with me. Many people, including my parents, including my father, would always tell me that there is something very, very unique about you. Something unique about everybody, but there's something about you, there's a light about you that that is going to auger well for you in the future. My confidence was channeled and developed at secondary school. It came, I mean, years after secondary school, I didn't do very much art related. I wasn't singing, I wasn't doing much. But when I got back into the music, everything came back. It was it was there.

Corie 53:34

It makes sense. It makes you wonder now, right? Because youths, like you say, everybody unique, but not everybody's here that. Not everybody's here that they're special or that they can achieve things. Some people hearing something completely different, you know.

SPEAKER_06 53:46

Correct.

Corie 53:46

And I don't know what, like when I look back at life, I was trying to wonder like, how I hold on to certain messages.

SPEAKER_06 53:50

Yeah.

Corie 53:51

Or hold on to the one that tell me I was gonna be alright, I was gonna be fine. Yeah, but thank God that somebody tell me that. Yeah. Because we have YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

You also have the negative message, things that stay too, huh? But the positive has to be so much more. It has to be so uh I I had very few people tell me anything negative. I mean, I just tell people not everybody going to like your Corey. Use not Farris, use not coconut ice cream. Which Farris? But yeah, but no, what nobody had a time, Cory, everybody didn't like Farris, including me. I was Farris' number one supporter, including Farris. What I'm not vexed with Farris Cory of my mother's core, and I love myself the best.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

You're right. Mex.

SPEAKER_04 54:31

I like myself just as much as Faris. I'm near vexed him at all. But not everybody's gonna like you. And not everybody's gonna appreciate what you offer. But you there you you you you can't focus on that. Yeah, yeah. You can't focus on that at all. There uh there's not there's not there are people I don't I don't really care for, other artists that may not be my cup of tea. I wouldn't say I dislike them. It just may not be my cup of tea. But you have to respect that everybody has something very special to offer and allow them the space and grace to do it.

SPEAKER_06 54:58

Of course.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

You understand? But I can't remember hearing negative. I mean, you what I had is the normal black and ugly thing that they would tell you. Oh, somebody vexes with you, you're black and ugly. That's the only thing. What else you can tell me? As a smart, I could sing calipso a tall and tell the most you can tell me is I'm black and ugly because that's what you feel. Yeah, find something. You find something, you dig up and you find that because that's a thing that people would say a long time to make you feel. So of course, I I I also had moments where I'm looking at my skin and uh, why why is this why is this something? I mean, I I had moments of that, even though my father countered that. My father used to counter that, right? Say, hey, do let nobody tell you them nonsense in all. You understand, but still you're moving along. But along the way, along the way, you yeah, of course, of course.

Corie 55:46

Yeah, I feel it's like it's the same thing you see with CCTV versus the investment in the arts. Because I wonder frightened for youths now who because the negative going to come, that is life. Yes, but I had so many people tell me positive things, sometimes random people. Yeah, and I wonder now if youths hearing them positive messages in the community.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

I'm not sure. And I'm also well, I'm not I'm not sure we understand the importance of community anymore. Because the next thing is I was raised in Library, where if I use a bad word five houses up the road. Not only at reaching home, hey, where's that you just said on a big fun? They were very confident and they could chastise me just like my grandfather could. But that's when the community raised us. Yeah, I grew up in a space where the community raised me. I just tell people I don't know what my grandmother food tastes like Christmas Day. We used to be passing food over the fence. My neighbor handed me food. That's that's how we grew. We we the the the the elders in on that street raised us. So they were almost, they knew that they could confidently chastise me. They knew they could confidently tell me also, Fournet, you are special. And they did it. So it came from a number different. It came from another I'm not sure we have community anymore. What we've done, we've almost made it seem like the only thing if you don't have a nuclear family, like like nuclear family, your mother, your father, both of your parents working, and video games and and phone raising you. You understand? But we don't have that village, we don't have that where we empower our neighbors to take care of our children. They don't feel empowered anymore. So I don't know. I my neighbor now know that she could chastise my son because I have said that to her explicitly. He is not to be doing anything where you feel you can't correct him.

Corie 57:37

But it's an interesting point here is no, because if we stop neighbors from correcting them, you might just stop them from praising them and gain them.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

Absolutely, and that's what the community. I tell people, you see, library boy, and I'm not saying library, I say library, you see library, I I I'm not living in library right now. I'm out. Corey, when I go in down the highway and I hit Rosila, my body does feel different. My body, physically, my body says to me, You are home. This is the home that raised, protected, nurtured everything for me. My body does

Finding A Caribbean Sound At Berklee

SPEAKER_04 58:20

feel at rest when I in the library. There's a confidence that I walk through library with because I know I am a daughter of this place. The people love me. This they speak praise into me. You understand? I wish more people could understand how important community is.

Corie 58:39

Yeah, we go into the gated community now sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

But I mean, even in the gated community, you can, but you have to intentionally curate it. That's right, because they're not going to assume they can't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not going to assume, but you have to intentionally create that space. I labra is responsible for me being who I am.

Corie 59:00

Interested. I want to go back to labra as well as you say that, because you said that your household where you grew up. I grew up in a household is Kaiso. That's what I know. Right. You it wasn't like that for you.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

It was it was my grandparents were Christian. Um, they played gospel music of called Jim Reeves, Jimmy Swaggot, which my grandfather apologized for profusely afterwards. He said Jim Reeves, Jimmy Swaggot, you would hear the songbook types. So you'd hear Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horn, Sarah Vaughan, you would hear Sparrow, Kitchener, King Austin, and Shadow. And only because Winston Bailey, the mighty shadow, is my grandmother's nephew. His sister, his mother, and my grandmother were sisters. So that is where we get because other than that, me and Feel Shadow was getting a blighty host neither. But Shadow is my grandmother's nephew. So they loved him, of course. And of course, but I didn't hear a lot of calypso or local stuff going on in my house. So it's a very and and this is not an indictment, it is what it is. Yeah, of course. It is what it is. So I tell people that Kaiso, even though I was doing it in school, it wasn't a natural kind of experience for me. I didn't I didn't hear that a lot. And so when it came to the point of me finding myself musically as an artist, that that wasn't the thing for me. It was what I was hearing all the time. I was hearing the Sierra Vaughn, I was hearing the Lena Horn. I was, that's the stuff I was hearing. You know, so I I I I ventured there. I mean, I had periods of my uh of my teenage years where I was very, very, very um, what's the word, boy? I just wanted to rebel. So it used to be some hard metallica. What? Heavy hard rock, heavy hard rock. And the grandfather used to say, take that damn thing off, take it off, I'm banging. I used to listen, harder talking about it. Heavy metal, heavy metal.

Corie 1:01:06

Who would have thought that for as a matter of fact?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:09

I think I won the Anchorage Pop Mop pop rock music heavy headbanging competition one year or something. So if I didn't win, because I live a little semi-drunk too, huh? So if I didn't win, I was kind of high up in the competition. But I was a rock supporter, I used to support, but that was primarily rebellion for me. You know, it's like may I want to hear this blah blah music, this monotone music no more, and pick up some noise in all your head.

Corie 1:01:32

Yeah, the rebel, that's important. That's important. So by the time you leave in PFC, you have uh no, but you went and do accounting and thing straight out of school.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:40

Straight out of school, I went to school of accounting and management. I did my accounting, did some business management, and then moved on to the contractor that I was working for, and then got into help.

Corie 1:01:50

So all then you had your performing and stuff for you? All no, none, really?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:54

None, nothing, nothing so you what was your feeling?

Corie 1:01:57

You're not missing it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

I wasn't missing nothing, I was just trying to figure out like I I need to do something to be able to make a good salary, and I music as an option wasn't remotely on my mind until one day I was in the bathroom singing, and my husband said, So you intend to get back into music at all? And I listened to him, maybe the the only time in life that I've ever listened to.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

It doesn't have our thoughts. We can't put them kind of messages out there. What?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

Oh gosh, but maybe I listened to it, it really resonated with me because I tell people also, huh? Corey, you can spend years and years and years with a dormant passion, but it never leaves you. It may be lying dormant, it may, you may be doing nothing with it, but it never leaves. And you will always at some point in time find your way back to it. It could be 60, 70 years, you'll find your way back to it somehow. You'll find a way to incorporate what you love into your daily life. So when he said that, I said, okay, let me listen to him. And I started kind of thinking about the idea of getting back into music or kind of trying this solo career thing. And uh I start and then I I I made um there was the steel pan and jazz. Of course, I knew I wanted to do the jazz.

Corie 1:03:26

Oh, so by then you show his jazz.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

Yeah, I show his jazz, I show his jazz. So I started doing some voice training with Jessel Murray. Of course, Jessel is telling me, you know, Miss Bigfoot, I can't really help you with the jazz. I'm more uh classical kind of, you know. So then he put me on to Ralph Davies and a couple of other people, and and then there was this opportunity, and I started listening to. Listening has been my primary teacher in terms of jazz. Um, and then there was this Steel Pan and Jazz Festival that Petra Trin had co-sponsored, and there was a uh uh show they were hosting at the staff club. And as a staff member, um, they kind of invited me, and my first major performance was as the a guest vocalist with phase two.

Corie 1:04:08

Oh, I see. So how do they know you could sing and sing?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

I sent them a demo.

Corie 1:04:12

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:12

I sent them a demo. I say, I see this is coming up. Okay, okay, okay, nice. People you could give me a little play. Now, I mean, I woke in here. The least all they could do is give my little play. And it was great. It was great. It was my first first time I met Dr. Sharp, and first time I worked with phase two, and it was, I think I did summertime. I could remember what my hair looked like. I had hair at the time. And yeah, it was a really wonderful experience. It was one of those. Yeah, and then we just went from there.

Corie 1:04:37

So I want I want to ask you about the confidence level then, right? Going on with phase two the first time, but we gotta go back to random social media things. I tell live one, it's like and I have real questions. People say here, if I tell you I love you, like how I love Cariley, know that it didn't have nobody love you more than me. And that's followed by a list of don'ts. So before we get to the don'ts, Kariley. What's the situation with that?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:01

I love it bad.

Corie 1:05:02

Something ain't right with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

I love it bad in all its dispensations, even raw. I love it.

Corie 1:05:07

You're the only person in the world, Kariley is one of the worst things.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:10

You had to be joking.

Corie 1:05:11

We saying so Kariley known for being bitter.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

Yeah.

Corie 1:05:15

Not tasting.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:16

I don't know what what what I don't know anything that's, I don't know what about it that tastes bad. If I fight on Corile for you, Cory.

Corie 1:05:23

I tell you. All right, let me move on. Don't offer me lentils. What's the lentils?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:28

I don't, I detest it with a passion. Let's figure it out. It's just so small and brown and have no personality. It's not no personality.

Corie 1:05:37

No space.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:40

I don't eat lentil peas at all. Provision. I want that neither really, you know. I don't know who's the person who decides to eat provision. Who dig up that and decided that that should eat?

Corie 1:05:49

The person who bypass the currently because nobody wanna don't buy me roses, don't plant surprises.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

Yeah, I do not do flowers. No, no, flowers has uh I I I think of my dead grandfather. Mother, when I I so yeah, I don't particularly associate so I don't like when people give me flowers at all.

Corie 1:06:06

What's the surprises, David? I don't like surprise.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:09

I find I Jesus didn't die for you to sit down and plant something behind my back that includes me. If you want to plant something behind my back, plan it for yourself. And I'm telling you, anybody that keeps any surprise with a party and anything, I'm going to walk out. I don't like it. No, don't do it to me. Do not, I cannot stand it. Don't plan anything for me because I find it disrespectful.

Corie 1:06:32

Oh man, we do it in love. We do it in love with it. No, no, no, no. No surprise to me. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:36

Plan. I just plan my life. You don't plan nothing for me.

Corie 1:06:38

Don't use my perfume twice.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

Do not use it once neither. That was a couple months ago. Do you worse now? Don't use it once. Don't use it at all.

Corie 1:06:47

Just listen, I confuse it all. Do offer my fish, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:51

I don't eat that.

Corie 1:06:53

Something we must start over. Food you run and say, well, let's talk about it. I don't want no fish, bro. I don't want no fish, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:59

I don't want that.

Corie 1:07:00

Don't and I feel I have the biggest problem with this one. I could come back to that. And I want to tell all that planned surprises show up until it's about five or six times, right? So don't plan surprises for you. Don't tell them how to drive. Don't eat my cheesecake.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:13

Yeah, don't tell them how to drive.

Corie 1:07:14

Don't show up unexpected, which is that is a surprise.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

Yeah, don't show up unexpected, and that is for my mother, too. Yes, don't show up unexpected. Call me, Esther. Do not show up at my house.

Corie 1:07:27

Mommy, call me. We're gonna plan it for you. We'll plan the surprise. And last plan, don't plan any kind of thing to catch me off guard. I will walk out. Yeah, I will. Yeah, the true way the rest of the interview, you know, all of it was a plan. But going back to number 10. Do gamer root even out of folk.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:42

Yeah.

Corie 1:07:43

Let's discuss. Something right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

Yeah, something is very correct. I detest, I do not like to see curry under my nails. I don't like, I mean, I don't even wear nail polish. And this wouldn't, you you wouldn't believe it's from being a HSE officer, too. Oh, of course. For response. Right, yeah. Um, don't, don't, but still, I don't want to see no curry under my nail. I don't want to, I don't want to see no

Arrangements, Purists, And Taking Risks

SPEAKER_04 1:08:04

curry stain in my hand. Uh give me a roti. And I'm not a fan of roti either. Oh, you know. No, I'm not a roti person. I will eat a roti maybe once for the year, but when you're presenting it to me, there must be a folk.

Corie 1:08:16

David, you go work and vow it, right? You can work. Yeah, book a couple hours extra after we are. I don't understand it. I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

Are we?

Corie 1:08:25

So going back to that phase two, uh, your your confidence on stage and stuff, even as early as then was.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:30

I was confident but nervous, and I tell people there's a difference. I still get nervous when I'm going on stage. And for me, I for me, I think that when that nervousness goes away, it means that I'm not invested enough in my products.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:44

I need to be nervous because I want it to go a particular kind of way. Right. I'm not afraid. I'm not scared. But they're nerves because you you plan something and you want it to go, you know. But so I was nervous then, but not afraid. Confident. Yeah, yeah. But nervous, of course, this is my first time.

Corie 1:09:02

Yeah, I can't remember if it's a podcast or a book I was reading, but somebody uh is the best description I get. I get very nervous to do things, huh? But the person said, we see confidence or the opposite of confidence as being or uh he was talking about bravery or confidence versus bravery. So if you get nervous versus brave, or you're scared versus your bravery. Yeah, he that's what you're saying. I never thought of it like that, but you're saying that confidence really is just trusting yourself. You see, it doesn't mean that you're not nervous.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:28

Every time it does not matter where, it could be in a small room of 20 persons. I I still get nervous, I get a little feeling in my stomach. It's nothing close to fear, right? And it's it doesn't mean that I I don't trust what I have to do or what I have to present.

Corie 1:09:44

Yeah, you will execute.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:45

Yeah.

Corie 1:09:45

So at that point in time, you're going on to perform more. At that point, your husband knows, right? Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:50

I started doing so, and I also hooked up with Carlton Zander and the Cold band, Safaria Deltoons. So I started singing with that band, singing as a background vocalist and lead vocalist with Carlton Zander. And through Xander, I met most of the musicians that I work with up to now. I see. Yeah, I see 2004, 2005.

Corie 1:10:09

And then you're doing straight jazz covers at that point?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Jazz, primarily, um, Brazilian music, all kinds, and even a little bit of even a little bit of calypso, but not a lot of calypso. And of course, it's not straight calypso either, you know, interpretations of calypso, but more jazz at that time.

Corie 1:10:25

Right, right. So when did it start with Berkeley? You went to at some point you started.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:30

So in when I was 36 years old and Cory Boy, I pray manopause. Like, can I do that, Matt? To tell you how much years ago that was? 2008.

unknown 1:10:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

All right, good.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:38

Or somewhere else. I had started doing some music programs with Berkeley Online. And I'm I I connected with my online tutor who invited me up to Berkeley for their five-week program. As a matter of fact, they gave me a scholarship to come up to their five-week program. So they paid most of it. This was California, or which was Berkeley Berkeley School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. So I went up for that five-week program and I didn't stop. I just kept going back for workshops. So at the time, what happened is the advantage I had is that I was 36 years old. I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of them. So I didn't have to figure out as an 18-year-old, you know, going to college or a 20-year-old. I was 36 years old. I knew I had a limited time, limited resources, and I needed to get certain things out of it. So I kind of hooked up with teachers, not students, the teachers, and some of them are a little older than me. And I started studying privately with some of them. And I just kept going to Boston, going to New York, going all over the place and just trying to study with these teachers. So study a lot about the art form of jazz and study, study about how I present myself. Just and I just kept going back. And then one year, that year, I took no pay leave. And I told Petri Trin, listen, I really want to go and study music, you ought to pay me for the year. Can you just allow me to go and come back? And I took that year off. Boy, Corey, my grandfather nearly dead. Boy, you what is it? What is he going to do? Take a year off of work and leave who your husband? Leave you leaving the man here to go there for a year? You know what you start to talk about already. I said, Daddy, I can be here, and the same thing that can happen when while I'm there can happen while I'm here. So let me go my way, you understand? So I took a year off and I went out, I enrolled in in this in the program. And I studied in Boston for about 10 months. I see. And then came back home.

Corie 1:12:35

So it wasn't just vocal training or anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:38

Vocal training, air training, learning how to lead a band, learning how to write music, learning how to write your own charts. It's conducting is a very, very, very comprehensive program, music program. They have, and I wish I could have finished it. Would it take me um two more years and seven and a half point six more kidneys? Because I still recovered from the money I spent for that year that I didn't work.

Corie 1:13:04

Yeah, not cheap.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:05

Listen to me, Corey. I think I took all of my savings at the time and I went to Berkeley because I was so confident that it would work out for me. That this is what I wanted to do. Yeah, I guess you're sure about it. So, yep.

Corie 1:13:21

It's interesting. I hear you talk about a story in Berkeley where there was somebody who tell you beat a trini.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:25

Yeah. That was my uh so my teacher, Armstead Christian, who has now passed, and uh he conducted this class called Floetry. So it's a class that combined poetry and what they call flow or jazz, poetry and jazz. And it was an elective class, and I took it and we developed a friendship. And he's I'm coming to the class and I'm doing my thing, and you know, they're clapping and they love it and they whatnot. And then one day he says to me, Can you do something from your native country? So I say to myself, Where's that where this come from? But I think I pulled it was something either by me, it was John or Andrew Tanker. I'm thinking and Mourina Usha. Oh and when I was done, he looked at me and he said, I need to talk to you after class. After class, well, I said, well, like he understands what Marina Usha means. Because me and Shaw, we want to talk to me about. I sing my song and I go on, we have to talk to me. And he said to me, Corey, he said, Von it. He said, There is nothing about you that is black American. He said, the way you walk, your energy, your smile, everything says that you are not what you are trying to be. He says, You are a Caribbean girl. He said, and seeing you perform that song, seeing you said to me that you're grounded, there's something, and that's what you had to do. That is how you had to represent yourself, that is where you will find yourself. He says, Stop trying to be what you are not. Why do you want to be another black American singer? And that conversation never left me. When I was coming back home, we passed through Puerto Rico, and I was just hearing it over and over and over and over again. And I was just thinking about my entire product. Like these all the time I used to wear some weaves. I always had these. And when I came home, man, that was a real. I just started cutting my hair. Just I started taking all the weaves and just cutting my hair and just trying to figure out. It was a process of trying to figure out, okay, who is Vaughn at Bigford and who is Vornette Bigford in Trinidad and Tobago? Because at no point in time did I ever want to migrate. I've never wanted to live anywhere outside of Trinidad and Tobago. Never. So I'm trying to figure out who I am. Who's the Vaughn that could exist in this space and make a difference? And that's where the genesis of I guess maybe VB with the bald head and and the the person who has an appreciation of self and who started to delve into Calypso and who started listening more to what we have here and what we do here and figuring out. Oh, I like jazz. But how do I present what we do in a particular way that is palatable? And because I could sing, I could sing the blues.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:21

The more I'm with you, pretty baby, the more I feel my love increase.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:29

And I could sing today.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

When I look around in the world, what do I see?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:38

But when I sing the second one, it resonates with you because that's we won! That was written by Winsford DeVines and sung by King Austin. And that's when people when I started experimenting with that Corey, that's when my career took off. Because people could hear something that was familiar to them expressed in a different way.

Corie 1:17:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's something I've seen people do with taking, you know, doing different arrangements. Because I always wondered how you just figure out the arrangements of these songs. Because my father and them, we from a parent kaisoum, really family. I mean, I see Ramon, not my father, right? But we we take pride when we sing in Kaiso, so we try to sing it. So Morey, use that as an example. Bad, bad, bad song. Yeah. So if I go and sing that, I'm gonna try to sing it exactly the way Tanker sang it. His intonation, his phrasing, yeah, the arrangement. So when I see you, the first time I see you and I see you singing calypso, I'm like, what is someone doing with this song? Yeah, you know, I mean, it felt very, very different, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:36

Some not not many people liked it. More people loved it than did than those that didn't. You know, some people are purists, some people say they don't know why I just call myself a jazz vocalist. I don't really call myself a jazz vocalist no more. I just born at Bigfoot. I just sing what I want. Whoever I feel to sing these days, I parry man opposed. I call me anything, just don't call me collect. You hear I sing and why I want these days. But I started off in jazz, so you know? But there are many people who say I should never call myself a jazz vocalist because I'm not singing swing. You understand? I'm not and not doing that. But Monty Alexander is a great jazz pianist from Jamaica. You know what Monty plays? Bob Mali, reggae, it's jazz, the elements of improv, beautiful chords, but it's it's but it's because that's who Monty is. You understand? And I just think that people just need to let people be. I I I I feel that every artist has something to offer. However, you choose to present or represent yourself or present your music, there there is going to be an audience for it. But that's really core when people start, when people started hearing the I with you.

Corie 1:18:54

I with you. And it's the same thing I say about art because good art forces you to have an opinion. Yeah. So that was one of the things I saw too. I say, but one thing, but people talking about it, people when you do it, people saying it. And I remember me know nothing about jazz, huh? All I know is Kaiso. So my mother now tells me she wants to go at a jazz show in Fatima. Fatima had this jazz on the green thing at a point.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:13

Right, sound bites with a bit.

Corie 1:19:14

And she's, I say, Mommy, me, no, no, jazz show. So I don't want to hear that. I know go in. Yeah. And then she said, Etienne performing. Right. I know Etienne from school. Right. Etienne. I said, all right, well, let me go. And I'm not sure that I understand much of the music they were playing. It was it was beautiful, but above my pay grade.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:30

Right.

Corie 1:19:30

But you know, I can't I I cannot hang, you know. But there was a point in time I hear and that whole me. I said, What is this? And he the opener rose. Right. And then he went on to do what he does. And but I couldn't, I couldn't stop listening at that point in time because and that was the first time I connected, sort of, okay, what people do with jazz arrangements and what people do with panorama. Right. Because panorama feels like that sometimes to me. The music way beyond me. Yeah. But I know I hear something familiar. Right. And I listen to see okay, where you go and carry, man. How you get my back here.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:04

Exactly. Exactly. Where you're carrying, man. How you get my back. Yeah, how you're beautiful way of putting it.

Corie 1:20:09

No rose has to come back some point in time. But I appreciate what you say about that familiarity about over. It's important.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:18

And and and and we as Caribbean people, we we that there's something so special about the way we move, the way we talk, the way we sing, the way we dance, the way our bodies move. Um and and it's rooted, it's rooted in where we came from. And our music is representative of that as well. So it it feels so I could sing Girl from Iponema 700 times and sing it beautifully. But if I sing something that that that so I sing um inch by inch by um young brother, it resonates differently with people because I will.

Corie 1:20:58

Of course, of course. And it's a it's a kind of a sniss. And I hear you describe it best, and it helped me to understand even these conversations. Yeah. Because at Trinidad, and as a person, you go, I go ask you about PFC.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:10

Yeah.

Corie 1:21:10

You go start there. So I hear say no. How are we getting back to PFC?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:16

And that's exactly what this story is. That's what it is. That's exactly finding your way back to what the original or what the melody or what is most familiar to people, but you're also taking them on a journey of where this song can go. Yeah. Where you like, like, like DuVon. First time I hear fire go bond them.

Corie 1:21:37

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:38

Corey, I listen, and this is how I listen to music. I listen to that arrangement. Maybe if it have 15,000 views on YouTube, 14,956 views is mine. Because I listened to it over and over and over and over because it was so beautiful to me. What I do do with a one piece of song, and where he took us away, where Zanda could take you sometime with more soca, a simple song like more so. But that's that's that that is what improved does to you. It's it's man, it is beautiful, yeah. And we can do it with anything.

Corie 1:22:15

Yeah, well, you could do it with anything, you've been doing it with anything. So at that point in time, you're sure that this is this is your style and way of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:22

Sure. I mean, and and and in in all my sets, I play, I play R and B, I play all kinds of different music, but you always hear that that for me is home, you know, beautiful interpretations of local local pieces. And and and those arrangements sometimes, Ming, Terry, Rodney, and these guys that arranged, man, they're out of this world.

Corie 1:22:41

Got you, got you. So at that point, you're you're focused when you came back on finding yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:47

Yeah, kind of just building, building what what brand VB is going to be. What if what what what what what are people to expect when they hear my name?

Corie 1:22:55

And apart from that, is your own performances, your own shows, even what that wins? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:00

Um, I let me tell you something, Corey. I always wondered. And you know, there's a thing that we don't like to admit. We don't like to admit that there's a disparity between south and tongue. Plenty of people don't like to admit that. I I telling you it exists. If you want to believe it exists, me and no problem with what you believe. I tell you it exists. You understand? There's something simple, simply, simple as access to resources. There are things that you wouldn't find in South that you you need that you I so I you understand. That's just the basic fact. Who wants to say I like you? You understand? And I always thought that it might have been difficult for me as a South girl to kind of break into the the plenty thing here is networking, eh? Who you know which school you went to, you know, who sitting on the boards, you understand? Who friend who? Yeah, and and I rude Corey. I know I have something to offer, and I don't want people to be telling me no all the time. So, you understand? If I feel I mustn't give people the space to tell me no, then I had to create something for myself. And that's what I decided to do. Yeah, I want to build something so that in 10 years, that's what I wrote down. In 10 years, no matter where which jazz festival they're having in this country, Trindad or Tobago, my name must be in the top three names. I write that down. But I started building my thing for that. I wasn't waiting for nobody to invite me to the festival. And no, I started doing my own events and fulling it up with petrochine people, and then the word spreading, and eventually people started, and eventually it got to the point where my name started calling. But it was because I was intentional about building something separate and apart from waiting until somebody hire me. Makes sense, it makes sense, it makes sense, and and because I was working petrochine, I also had the resources to do it. So them first couple shows I do, Corey, I could not even buy a dress after they took the must be the second year. I asked my husband, I said, So all this work I can't buy a dress, do I have no money to buy a dress? Place pack out. You spend four thousand dollars on a little bit of fog, a little bit of low ring, low, low lying fog. I tell him, No, don't do no fog. We don't even know we need the fog. Mind you, when the show opens up and the fog just on the ground there, and them girls start to sing and people start, people bowling, but I still vex he spent four thousand dollars on the fog and I couldn't get dress.

Corie 1:25:28

Listen, I want to go back to your ensemble, Band because it's musicians as well. Yeah, I don't see what your husband's saying at this point. Because you tell everybody taking the bathroom at that point when he started doing your own shows. Where's his you have his support on it?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:40

He he is he is always there, but he is not like my son is, he's not an in-your-face kind of guy. Like people have asked me about my husband on Facebook. Oh, I don't see your husband on Facebook, I say, but you don't need to see his face. They don't see my husband commenting on my page. I say, but he needs to comment on my page, he's right there. We in the same house. What is he commenting on my page for, Corey? And I keep my I try to keep my life very separate and apart. People know that I'm married. It's not something that I will announce. Hello, I'm vulnerable. I'm married. No, but you know that I'm married, the people know that I'm married, and he is there helping to build the brand, working very, very hard, sometimes a little harder than me. You understand, but very quietly supportive of everything that I do, and a very important part of the brand, the decision making and whatnot, you know. Sometimes, sometimes he's the person. If he said no, it ain't that happen, that ain't happen. Sometimes if I rude, I say, Well, I go I'll go take the bones. You understand? But he's very there, and and but he's not a very yet.

Corie 1:26:41

Yeah, but you have that support. Yeah, definitely. Something I also heard you say about your son. Strike me as something that I sort of contemplate now after I hear you say it, because this is like a grandfather, you know. We we're from a society where doctor, lawyer, engineer, you know the list. Yeah. And you've done a petrotron on the list too. You can't leave that, right? That's secure. And as parents, sometimes we want the children, it's is a is a it's out of love. You want them to do well. Yeah. So when I look at my son now, my son is he is hilarious. Like just naturally, I don't know how he's come up with things. Like sometimes I bring him to record with me. I don't tell him what topic we're talking about, what songs are going to play, and I just watch him just come up with things.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:18

Right.

Corie 1:27:18

And I will never, you know, in terms of supporting his career or the things that he wants to do. He informed too. Right. But when I see how good he's doing in science, I want to turn a doctor on too. Of course. Okay. And I heard you talk about that with your son as well. Yeah. Yeah. How comfortable are you with your son? If you had to make the choices or guide him.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:37

Boy, Corey, I like that boy too bad, boy. I don't just love him as his mother. I like him. He has a beautiful personality. And we're raising him to be comfortable in who he is, and to be comfortable to speak with us, much to my dismay attention. Yeah, you can't just tell them things just so why, why, why, why like Annie Lennox? Why everything? You understand? But I also parenting, I as I tell people, parenting and come with no book, Corey. And I am an OJT when it comes to parenting. I learned because I don't have any other children. I I you understand. So I am learning, and there's a particular path that I would like for him. I can see very clearly that it is not going to matter to him what that path is. So at this point in time, so like during COVID, we used to be doing these videos. Ooh, where we're singing and whatnot. He doesn't want a part of that, Cory.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:42

Oh no, he does not say that.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:43

He does not want and I, as a matter of fact, I told him to join the choir in school, and he told me if I like the choir so much, I should join the choir in school. He said, You like music, you like to sing, you should join the choir in school. 100%. He said, But I don't like the choir, I like football.

Corie 1:28:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:57

You understand? So I cannot get him to sit and sing with me again, no matter how much I beg. Or I might get him. If you see looking for money for something for a football.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:06

Smart fellow. Um do our video.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:10

Yeah. But other than that, he's not remotely interested in singing. But I also I'm getting to the to the point because he likes coding, he likes gaming and stuff like that. I'm getting to the point where I have to realize that the past I want for him, he may be on a totally, totally, totally different path. And I had to be comfortable with that too. It ain't gonna be easy, but we're raising him to be a particular kind of way, and you can't you can't want to raise him a particular kind of way. And then when like I remember once something I said to my grandfather, and he said, Well, you're well had chat. And I said, But you raised me to be confident and to be able to speak up, you understand? So, so it can be convenient.

Corie 1:29:51

Yeah, that's what we want.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:52

Yeah, it can be convenient. So when I when it's time for you, when you have said something to me that I don't appreciate, when I say it, it's not disrespect. This is how you've raised me to be with everybody else. It can't be convenient.

Corie 1:30:01

But it's not a pause, you know. When they say it's any moments, I just had a pause, boy. Listen, guys, I remember I tell them talking my name.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:08

Plenty skate uple know, plenty skate apple. I just sometimes I just sometimes this boy knows I don't have no appendix. I don't want to provide whole appendix one with you. What I just want that he teaches a hard job sometimes, no. But you're raising them to be a particular kind of way. You can't, you can't, you can't want to.

Corie 1:30:27

Of course, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't get one without the other.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:31

Yeah, yeah, the man tells me you, he said, you join the choir if you want. He said, Yeah, you can come and join the choir.

Corie 1:30:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With you. So going back to your band and working with some of the top musicians we have. You all work on when you're doing shows, you all work on the arrangements together. Like, how you decide what songs you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:47

Right, so I decide on the songs.

Corie 1:30:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:48

So, like, I've already I al I've already decided on the songs that I'm gonna do for August. You know, sometimes I have ideas of where I want the arrangements to go. Right. Sometimes I have no idea. If I do have an idea, I might call Ming, or I might call Terry, and I might say, This is I have a thinking about this. But generally, I can say, Okay, Ming, can you check out this song for me? Or Terry, you could check out this song and they come, they come up with the arrangements on their own, and then we come to the band room. Or they might share a recording of it, and then we come to the band room and kind of try to work it out. But I all always say that in that band, anyone can contribute. If Tony finds something I sung and so good, he says, Um, can we try this this way? Um, we we have been playing together almost for almost more than 15 years. So this band is my family. This band, these are the people that I trust to help me get the message across because we are messengers as artists. That's what people I'm I'm I'm a communicator, I'm sending a message through music, and these are the people that support me in sending that message. So we we we we all have to be of one accord, sometimes on one page, but we work it out in in the band room.

Corie 1:31:58

Yeah, it looked like a vibe, to be honest, from growing outside.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:03

Yeah, I like spending time with apart from the fact that they're great musicians, they're great human beings. I like to be in their company. We all want better for the music, you know. We want the thing to sound right, we want we want people to feel a particular kind of way. Because if people come to an event and they leave feeling nothing, then you failed.

Corie 1:32:19

I feel like all always be watching people to see what is their reaction with some song or see like not particularly, I don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:24

When I go up when I go up on a stage, uh Corey and I started dance me and here if you like it or you don't like it. I hope you like it. I hope the message gets to you. But sometimes when I'm in a zone, I'm not very focused on what is happening. I mean, I can tell from the from from here that people are dancing, people are having fun, but I I can't tell really if there's somebody who doesn't. Oh there was one particular woman who used to come to my show, she didn't like me at all in her. But what she's coming in on your show? She's coming all the time. She's coming for free, oh Cory, if you don't like me, why are you spending your money on car?

Corie 1:32:55

No, but I like it bad. No, but what I like.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:58

What I realize is there is absolutely no dislike there because if I dislike you, I will not spend my hard-earned money to see you. Yeah, it is love, it is love, and sometimes we don't always want to love a particular thing, so we're fighting against the the fact that we love it, yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:33:18

I like you know, I started trying not to I not like I can't zone all the crowd in the same way. So I just remember we had done a show in KaiSo Blues our time. We just I think that year we were doing our road match coming down the road. My father can Kobe and friends we're doing our uh so everybody in the band have a once wants to sing, right? And I'm 70 something all the way up the road, we're doing road matches and plays sell out and plays nice. We we our kind of vibe, right? Very acoustic, yeah. And um Joy Cecil, you know, Joyce.

Parenting, Boundaries, And Future Plans

SPEAKER_04 1:33:48

Of course, of course. Who, if you if you're from South as a musician and you don't know Joy something like that.

Corie 1:33:52

Joy still right in front of me, boy. I get a pressure.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:54

And not only that, she is she her physical presence because she was a tall woman, very imposing.

Corie 1:34:00

All presence, all presence. She hears everything. And boy, I stand up in front of Joy now, and all I study is all the bad chords I go and play for the next hour and a half. I said, Jesus Christ. And every time I watch her broad Joy face watching me so yeah, like I say, oh my god. But I get so fixated and it went fish and she said it was so good, and so sometimes we can deal off.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:20

Sometimes we had to give people grace for being in their own space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You understand? And also, you also have to give people the space to not like it. And the day that I realized that everyone does not have to like my product, it relieved me of a pressure that I didn't even know existed. Because it it gives you the freedom to be, because not everybody has to like it. That is fine.

Corie 1:34:46

I with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:47

That is fine.

Corie 1:34:48

Let's talk about uh that not everybody liking it now. Because one of them I was I had a guest here by the name of Lady Lavo. Yeah, and I only had one question plan cigar for net another ring finger. You're here to hear your response to it. Yeah, yeah, I did. She loves it, yeah. I love it too. Yeah, but I know people had reacted when you did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:06

Not everybody liked it at all. You know, you said jazz is about class and sophistication.

Corie 1:35:11

I don't know what more sophisticated than that.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:12

That is not sophisticated as what is more sophisticated than lava speaking our truth. You see, the problem is we put boundaries on people, we have this idea, and it comes from um um um colonial days of what is proper and what is improper, yeah, and who should say what and who and when they should say it. And and the package that Lady Lava is a full-figure dark-skinned woman talking about what we just go through every single day.

Corie 1:35:38

I ain't sure I like how she's talking about it. She pain, she pain you in a real house to have something.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:44

It is okay to not like it.

Corie 1:35:46

I love it, I am not as brave. I wish I had 1%.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:50

She is a force.

Corie 1:35:51

She's a force, she's a force.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:53

And you know, when I did that, because I do a lot of local music, what what so what about Lady Lover? Should should I not touch? Why? And what we did is very, very simply compared two songs, Straight Jazz by Billy Holliday, my man. It hurts me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got. It's my man. Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, but I love him. How far, how different did it? That is from I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man. Gil Hoshima, that is not your man. You understand? And basically, that's what we did. We showed this and this, two very different and distinct approaches, and it's the same message. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what we did, and we had a time doing it. And Corey, I make no apologies for that. That is exactly what I'm here to do. I am here to show people the possibilities of the music, the things that you've been hearing for the last 20 years, versus what they have to do. And if I feel to do a steam and I feel to do a young brother or something, I'm doing it too. And the people who do not like it could very simply do this and turn the radio off. You got to like it. Jazz is about class and sophistication.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:17

If you think that that's what it is, then I would advise you to go to a club where you think that you're but that is not going to. I'm going to sing what I want to sing. I'm going to represent in a way I think that I should represent. And I'm and and nobody's music is off limits here. And and certainly not Lady Lava.

Corie 1:37:35

Yeah, of course, 100%. 100%. And I appreciate I always wondered, you know, how people would react. So when I saw her and I asked her about it, it was so encouraging to see her because I think there's a generational thing that we must do. And you do it all the time. We must we must introduce people. Like, no, I hear my mother, my mother calling me to ask me if I hear lava lass up. I feel like we're in the right space if we do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:56

When we played that Lady Lava on Naprima Bowl, Corey, if you see them retirees, Ben, if you see them Ben, you to Ben, you to Ben, all of them was Ben and Cory. Some of them had to go by chiropractor after. But every they enjoyed it so much because it was so different, it was so fresh, it was so unexpected. Yeah. And that's what the music had to do. 100%.

Corie 1:38:21

I think we have the opportunity to create our own standards, you know. Yeah, that's what the music has to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:24

We had to step away from this, what is deemed proper and what is the oh no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the packaging. Lady Lava is doing exactly what she's come here to do. And I love her. She's not come here to do parts that she should put me in.

Corie 1:38:39

David and them, not so much me, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:40

Yeah, it's not, but I am not Bobby Billa, it's not Bob the Builder. She's right.

Corie 1:38:48

So in building where you've built for so long, where's

Balance After Depression And Closing

Corie 1:38:51

it going for you now? I know you have the two shows that you do is yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:54

So you know, Corey, these I tell people that la last year, 2025, was the worst year of my life. I fell into deep, deep, deep depression. Deep depression. And coming out of that, I have decided that I I'm not gonna plan too far ahead, you know. I try so so I have these two events that I do every year, and I I perform during the year, and I'm coming up with with with a new idea called tea talks and tunes. A smaller thing where I I want to have a in invite a creative into this space. You know, you let people come out and they have something to eat, and then I invite a creative into the space and speak to them, like oh, we're speaking now, and then end it with if it's their music or some kind of thing like that. So I'm coming up with small projects, things that keep me motivated and keep my brain working, but I'm not I'm I I don't want to say that in the next five years, I want to see because I'm I'm really intentional about living every day with purpose and focusing on maintaining balance because the next thing is I tell people I just get um anticipatory anxiety.

Corie 1:40:06

I can't hate to set a dating.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:08

As I said, it is so once I decide this is what mm-mm, and then I start to measure, oh gosh, I reach nah. So I'm I'm done with that. Not for you. I'm done with that. Oh, that's good.

Corie 1:40:17

So but but but you said it in the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:19

Your your purpose now is living in the yeah, I really want to make every day purposeful, and I want to be happy and I want to be balanced, and I don't ever want to fall into depression again. And you know, trying to keep up or trying to to maintain a particular kind of facade and to do this and to make sure and to think about money and think about my son and university, and these those things are not helping me in any meaningful way, so I have to manage that.

Corie 1:40:43

Yeah, it's a hundred percent. I appreciate you for saying that too. And people should go and watch your interview with Niolo. Yeah, because you all went into depth there with just talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:51

Nolo was my first ever therapist, huh?

Corie 1:40:53

Maybe mine too.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:53

Yeah, Niola is cool as ever.

Corie 1:40:55

I can't wait to have Neola. Yeah, Niola is something else. Niola is so gentle and just break these things down in such a simple way. Yeah, yeah, cool as ever. But uh, I do remember when we reached out to the first time and you shared that with me. We had a we had a date booked, and you say, Listen, you can't do it right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:10

I I had to cancel a lot. A lot of people were disappointed that you know I didn't try to fight through, but in the moment I couldn't. In the moment, I I was just trying to stay alive, I was just trying to get back to a space where I felt like myself. So I could, there was nothing else that I could just take in. I just needed to try to focus on self. And it was maybe the one time in in life where I I just said no, no to everything. Yeah, and people were disappointed. But I do hope that they understand and I pray that they never get to that space where they have to make that decision as well. Because that's not a nice place to be at all.

Corie 1:41:45

But it was a good lesson for me personally, because when you you you're adjusted and we adjusted, it does happen all the time. But I appreciate you coming back and circling back to share that that's where it was because it was a lesson to me that hey, you know, you could ask somebody to do you don't know what space somebody in you don't know what people are going through, you don't know where they live in.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:00

You have to give people space and grace to be to be. And Corey, why would I every any opportunity that I have would to come to sit down and talk? I feel like I reached today, no. I feel like I reached, I is the voting big for today. 100% I is the voting big fun. So I would have rushed at any opportunity to come, but I just it was self-preservation as well.

Corie 1:42:26

I'm glad you preserved yourself. That must come first. So when we invite you back, you just tell us if you had a change there, don't hesitate because it's always gonna be great whenever we get a chance. I hear that, and thank you very, very much. We have the born at big fun. I drink too much. I wasn't saying bonnet big fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:44

Thank you very much.