Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Jules Sobion: 20 Years Gambling on Carnival — Why Caesar’s Army Is Changing

Transcript

Jules Sobion: 20 Years Gambling on Carnival — Why Caesar’s Army Is Changing · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: Ideally, I just created an alternative option on the day for the party.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't try to kill Pan.
• 0:06
  Corie: It's more risky than other businesses, the event business.
• 0:09
  Corie: It is the casino.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: I have spent 20 years in the casino.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_05: Caesar's army never stood by the attribute of being elitist.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_05: You are moving a juvie from Carnival Monday morning to do this.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_05: Madness.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: I give thanks for what my father helped me to become.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine he passed away in 2008.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_05: And I felt at a loss for a mentor who gave me the purpose.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_05: I was there in the um the radioactive days, and we formed players.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_05: This is the money.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_05: This is my gun.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: You are now lying with us on the core step and quarry.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Mommy, look on that true.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: Don't miss this one.
• 1:02
  Corie: It's gonna be sexy.
• 1:14
  Corie: Like, share, subscribe, comment, and tell us how you feel about the episodes.
• 1:18
  Corie: We're always looking forward to your feedback.
• 1:19
  Corie: And you would not believe how much it helps when you actually subscribe and you're not just watch your favorite person and then cut.
• 1:26
  Corie: Subscribe to the channel, help we grow.
• 1:28
  Corie: Bang.
• 1:29
  Corie: Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast.
• 1:31
  Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
• 1:32
  Corie: Thank you for all the people who tuning in for the first time.
• 1:35
  Corie: Today we have a veteran in the business.
• 1:36
  Corie: I just tell them before we start that we were the youth just the other day, you know, but now mentor and veteran and thing.
• 1:41
  Corie: The I don't know if to call what's it called?
• 1:43
  Corie: President of Caesar's Army.
• 1:45
  Corie: Where's called an army?
• 1:47
  Corie: Who's he head of the army?
• 1:48
  Corie: Chief of Defense Staff?
• 1:49
  Corie: Commander in chief.
• 1:50
  Corie: Commander in chief of the Caesar's Army.
• 1:53
  Corie: Great one.
• 1:55
  Corie: Blessings like for yeah, pleasure.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: Pleasure.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: Pleasure to have you here.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: Pleasure.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like it's a long time ago we talked about the five.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_05: It's a long time we talk about coming on.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_05: Tending to happen these days, boy.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_05: Everything, boy.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_05: I say if I can't complain.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: And as I say, fighting the good fight of the fate.
• 2:09
  Corie: Yeah, good, good, good.
• 2:10
  Corie: Keeping persistent.
• 2:11
  Corie: Nice.
• 2:12
  Corie: I watching Instagram this morning, boy.
• 2:14
  Corie: Coincidental thing.
• 2:15
  Corie: I see I see when you post it, you post about good old Keto's boy.
• 2:18
  Corie: Papa Keat.
• 2:19
  Corie: Papa Keat, boy.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, boy.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um passed away in uh 2008.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but his birthday is today, September the 15th.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_05: 1951.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_05: Nice, nice, nice.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: So this is a good birthday gift.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, this is.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_05: Well, by extension, me too.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_05: People guide my conversations.
• 2:40
  Corie: As always, as always, the only fellas is between you and well, Justin in particular, but all the fellas when only talk, only songing like him, only looking like him on together.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, mommy.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_05: Mommy is fine.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: The matriarch.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, she's she's very much in charge of her three sons at this point in time.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_05: Now and forever more.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's you, Justin and Darion, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_05: Justin is in New Zealand or something.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_05: Justin's in New Zealand.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: See, he's doing um green law.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_05: Green law.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_05: So his um, I guess his clients would be like the Carney Swamp.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: He's he's protecting the earth.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, good, good, good.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_05: Diana's a digital uh media.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_05: He has his own company, Ten Caribbean.
• 3:19
  Corie: I see.
• 3:19
  Corie: All right, 10 Caribbean is him.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so in actuality, we all followed um three different, I guess, footsteps.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_05: All following the Caribbean man, that is Keith.
• 3:27
  Corie: Of course, of course, of course.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_05: We instill that in us.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_05: Renaissance man, right?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: Different ways, different parts, but we always um follow what he kind of advised and guided us on.
• 3:38
  Corie: Makes sense.
• 3:39
  Corie: We have some fact-checking to do about Keith in this episode, you know.
• 3:41
  Corie: You hear your name calling a couple times, you know, how to find out if it's true.
• 3:43
  Corie: I know you as a man of truth.
• 3:45
  Corie: Who say before I'm not sure?
• 3:47
  Corie: I will try my best.
• 3:48
  Corie: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we need to stop.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Very good, yeah.
• 4:03
  Corie: This glass really designed a very complicated one.
• 4:14
  Corie: So the last time I talked to you and I asked you where you're doing these days, you was in UE doing marketing and thing.
• 4:19
  Corie: Them days done.
• 4:20
  Corie: UE marketing and communications, that done.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_05: That's what it's like.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_05: That was the last time corporate job, actually.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Serious?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: So we went until I left completely.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_05: I was doing Caesar's army working U, yeah.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_05: Alongside any other corporate.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know this?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: I was it was like, you know, you're spending um 50% of your time doing what is your passion and 50% doing what is necessary in terms of staying alive, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: And surviving.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_05: So ideally, it was like trying to deal with both, and it eventually would break you at a point in time because you're not giving 100% to what you really believe in.
• 4:55
  Corie: Yeah, well, you're not giving 100% to either sometimes.
• 4:57
  Corie: And usually any business guaranteed, you know.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: So it was hard.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: It was really hard.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that was my breaking point because in actuality, my wife was working with me in um UE.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_05: She was actually in international relations.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, okay.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_05: And she had started up her own brand.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_05: And when she left, I was like, maybe it's my time to leave as well.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_05: Right, sorry.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_05: So it was kind of like good that she inspired me to actually say, yo, go and do the Caesars Army thing.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: 100%.
• 5:23
  Corie: Let's candy coated, yes?
• 5:24
  Corie: Yes, candy coated.
• 5:25
  Corie: But Caesars Army around, I mean, you've been around a long time, right?
• 5:27
  Corie: We will get back into that in terms of how when you start off in this.
• 5:30
  Corie: Yeah, well, we celebrate in 20 years in 2026.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's just based on um the registered business.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, of course.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: I come to plenty more than 20.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_05: But I passed through, it was a whole transition, huh?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_05: This party, this party business was started ever since secondary school.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I remember.
• 5:48
  Corie: That I remember.
• 5:48
  Corie: That's I remember.
• 5:49
  Corie: We want to say which secondary school and thing.
• 5:51
  Corie: We don't all it'll start to get saucy in here yet.
• 5:54
  Corie: But when when you leave to go into entertainment full-time, what does it look like in terms of your days now?
• 6:00
  Corie: Because I have a I have a tendency to believe that when I come a party, the party starts when it starts and it's done when it's done.
• 6:07
  Corie: You could work in that full-time.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: Full-time is giving your heart out completely because I mean, the action in actuality, the event itself is a task, but the preparation is what is really, really time consuming.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_05: So, in a sense, is it's harder than the corporate job for me.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_05: A corporate job is nine to five, you go, you spend your time, dedicate yourself.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: But when you're involved in something that has deep, maybe as your passion, you spend every waking minute really kind of thinking about it, what can you do to evolve the purpose behind what you're doing, the planning, the preparation.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, a lot of people take these events as it's just the party itself now.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: But when you look at it in a deeper sense of a deeper frame of mind, it comes that you have to be able to tell the story and the story had to come to life.
• 6:57
  Corie: Yeah, I guess.
• 6:58
  Corie: And for the patron, you're just seeing it maybe from the time you buy a ticket or you hear the first ad up to the time you leave and it's over.
• 7:04
  Corie: Yeah.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_05: It's just basically like they see what it is for what it is.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: But there's a lot of planning, there's a lot of resourcing that comes into the actual event itself.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: And I would definitely say that the pre-aspect of it is, I think is is harder than the actual event itself.
• 7:22
  Corie: Yeah, I guess when it comes to the event, at that point, at least my experience in events, and probably why I don't do it again at all.
• 7:27
  Corie: I can't the ulcers and things, I just get sick.
• 7:29
  Corie: I can't deal with it.
• 7:31
  Corie: Because there's a certain amount of pressure, and you had the ability to let go at some point.
• 7:36
  Corie: It comes to a point where for me, you can't do anything else, and the event starts and people reach, and now you have to just figure it out as you go along.
• 7:42
  Corie: Yeah.
• 7:43
  Corie: Is the experience you haven't?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: Not necessarily.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: You have to be able to kind of predict, or even um, what should I say, schedule everything from start to finish.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: Because I guess for me personally, um the events are storytelling.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_05: So ideally for me, if it is that you want to go down the lane of an experiential event, you also have to be able to kind of schedule it, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_05: So from start to finish is a planning of what is going to happen in this hour, what's happening in the second hour.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: Are we going to release paint and powder this time?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: Water comes on at this later time.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_05: So it's a lot of scheduling.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: But that is not Vikivai.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like that is Vikivai.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_05: Because you're basically saying to yourself that, you know, yeah, okay, well, it's uh it's a Juventine party.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: And you put those elements in.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_05: But as you get into it deeper and deeper, you realize that this thing is a science.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_05: This thing is actually experiential.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_05: Patrons have to expect the unexpected when it comes to the events themselves now.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: So more and more as you do the events, you're adding more experience to it because it can't just seem like the last event that they attended.
• 8:50
  Corie: Yeah, I suppose, especially when they're building loyalty that you build over the years, people want to come back to your events all the time.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: Game changing is a necessary thing in my line of business.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_05: You always want to think outside of the box.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: And for me, if it is that you don't evolve, you're kind of dead in the water.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: That's where it is that it stops as being um your thread party.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: You want to be able to evolve and say that, you know, it's events, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_05: And even further, when you're saying that you're doing events, now you want to be experiences.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_05: How can you escalate the whole aspect of having an experiential event over and over again?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: And it's really important to know that some of these events that we have had over the years, they're very old.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_05: 16 years, 17 years.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_05: That I mean, sometimes it breaks my heart when it is that I have to retire them.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_05: But ambush, 16 years.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_05: In the pain.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: 17 years, I didn't do it this year.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: For example, it's just because transformation is taking place.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: But what what how is it that you're able to actually have an event over and over for 17 years without persons actually saying that it gets boring?
• 10:00
  Corie: Yes, 17 years is when you go from playing basketball in YMCA to pain in every joint.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_05: 17 years are a long time.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: It is, it is, it is.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_05: So that I think that is the purpose behind what you do.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think for us as a company, we always strive for that experiential aspect of the events.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I think now more than ever, it's starting to evolve more than that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_05: You're seeing more that, yes, Caesar's army would have been known as an event production company.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, now is the time that we are evolving, and the brand needs to blossom even more into I guess what we have built.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's no longer just the events.
• 10:36
  Corie: Oh, it's more risky than other businesses, the event business.
• 10:40
  Corie: It is the casino.
• 10:41
  Corie: Yeah.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: I call it the casino.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_05: I've spent 20 years in the casino.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_05: The casino.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_05: Let me explain the casino.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: The casino is basically you invest as a company.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_05: Personally, you invest in producing an event, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: All your money.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you may got sponsorship.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: Corporate partnerships, they are part of it, but I consider the icing on the cake, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine you producing an event for years, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_05: It's win, lose, or draw.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: Anything can happen at any given point in time.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: It takes three years to actually build a successful event.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_05: So for those first three years, you're actually still investing.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's risk.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's risk, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: And what I think has evolved over that that journey is that you're really saying to yourself, 20 years of producing your own events, creating these experiences, should it count for something a little more now?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_05: Is it now that I can leverage my experience and my expertise with a person's entities, corporate entities, for example, that I can produce these experiences for you?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_05: So I call it the casino.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's been 20 years.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: I'm ready to um cash in my chips and come out.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, in a sense, because I believe that the brand which is transitioning now from Caesar's army into the Caribbean army, the brand is so much more than what we have done for the past 20 years.
• 12:09
  Corie: So event production you're doing on behalf of other people co-presenting Caesars Army.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, the event management aspect.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, as I said, event production is basically uh B2C, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: Now it's about time that we evolve into B2B.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: I definitely believe that we should be evolving in such a way, destination experiences.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_05: This is almost like a coming back to where it all started.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: When it first started Caesar's Army, we went as a group.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_05: We weren't doing anything.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_05: Were no events in Cropover.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: But we took a group, about 50 persons.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: It was something regular, consistently.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: Went over to Cropover, 50 of us.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_05: We created our own itinerary, attended other persons' events.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: And it evolved then saying, okay, well, we have events now in Trinidad, now we can export it to Barbados.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_05: And that's how we started doing events regionally.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_05: But now it's almost like 20 years of producing events on your own, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: Now you're actually able to say, I can go back now and I can create destination experiences and take people not only in the region, but I can go as far as South Africa, Catalina, different places because we are the Caribbean army.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Isn't it?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um isn't it necessary that the Caribbean army should go out of course and take who we are and what we do best to the world and at least encourage them to come back?
• 13:22
  Corie: Yeah, conquer back some people like what they try to conquer, we colonials and reverse it on them.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_05: They don't reverse it on them.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: It makes sense.
• 13:29
  Corie: I guess your target audience changed too because now we know you're from teenage days doing it.
• 13:34
  Corie: We can't come out our night again when I see the or that ambush starter.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: No, I'm I'm still present.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I know.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_05: What is important is that, yes, um, what you have invested in from a passion standpoint, it also has a line of what you feel purpose-wise, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm I'm not out there as I used to, right?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: But now what gets me excited is travel.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: What gets me excited is going around the world and highlighting that, oh, this is a Caribbean army.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_05: Come and meet us, come and come back to where we all belong, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_05: Because they don't always know Trinidad and Tobago outside of carnival.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: They don't know Barbados, they don't know Grenada, just outside of the carnivals.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_05: We have to be able to kind of go out there and bring them back.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: And to me, like travel has excited me.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: Storytelling, creating experiences has excited me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_05: So that's the reason or the rationale that I feel that I can tell stories for other persons.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: I could create experiences for other persons or corporate entities.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_05: And I feel like that's what I'm more aligned with at this point in time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, rather than just the party, party, party.
• 14:39
  Corie: Gain you more energies.
• 14:40
  Corie: Yeah.
• 14:40
  Corie: I want to ask you about them waves, because I remember like we talk with nostalgia about big parties like brass and fire and wassa and them things.
• 14:48
  Corie: That's when we were outside.
• 14:49
  Corie: When Oli was inside, I could put this party in for all the fellas in the West.
• 14:52
  Corie: Oli wasn't going to these fets, right?
• 14:53
  Corie: This was weavers going to them fets, right?
• 14:55
  Corie: We tell Oli about it when you come back to school, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_05: Right, shame here.
• 14:58
  Corie: But I think there's a generation we'll talk about the Caesars Army events like that.
• 15:02
  Corie: And I wonder sometimes if there are waves.
• 15:04
  Corie: Barry Perman tell me one time he said them youths were the own DJs.
• 15:08
  Corie: It never dawned upon me that jugglers couldn't be the biggest thing ever.
• 15:11
  Corie: You know, he said them youths want to see themselves in parties.
• 15:14
  Corie: But before I get to that, I had to talk about this yap life thing, you know, use the promoter who come first, so you had to help me understand.
• 15:20
  Corie: Because when I talk about you risking it, that is my fear and my ulcers and thinking the things that could go wrong in events.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 15:28
  Corie: So you looking at something like that, I'm sure you're you're the follow-up with FOC.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I uh mean uh there within my uh community, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_05: The yup life.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um and of course, you know, I look at the ecosystem, so I'm always looking at the next generation event producers and what they did.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_05: I think FOC how I look at it is that in this 20 years of Caesar's army, in a sense, they were they were drastic mistakes as well.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_05: We all had to learn from them, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_05: But I think what is very important, what is most important, is being customer-centric, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's the most important thing.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: Even we had made drastic mistakes.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_05: I still remember Ambush where the shuttles collapsed in Shagaramas.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_05: And a mob of persons were walking to the venue, which was about a five-minute drive for the shuttles.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, so a mob, the the the the shuttles just collapsed.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_05: But somehow, when they reached to the actual event itself, they almost forgot about what transpired because we almost we knew what was happening, and we tried our best to say, let's make something work from the time they reach to kind of quell them, make them a little happier as they enter the event, make sure that you know, maybe they they wouldn't necessarily forget uh the problem, but you can actually make up for it in the actual event.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: I think what happened with the FOC is that they encountered a problem which was very sad for me.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: However, you have to be customer-centric, you have to be able to listen to what your customers are asking for right now.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: Are they necessarily asking for another event?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: It may not necessarily be so.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_05: Be able to kind of circumvent that so that at least your brand lives to fight another day.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't think necessarily they made a mistake that will cause them to fail.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_05: But I do believe that they necessarily have to now ensure that they make up for it by being customer-centric with their brand.
• 17:33
  Corie: So there's there's room for people to bounce back from those things.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I believe if it is that your purpose, your focus is on the customer, you have to be focused on the customer.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: That they're the ones who are supporting your event.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: They will they're they're the ones who will speak and advocate for your brand.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_05: So it's a it's very important to make sure that you're customer-centric, especially in this line of business.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_05: I with you, I with you.
• 17:54
  Corie: Don't forget you could also reach out to us to advertise on the show and have your brand place here, anywhere here.
• 18:01
  Corie: You could get your brand.
• 18:02
  Corie: So don't just call to get on the show, right?
• 18:04
  Corie: We'll call and get you on the show too.
• 18:08
  Corie: But don't forget you could also advertise with us to help support the stories of our countries and our region going out to everybody.
• 18:16
  Corie: Help you out.
• 18:17
  Corie: Just call your friend, don't just call David to come on the show.
• 18:20
  Corie: And advertise, you know what I mean?
• 18:22
  Corie: Pay, spell.
• 18:23
  Corie: How are we going?
• 18:24
  Corie: Which way are we going back?
• 18:24
  Corie: How does it go?
• 18:25
  Corie: Back this way.
• 18:26
  Corie: Back to the conversation.
• 18:27
  Corie: So let me talk about them waves now, in terms of how it ebbs and flows.
• 18:31
  Corie: Ebbs and flows.
• 18:31
  Corie: Because at that point in time, when when men say Caesar's army, there was a point in time where it's the hardest ticket to get in Carnival.
• 18:38
  Corie: It's almost a secret.
• 18:39
  Corie: Like you can't figure out where it is, nobody telling you where the party is, how to get, and so on.
• 18:43
  Corie: And we see it reached a point now where it's different.
• 18:45
  Corie: Yes.
• 18:45
  Corie: In terms of the people who come in and the demand for it.
• 18:48
  Corie: Okay.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_05: I yes.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_05: I will tell you that back in our road, ambush, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_05: Just highlighting two main events here.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: There was a point in time that it was uh based on a committee mechanism.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: True.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_05: You had a committee, you wanted them to be able to sell to their friends and family their network, right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_05: And it was called a committee mechanism.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_05: And that caused a lot of the issues in terms of the event was so popular.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_05: It couldn't satisfy demand.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_05: There was this attribute of, well, you can get your tickets from the committee members themselves.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_05: And they were holding back.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_05: They were holding back for their friends, their families, their network, which caused a big scene, right?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_05: To be really honest, um we were called elitists in that regard, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's like, well, the tickets only going to your people, right?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_05: It's only your people.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_05: What about the people who really uh advocate for the brand, the people who are loyalists, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: And in a sense, that that was something that we spoke as a team and we removed.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: We said that this was affecting the brand in such a way that what we will do is that we will put the pick the tickets out publicly, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_05: And in a sense, that changed the perspective of the popularity of the events, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: Because now the tickets are widely open, and in a sense, is that everybody could come and get it.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: There's now a reverse reaction to who's getting the tickets, the tickets selling out, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_05: So, in a sense, it's like a fine line of being elitist or being for the people.
• 20:26
  Corie: Culturally, maybe we like the elitism.
• 20:28
  Corie: Because if you keep some things closed and difficult to access in this country, it seems to be at least the illusion that more people want it and it hard the easier it is to get us, the less we want it sometimes.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_05: But the thing the the most important thing is that Caesar's army never stood by the attribute of being elitist, um, or even in a sense, um not welcoming the public, right?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_05: I think the most important thing is that we always stood by what was the event about, what was the experience that was for the for any and everybody, right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_05: So in a sense is that we never it was a funny place to be from an army perspective that we we're not sure like how it is that we're gonna navigate this in such a way because it's for the people, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: But we can't accommodate everyone, and in a sense, it's a it's a it's a tricky place to be.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_05: But I think eventually it kind of settled down in a place where those persons from a demographic standpoint, where we got a lot of diaspora as well, persons who are attracted to what we have, they will be able to be satisfied and fulfilled.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_05: So I think that no longer became like something attached to the brand.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_05: We are always an army, an army of Caribbean people striving for what we do best.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: In a sense, I think it really worked out in the end because Trinidad was not really the focal point.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_05: You would find ourselves exploring the region, even expanding into the diaspora.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: And even evolving even as far as Croatia from this year, for example, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: We are taking this thing to the world.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_05: So different events, different audiences, same purpose.
• 22:11
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 22:12
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 22:12
  Corie: I hear you say in interviews before that importance of making it versus uh throw a party versus making it a business.
• 22:18
  Corie: So what you're describing is making it a business is adapting to when the market change and just any product as a whole.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_05: When I first started, it was throwing party.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: Now you remember this.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: This is relk here, yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_05: You're throwing party.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean backyard party, cooler party, any kind of party, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_05: Eventually it evolves.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: You're doing events.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_05: Back in the day, it was promoter.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yes.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_05: As a promoter, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_05: Promoter is putting um invitations down on other people's party to let them know that your party coming up.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: On a wind screen, my party coming up, right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, if you put on about 500 flyers on two people party, three people party, yeah, yeah.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: Dance RAM out, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_05: Again, you become an event producer, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_05: An event specialist.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_05: Anything on that higher level.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, it's important to note when it is that Caesar's army, one EY Emergent Entrepreneur of the Year 2017, it was not because I was trained party or I was a promoter.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_05: It was because you are an event production company and you were exporting the culture.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: So even the whole aspect of what you do, how you do it, what you tell other people that you do, it kind of elevates what you after a while, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_05: So in a sense, even the journey of like, as you say, like, you know, where I came from and where I'm at now, it still continues, yeah?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_05: Because now I'm saying that, all right, well, I've reached a place where I'm not an event production company solely.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_05: I can open up a business, I should be an agency, right?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: I should be a B2B, anybody, corporate entities, tourism, destination entities, y'all come speak to me.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_05: I can be able to assist you with Syn Kids Music Festival, I can be able to support some very strong experience for your corporate clientele.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_05: It evolves.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_05: Destination experiences, we can take you around the world.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, tourism entities, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: Let us also ship your destination, highlight and showcase your destination anywhere because we are the Caribbean army, we can we are strengthen numbers.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly, right?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_05: So as you go along, you're now realizing that yo, this was it came from a passion and it has evolved into a purpose where you can actually take this thing even further to the world.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_05: I will not, I cannot tell you, Corey.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: I am so surprised that where I started and thinking about this and where it has taken me, where I was just trying to penetrate Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_05: That was what our main mission was.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_05: I needed to have a party.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_05: I was watching Island people and everybody having their events in Trinidad Carnival.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, yo, I need to have a party, just one, in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: When that happened, that took the Caesar's army brand to the world.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_05: I was able to go from one event in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival to Barbados.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: When there once Rihanna entered in the party the juve, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: Come and had a time.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_05: I say I lose my mind because of the fact that Rihanna in the party, I heart palpitating.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: I never knew this kind of thing could have happened, right?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_05: Did the same thing in Jamaica, Usain Bolt, the whole team having a time.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: And you're just saying, like, this is unbelievable.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_05: This is part and parcel of who we are from a Trinbegonian sense, and they are enjoying it from a Barbada sense, a Jamaica sense.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: You go in St.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_05: Lucia, you go in Bermuda, you go in New York, you go in Miami, you're going to Toronto, you're going to LA, you go in UK, you go in Europe.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like throwing party took me to the world now.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine from a creative economy, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody, videographer, costume designer, photographer, content creator, your skills can take you to the world.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_05: This is a known fact just based on Socrates.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: Socrates sing one good song in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, and they will be featured in the carnival circuit.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's from the world.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_05: So it's important to understand where you came from.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_05: Come from passion, end up being like even stronger purpose.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: It takes you even further.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_05: So at this point, yeah, it's just like where else can I go with this?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: Come on with you.
• 26:46
  Corie: It's it's really a beautiful thing.
• 26:48
  Corie: No, I see you in, I don't know when was the beginning, huh?
• 26:50
  Corie: We go test that theory here, but I see you had an outfly and thing.
• 26:54
  Corie: Like, you know, people, we were talking about this before we start, where people know you as something and they think you're born so.
• 26:59
  Corie: I see when all the fellows was having outflies.
• 27:02
  Corie: I remember some of the early days all you had.
• 27:03
  Corie: I remember talking to you about this, so I was like, Juice, what are you doing to my nice boys and I want to go clash?
• 27:08
  Corie: Is that a skin out or a clash?
• 27:09
  Corie: It's nothing in between.
• 27:10
  Corie: I'm not doing none of them.
• 27:12
  Corie: But I wonder now that you're making this change.
• 27:16
  Corie: If you're seeing yourself in a space where there's no more Caesar's army parties.
• 27:19
  Corie: Because you're something like that, you know.
• 27:20
  Corie: You're something like at some point you're gonna retire all these things like what we've seen with brass hunting.
• 27:23
  Corie: No, that is what you're feeling?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: No, I feel that um it's almost like the journey, right?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_05: So I remembered Caesar's army, and this is important to note.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_05: When I first spoke about Caesar's army, I remember telling my father about it, right?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was important for me to highlight him that this is important here, right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: Because in school, St.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's, um I got a distinction in English literature.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: It's just you can't do there's nothing much you can really But I loved I love Lit, right?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: I loved Macbeth and all these things.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_05: All right, I'm with you.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: Tragedy, Shakespeare, right?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: Julius Caesar, right?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: And the one thing that is important to note is that um I did not embody Julius Caesar because he was an emperor.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_05: So in fact, anybody who actually calls me emperor, they don't they don't know me properly, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_05: I embodied him because he was a general, he was a strategist, he wanted to build an empire.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_05: Now this had nothing to do with the Caribbean for me early on.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: It was just like I I like the collective noun of an army.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_05: Caesar is a boss, I feel like I'm ready to build an empire, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where it all started.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_05: Having the conversations with my dad in particular, he wasn't really too much feeling the whole Julius Caesar thing.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_05: He actually used to call me Caesar.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I say, Dad is C-A-E-S-A-R.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, no, I will call you Caesar.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_05: He used to song like Caesar, right?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I will call you Caesar.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, but daddy ain't understand.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: And he was like, basically, you can be inspired by a man from the past, but you have to become your own person.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where little by little I didn't take him on at that time and I created this whole Caesar's army thing and then evolved in that regard, right?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_05: Now, where I've reached is not like I 20 years have gone and I just basically say that this no longer is me.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_05: I think that I'm shedding the skin right now of that whole Caesar era, and I'm embracing a Caribbean army era because I'll give you a valid example.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_05: When I went to Croatia based on this brand that we have called Rebel, and we went to Croatia and we brought thousands of persons from the UK and Europe to Croatia to enjoy a festival, it was based on Caribbean people, Caribbean DJs, Caribbean artists.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_05: And what I realized is that I was speaking to these the Caribbean army and I was like, how does it feel to be part of the Caribbean army in Croatia?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_05: And I wasn't saying Caesar's army, but this is me saying that I am evolving, and this is what I believe in, the collective of the Caribbean people coming together as a force and showing the world who we are, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_05: And each one of them will vociferous.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_05: They will like, I'm proud to be a part of the Caribbean army in Croatia, showing them how the Caribbean culture.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_05: For me, that is what I am becoming.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_05: So if it is that I am a general of the Caribbean army, that is what Caesar's army is now shedding.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_05: The metamorphosis of Caesar's army being experiential and creating game-changing concepts and events is still there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_05: But the purpose now is how can we rally the entire Caribbean army to take on this world and take that stage that we are deserving for such a long time.
• 31:15
  Corie: Yeah, I kind of like the reverse colonialism angle.
• 31:17
  Corie: I like that a lot.
• 31:18
  Corie: So wherever they're going, I feel like I want to go just to be part of that.
• 31:21
  Corie: I feel it's right.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_05: It's so funny.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's so funny that they're saying that too.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: Because our brother helpers are kind of thing too now.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's like it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: You done army already.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_05: Y'all low feel about the reverses, like, nah, it's colonial.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_05: Nah, no, that's not going on.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_05: No social media caption, nothing like that.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_05: That is not the that is not the angle.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_05: I go push it, I go make the comments.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_05: But yes, that's that's what I'm saying.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_05: It's like Caesar's army will always be Caesar's army in my heart.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: Cool.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_05: But ideally, now I think as we, you know, as you get older and you're you're saying to yourself, where am I destined?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, for me, as a as a as I become a little more centered to, there's a calling that says, you are a general Jews, right?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_05: But what you're fighting for?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_05: Is it you're fighting to have revolutionary concepts?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: That was good.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_05: In your past 20 years, I think there's a bigger purpose that you need to be fighting for.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_05: And that is something that I feel like is very clear in terms of the vision, in terms of what we should become.
• 32:21
  Corie: How with you?
• 32:22
  Corie: How with you?
• 32:22
  Corie: Well, let me fact check some things now in the early days of things.
• 32:25
  Corie: You know somebody by the name of Quasey Hopkins.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, Quasey is my uh my very good longtime friend.
• 32:32
  Corie: It's a two different meaning longtime friend.
• 32:35
  Corie: It's a friend for a long time, and he used to be my friend long time.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_05: Quasey is my um my very Quasey is my best friend.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_05: All of us, all of us.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_05: Quasey is my best friend.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_05: Quasey is my best friend.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it is important to note, uh, just letting you know, that um while Quasey was very much um an MC, well, let's just say he was a DJ and an MC, very um multi-talented uh individual.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um I was there in the um the radioactive days and we formed players.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_05: I remember that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_05: And it's important to remember that um while he was on the music, I was in his ears talking about events.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_05: So it's the events, the events were always there for me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: We used to take our bike and ride down by because the veil was the happening place.
• 33:25
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_05: Puppy was down there.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_05: Set of guys were down there, we go down there, play football, etc.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_05: But I used to check Kyle Pereira.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_05: He used to sing raps to me all kind of thing, you know.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_05: Early days, yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_05: Good old days, good old days, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but Vale was the happening place, and that's where I kind of got my radioactive roots too.
• 33:42
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 33:43
  Corie: So, in terms of early days, primary school and things, you're holding in prep man too.
• 33:46
  Corie: Holy name prep.
• 33:47
  Corie: And then when St.
• 33:47
  Corie: Mary's.
• 33:48
  Corie: Yeah.
• 33:48
  Corie: So when when when it starts out, yeah, I don't get it.
• 33:51
  Corie: We had two Must Mary's men here.
• 33:54
  Corie: Some of these schools need to be studied.
• 33:55
  Corie: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Corie: When you look at Wilson Mary's produce, only talk I like to give St.
• 33:58
  Corie: Mary's is something.
• 33:59
  Corie: Somebody was putting in the comments last week.
• 34:01
  Corie: We had Adrian Chandler here the other day.
• 34:02
  Corie: Right.
• 34:03
  Corie: And they were talking about how important Digo Sec is because a good few people who've come here.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_05: Adrian Chandler was from the veil.
• 34:12
  Corie: Yeah, no more Vale people for one of it.
• 34:17
  Corie: But you're right, the Vale was like a hub.
• 34:18
  Corie: The Vale was a hub.
• 34:19
  Corie: Episodes of school.
• 34:20
  Corie: It was a hub.
• 34:20
  Corie: So what makes you start connecting with people down there?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_05: Through school or friends or friends, schools, you made you made friends.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_05: It was just like this community.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: It in fact, um, even that's how I was even inspired by Vail when it used to have the fete.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was a community thing.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_05: So uh Vail was the place to be, especially as a youth.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_05: You just had your ground there.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_05: My family lived there, so in a sense, it was always like go and check your cousin, go and check um granny.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_05: It was just a hub.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_05: It was an exciting time and it was an exciting place to be.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_05: I'll never forget the veil.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: Vale was a special place in my heart.
• 34:56
  Corie: Interesting.
• 34:57
  Corie: No, before you were talking about the kids, right?
• 34:59
  Corie: And I tell you how to drop my son everywhere you go.
• 35:01
  Corie: But them days you jump in on a bike, walk wherever it takes, you just get there.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_05: And it was uh a little dangerous if it if you talk about like was a little dangerous in those days.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, sometimes you didn't even used to tell your mom or dad that you're going down the road there and they'll be like where you are.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they trust at some point you're gonna reach home, you know.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, no cell phones and things either.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_05: It was just a it was a different era.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, very thankful for what it gave to me, and I guess my brothers as well, you know.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: There's uh the community spirit, very high.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_05: I in fact, I don't think there's another place per se in Trinidad and Tobago.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've been searching, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_05: That gave me that sense of community, like the veil.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I do believe, like I've looked at somebody else had a block, I think it's in South.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_05: I felt like they also had that community as well.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, you just say Westman only knows certain west things.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's true.
• 35:52
  Corie: It's true though.
• 35:53
  Corie: It's true, it's 100% true.
• 35:55
  Corie: So the connection with you and Hoppy joining radioactive, how'd that come about?
• 35:58
  Corie: Always end up there.
• 35:59
  Corie: Well, at one point everybody was part of radioactive.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we just I had a we had a clip long time, right?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_05: Man like Leander Balantulo, Stefan Utley, Mark Adam, Richard Sandyford.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_05: Quasey was just part of the thing, and I think me and Quasi were a line from young to now.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_05: We were we love the entertainment, we love party.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um I want to say it's a cool kid, but I don't think that's it wasn't that cool kid kind of thing.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_05: It was just that we had a difference in thinking while still in secondary school, right?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that still played a different part of me because I still went to St.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's College, but to have the thinking that, you know, anything back in back in the day, St.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's, in that regard, you know, they would always think like, you know what you are supposed to be doing.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_05: You're gonna be an engineer, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna be a lawyer.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_05: Punto final.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: In inside St.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's, for example, I was kind of confused.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_05: I was, yes, I was inclined to business, right?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_05: Business was the thing for me.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_05: But I never knew where I was actually heading.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_05: My father never really pushed us even to become to follow in his footsteps, as you would realize, the three brothers, only one of them did.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, of course.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_05: So, in a sense, it's kind of like you're looking to see what you would have become.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I was a little, a little bit of a rebel when it came to like form five and form six, uh, wearing different colour shoes, getting in problems for that with people, right?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_05: It was a kind of rebellious time, right?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_05: But I think I was also trying to find myself too.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but eventually it worked out really well because my English lit.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_05: Kicking my business, the business was also business subjects you do when it's married, yeah.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, an English lit.
• 37:47
  Corie: So you might have keep saying that because you're the only one ever does that and enjoy it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_05: I remember my mom.
• 37:53
  Corie: My mom was like, English lit should be like.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: No, like, what do you want to become?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: A thespian?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_05: An actor?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_05: No, like what are you gonna really do?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_05: They didn't really have much in terms of what are the job opportunities, right?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_05: But it did establish in myself, you know, something that resonated in terms of like what I wanted to become.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_05: And even though it would have played off on what you would say, you know, plays, right?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: It still came off from storytelling.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, yeah, I guess.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: Storytelling was key because I still believe that in everything that I have done so far in this journey has been based on storytelling.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_05: The creative aspect of things was always key.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_05: I have never tried to even put forward an event unless it had a story behind it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_05: And I think what was very key was my father solidifying the story behind what I did.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because let's just say, for example, I remember going very Americanized when it came to my events now.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I say, like, you know, my tie was Hawaii and dark was like Friday the 13th, right?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_05: Halloween.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember my father pulling me aside and being like, listen, if it is that you're going and create these events, it's important that you have some kind of purpose behind it, right?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: If you're going to go dark, at least it'd be about Caribbean folklore, for example, right?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: Push something that teaches persons about, you know, our our history.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: Our stories, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_05: Do just go and follow the American thing of storytelling.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_05: When you could tell our stories of our own.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_05: And he was very integral in terms of all my stories because he always pushed purpose now.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I make it about the Caribbean, make it about our stories.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_05: Or in a sense, he's like, are you doing these events to just get people drunk and drive?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_05: Are you really just getting doing these events so that uh people could just drink and and uh have unprotected sex?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_05: He was very, very, very direct in terms of like, if I'm going to allow you to follow a path like this.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_05: Purpose.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_05: Purpose, purpose.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I think he always instilled that without saying, well, it's best all I just go and study law because at the end of the day, I have my name and it's best all I follow through with that.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_05: Never like that.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_05: He was always like, I understand what you're trying to achieve and know what you want to do, but let me make sure that you drive purpose.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: And he keeps talking about this Caribbean man, Caribbean man, be a Caribbean man, do it for the Caribbean now.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_05: And then I remember in my conversations, I wasn't on that.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_05: Justin was the one who was going really Yui and Barbados and Jamaica and talking about Jews come grenader.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, boy, I don't know about them thing now, right?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_05: And it's only later on, especially after since my father introduced me to Moona, and I was not really too immersed in it, that I realized that there's so much more of the Caribbean region, the accents, the people, who we are.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: That was so fascinating to me now.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it was the being able to go to Barbados and do my events and Jamaica and St.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_05: Lucia and Bermuda, and I was like, wow, it's a whole treasure chest.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: And all these destinations, all these islands are jewels with unique and uniqueness behind it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_05: Now that was real key.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_05: And all of a sudden I fell in fell in love with the Caribbean.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: And that was real key.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_05: All of a sudden, I am a Caribbean man.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: And the same thing like Darion.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: You know, he's like, he's a digital man now.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_05: But what did he call himself?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_05: 10 Caribbean.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: Makes sense.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: Because his whole thing was based on the territories that he first started getting opportunities, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_05: And evolving now.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_05: So we all essentially became Caribbean men.
• 41:33
  Corie: Which yeah, which I want to go back to that controlling the cooling.
• 41:36
  Corie: Can you say that Oli was in cool kids, but Oli was in cool kids?
• 41:38
  Corie: Can I remember distinctly Jordan Concord's coming out today?
• 41:43
  Corie: And the Soapian brothers had a two more row, sweating.
• 41:47
  Corie: Man, looking on the drag to go and buy it a flex.
• 41:50
  Corie: Sweating together.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_05: The drag, yes, the drag.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: I remember taking my father to the drag.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_05: We went to the drag for Christmas at a time, boy.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_05: Trying to get travel fuck something from him for Christmas.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_05: But I think the advantage, and I'm a bigger my mom's here.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_05: My mom's was an air hostess.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: I see.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: From early, we were traveling.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_05: All three of the sons, right?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_05: And the opportunity, I just saying, Dad was AG, law, politics.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_05: Mom was the air hostess, right?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: And that was a key thing for us, being able to fly when we were young.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_05: So we had the opportunity to go away and get stuff.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, we didn't have um websites and things that we could have to go out and actually go and buy stuff and things.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: So I think like mom being able to give us that opportunity, that's where we um, that's where that's one of the first things I started to do from an entrepreneurial standpoint.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: I used to go and buy stuff, NBA vests, yeah, right, Jordan, Jordan sneakers, football jerseys.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: And go in school and sell them.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha, gotcha, St.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's days.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: And you can get your name and well, not the name it.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_05: And then they couldn't get it.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_05: You can't get a yam.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_05: You can get your name.
• 43:01
  Corie: Yeah, you can get player name.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_05: You could get a player name.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine that again, jerseys with the name on.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_05: And it was a big thing now.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_05: So that's where I started.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_05: I used to come in St.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_05: Mary's and be like, yo.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Jordan, Magic Johnson.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_05: You want it?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_05: You can get it, you know, have it in the purple, not just yellow.
• 43:19
  Corie: You're seeing yourself as business.
• 43:21
  Corie: But hold on, you're not sure that you want to be a businessman.
• 43:23
  Corie: You don't know what you just associate.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_05: I just, yes.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_05: I just think like that was the that was inside.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_05: That was just something like, oh there was a there was demand, I could have supplied it.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was hard, they couldn't get it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes you could have got it in the dragon thing, but it wasn't really.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: You might not you're not sure if they get it, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_05: But Jews had it authentic.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_05: So when I doubling the price, East Loan price.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: Dynamic price, oh, they win the championship.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_05: No, but it was an exciting point in my life, too, you know.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Even his sneakers and thing, uh it was a is a is a funny time too, you know.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_05: I could have worn, I mean, I just being open, I could have worn a sneaker, said that it wasn't fitting, and sell it.
• 44:11
  Corie: What do you mean?
• 44:12
  Corie: That was the lick back then.
• 44:14
  Corie: Wait and fall into federal parting and buy it, you know.
• 44:16
  Corie: That was the lick.
• 44:17
  Corie: Hey, quick one before we get back into the conversation.
• 44:19
  Corie: You're always in the comments asking about part two, right?
• 44:22
  Corie: Guess where part two is now?
• 44:23
  Corie: It's on Patreon.
• 44:24
  Corie: Join us on the Patreon, subscribe so you could get extended versions of the conversation.
• 44:29
  Corie: And not just this episode, but all the episodes in the back catalogue.
• 44:32
  Corie: So when you're done taking the first hour here, go and subscribe, file us, and you'll take in two plus hours of the best conversation you'll ever see.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_05: Bang.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_05: So give thanks for moms.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_05: Moms really was able to provide that to me.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_05: And again, you always have to look at what your parents afforded you.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_05: My father always said it, mom always reinstill it.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Any anywhere that your parents were able to take you after they're gone, you're supposed to pick up that sack and go further.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_05: Anytime that you ain't pick up that sack, they have not fulfilled what they were supposed to do.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_05: And that's something that was real important for me.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_05: I give thanks for what my father helped me to become, his guidance, his advice.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine he passed away in 2008, and I felt at a loss for a mentor who gave me the purpose, right?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_05: Mom filled in as a matriarch, right?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: But you still had to remember that as sons, you could you could get from the mom.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_05: The mother was instrumental, right?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_05: But you still always needed that sort of fatherly advice, and especially that when that was gone, that was kind of like searching for somebody who could replace.
• 45:39
  Corie: Boy, let me tell you something.
• 45:40
  Corie: I have an experience, I remember that, right?
• 45:42
  Corie: Because I living in Jamaica in 2008.
• 45:44
  Corie: And lining and partying every night, you know what I mean?
• 45:47
  Corie: And I remember going quad a night, boy.
• 45:49
  Corie: Quad.
• 45:50
  Corie: And I see you in the quad, right?
• 45:52
  Corie: No, me and mean connecting the dots, sir, because I guess when you live in there, you ain't following through the dad news and things.
• 45:57
  Corie: I happy, happy, like, dude, Jules and what is that?
• 46:00
  Corie: And I realized it's your father.
• 46:02
  Corie: Your father had passed away at the time.
• 46:03
  Corie: You and his wife now was up there at the time.
• 46:06
  Corie: Just probably.
• 46:06
  Corie: And to tell you the truth, brother, you look when I see her know something wasn't right.
• 46:10
  Corie: I didn't know your father had passed.
• 46:12
  Corie: Yeah.
• 46:12
  Corie: But when I see her, say, Jules and looking like yourself, boy.
• 46:15
  Corie: Jules would be glad to see me.
• 46:17
  Corie: He's looking too glad today.
• 46:18
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 46:18
  Corie: So I can imagine what that what that must be.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was a it was a hard time because of the fact that um uh he he he became sick and he was getting better.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_05: And we had high hopes.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, hey, you're pulling out of this, boy.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_05: And then it just so in a sense it kind of was like sudden, very sudden, and it really kind of threw us off.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: And again, it's something that you had to go through.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you're not really sure your emotions at that point in time.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_05: But one thing is for sure that his wisdom and his advice has always stuck in me.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I think my brothers as well, huh?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because we always have this, there's this gratitude amongst us.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like, we wish he is here, but we are thankful for what he has left for us.
• 47:01
  Corie: Yeah, and in a sense, here, you know what I mean?
• 47:03
  Corie: When you see you all, you're seeing him in a lot of ways.
• 47:06
  Corie: And you know, the thing about this is like we were talking about your daughter before you start.
• 47:10
  Corie: Like, I don't know why in my mind, like, I think your daughter is a baby.
• 47:13
  Corie: It's like Jules have a baby.
• 47:15
  Corie: So when I see you talking about primary school, I said, what is happening?
• 47:17
  Corie: That's the time for me to retire.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, she was um three last year, and she's 44 now.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: As children will go, right?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, and it's no, it's uh talk about my daughter.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_05: No, my daughter, honestly, it's like um fascinating, you know.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_05: For me, uh my father's passed away.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_05: Mom, the matriarch, right?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: So we take a lot from our mom.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: My wife, very key.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, she has been that sort of rock in terms of even like the journey of like as a business.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_05: She has remember she used to do events as well, right?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_05: She was candy coated, she ended up doing travels.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_05: Ideally, she has been like almost a trusted advisor, right?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: Mom, number one supporter.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_05: I could give you how she tell me this party thing ain't making no sense.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_05: To how she became intrinsic to the business where she was in charge, she was the cashier, she was in charge of the bar, she started to bring friends, she started to say, hey, what now I have an order sheet about 50 persons, right?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: I've been surrounded by women.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_05: I think this third aspect of the woman who surround us, right?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_05: My daughter, right?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_05: It it has impacted me in such a way, even in the things that I I do.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: From the company standpoint, from the personal standpoint, now you're looking at somebody you're raising up from the female perspective.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_05: And it's it's so integral now because even from the Caesar's army aspect, you know, throughout the journey, there was an aspect of like, okay, well, there's the videography and the footage that you're capturing, right?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's kind of like almost like sexualize.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_05: And you reach a point, even my wife was like, that's not the image, that is not the brand.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_05: Y'all don't need to do that.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: So having that aspect of things, now you have a daughter.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_05: So it's now even more stronger in terms of like differently, yeah.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like having the trifecta has been very key in terms of I guess the age, the relationship has been very key in terms of having a daughter.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a number one girl dad, I think.
• 49:33
  Corie: Yeah, no, 100%.
• 49:34
  Corie: Yes, sure.
• 49:35
  Corie: Thanks for sharing it on social media so we could mack well bit for those of us who can't make girls, right?
• 49:40
  Corie: We could mack well with.
• 49:41
  Corie: But I almost see how you and wifey, it it it it there's there was a shift without us seeing what happened in the public space.
• 49:47
  Corie: There definitely was a shift anyway, I suppose.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, um, it's something you had to remember too, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes you get caught up in life and you're not studying, you know, like maybe it's work, work, work, survive, survive, survive.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: And a child is something that we really wanted, right?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_05: And we preyed on it.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_05: It's not it's not something like, you know, it's by chance.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's something that we wanted to have together.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, not knowing if it's girl or boy, right?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_05: But ideally, this has been the ultimate treasure.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, of course.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know, because you you look at you look at mom and what she had to go through, a lot of people wouldn't understand too that the relationship between parent and child is one thing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_05: But when dad passed away, it was hard for mom in a sense.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_05: I know like people didn't understand.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like I I could I could just say to myself how difficult that is.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's one thing to miss your dad, but imagine you missing we could relate more now, you know, son.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_05: It's hard, it's really hard, right?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_05: And then, you know, you look at the joys of having mom still survive and being able to be the strength of the family, holding down her sons and being able to give that purpose and drive, right?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_05: And then they get married, celebrating 10 years.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: Oh shit already.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_05: What the hell is going on?
• 51:14
  Corie: 10th anniversary, right?
• 51:17
  Corie: Gabby, you going?
• 51:19
  Corie: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 51:21
  Corie: She don't come no recordings though.
• 51:24
  Corie: You leave it.
• 51:26
  Corie: Yeah, cool.
• 51:27
  Corie: I'm pulling my foot.
• 51:29
  Corie: One of the things, like when I watch her on social media and all the interaction with her, you know, you look at them and they're small, and I try to figure out, you know, I wonder if she knows who mommy and daddy is, like what mommy and daddies do and their contribution to society and things.
• 51:41
  Corie: She has a sense of that mommy and daddy's stars, right?
• 51:44
  Corie: Rock stars in these streets.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_05: Well, Sarai Juliana has been afforded a lot in terms of growing up.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_05: Now, a father involved in carnival, right?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_05: Which she's very well aware.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, she knows.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_05: She knows Caesar's army.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: She can she best she basically understands Caesar's army.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_05: Her cart is her, the card that Caesar's army has in the office.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: Card that we have on the road.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's her princess cart.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_05: She's just awaiting her to come out on it for Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it's yeah.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um her mother is involved in travel.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_05: So you remember how I said my mom would have allowed us the opportunity to see the world based on anywhere that BB was going at the time, right?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_05: BB days.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_05: Her mom now.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_05: Remember Candace's go Israel and South Africa and India, right?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_05: Sarai, Sarai went Disney World at one.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_05: Oh shit.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_05: Sarai has gone to Cuba when she was three.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_05: She has gone to New Zealand when she was two.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_05: So you catch what the kind of like the kind of understanding that she is getting.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, like, she may not understand Mickey and Minnie at one.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_05: But I could definitely tell her that she knows what an alpaca is based on New Zealand, right?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_05: So that's sort of worldly global citizen knowledge, very key.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_05: So she's like very aware of the world and what it has to offer.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's really good because the same time she went to Cuba is the same time I went when I was 40 something.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_05: You catch what I'm saying.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_05: Terrible over there in a sense, in terms of the electricity and whatever the case is, but she would have gotten it firsthand and I would have understood as well, right?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_05: She may have a different perspective.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: So what I'm saying is that in her growing up, I think it's very key that she has this balance of like, okay, maybe I'm understanding the culture.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_05: She has played mass, kiddies' mask, right?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_05: In her context, right?
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_05: She has done a lot of things putting into the culture.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_05: She has done a lot of things in terms of even visiting the destinations of Trinidad.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_05: So, what is in Trinidad?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_05: Pitch Lake, these are the Knowledge Tunnel.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_05: She understands Carny Swamp.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: She has done.
• 54:03
  Corie: I mean Knowledge Tunnel and 40 something too.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_05: So, and then you have this outside perspective.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's amazing to see this four-year-old in terms of, you know, we're an ex.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, of course.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's good.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_05: It's really good to have that sort of connection.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_05: I never, I always believed I thought I would have had a son.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: Because I just felt like, you know, mom had sons.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_05: So Mom and Dad had sons.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_05: So we would have sons.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's really different to have this girl dad experience.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_05: But that definitely has.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's that impacted me a lot in terms of like what I do from an employment standpoint as well as personally.
• 54:40
  Corie: I appreciate you for sharing it with us.
• 54:41
  Corie: Because boy, let me tell you something.
• 54:42
  Corie: In this country, black fathers are the show example.
• 54:45
  Corie: Even what we do with our own children.
• 54:47
  Corie: Sometimes, I mean, your private life is a private life, so people could choose to keep it private.
• 54:51
  Corie: But I think the fact that you show that speaks volumes to a lot of people.
• 54:55
  Corie: People look at you a certain way, and when they see the way your father, it could change a lot.
• 55:00
  Corie: It is changing a lot, I think.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_05: That's interesting because I mean, I would still get like um, I would still get sometimes, you know, you mustn't put your child out so much on social media and stuff like that.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_05: But they have certain things that are just like so they mean so much to me.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I think like my for example, my Instagram, for example, is to remind me of like how It is a photo album.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, it is like a photo album.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_05: Go on a deal with the physical one, right?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_05: And you're pulling, oh right, okay, great.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_05: I look at these things.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes I would just take a tack back at just my life of 2025, for example.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_05: And you'll some things will trigger in you and resonate, right?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_05: And you'll be like, don't forget to know.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: No, no.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_05: You're blessed.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_05: They have things that you should be thankful for.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think a lot of a lot of things in this life tend to kind of like pull you down and feel like, oh my gosh, life who be me, right?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_05: But you have to give thanks.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_05: You have to be grateful for a lot of things.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_05: And my daughter, my family, they tend to bring me up when it is that whenever I'm down.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_05: So I tend to record it and I tend to put it out there.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_05: So yes, I know that it's a kind of funny time in terms of highlighting my daughter, but certain milestones and things.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, when she first goes to school, you know, it's kind of like amazing to me.
• 56:23
  Corie: Yeah.
• 56:23
  Corie: Because I remember, listen, the you think about Facebook and them things bring up the memories, right?
• 56:27
  Corie: So first day of school, when I see your daughter, I flash back to my son as I was happening right now.
• 56:32
  Corie: Can't believe it.
• 56:33
  Corie: I wonder for you, though, as going back to your childhood, because your father would be a toon in general coming off of one of the most difficult times in Trinidad.
• 56:40
  Corie: It was just after 90, yes, when they came back in.
• 56:42
  Corie: Yeah.
• 56:42
  Corie: And um, you had a sense then for who your father was, because you that time you were a little older than your daughter is now.
• 56:49
  Corie: Or maybe we're around the same age.
• 56:52
  Corie: Somewhere wrong there.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because when he became a toon general, he was 91.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_05: And um for me, um, that was a kind of mixed thing too, yeah.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was like uh it was a change.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_05: So, in a sense, and remember, it was also like me also being in school.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_05: So it wasn't like the same age as my daughter.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, you're going into secondary school.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was in secondary because I still remember we having um somebody to pick us up after school, and it was always a kind of a look and feel.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_05: Remember St.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_05: Joseph right next door.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_05: It was a kind of that kind of ranking thing in a sense, you know.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: No, it was it and you had to remember too.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_05: Remember how would I say it?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, just the brothers.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_05: Justin has always justin is picture perfect.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_05: Right, Justin has a head prefect of the school and follow dad footsteps.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_05: Justin was always that boy, but we remember he's my brother, so at the end of the day, we know how Justin is at home.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_05: Darion was also a little rebellious.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_05: Me and Darion are actually very close.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_05: So first and the last, and the last shall be first, that will always be apparent, right?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right, it is.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so it's kind of like, you know, when this whole thing happened to us, it's a change.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_05: Your father is attorney general, security everywhere, we can't even really go out.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_05: I had to sneak out to go base.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, imagine that.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_05: Those things used to be very much apparent, so it's kind of like a change, but you also had to understand what your father was representing.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_05: And in a sense, you know, it was a higher level of him.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because we never really, we, we, we saw what our father represented, but on this highest level, it was kind of like, wow, you know, this is inspirational.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_05: I would love to be um, I would love to have a red passport.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_05: But I could travel as well, you know, and go in the diplomatic line.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_05: Even up to today, that still impacts me in a sense, right?
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_05: Can I be a Caribbean ambassador for the Caribbean, even for Trinidad and Tobago, and still fall in line without being an attorney general or being in politics.
• 59:03
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_05: Can I still get a red passport to represent?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_05: Can I be a diplomatic, right?
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_05: Can I be a diplomatic?
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, do we need work?
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_05: Do we need diplomatic?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I'm saying now.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_05: But in a sense, on a higher level, I mean, that's a more plastic level, right?
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_05: But it's still inspiring, motivational, right?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_05: On a higher level, it's kind of outer out of this world, surreal to kind of see like your father be that person because dad was on this highest level, but he was also so good with the common man.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_05: In a country boy, right?
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a airboy.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, my arrow boat mom and dad uh from mom is from Arizona like some other members of the audience.
• 59:48
  Corie: Also, them people where they come from this change every weekend or Jules, according to the guessing.
• 59:58
  Corie: Then they say whatever it takes to make people comfortable.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_05: Both my mom and dad are from Meyaru.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_05: They came from very humble beginnings.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, my father came to tongue.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_05: I in fact, I sometimes I feel like mom and dad used to actually, you know, try to make more of their story.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so mama be like, you know, come to tongue.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I stay in Meyaru, right?
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_05: Those kind of things would still resonate, you know, in a sense, right?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_05: But they're both from Meyaru.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_05: And that's one thing that has always been true to the Sobian family.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_05: They came from humble beginnings, so they never pushed that sort of oh, we better than you.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, we higher than you.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_05: It was always like, stay humble, stay humble to the lowest man, to the highest man we could be in any crowd, just based on that fact.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_05: And that was a key thing about Keith.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_05: He was the attorney general, but at the same point in time, you see some of your partners coming there to lie, my like, this is a different that is from his his neighborhood.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that is how he was.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_05: He was that kind of guy.
• 1:01:06
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:07
  Corie: So going back to radioactive days, you're in that zone, you're moving, you want to do events.
• 1:01:11
  Corie: Y'all did it, y'all did it to the highest level anybody do it when we were teenagers and young adults at the time.
• 1:01:16
  Corie: Because players was it.
• 1:01:17
  Corie: As Hoppy says when he comes here, jokers and them follow.
• 1:01:20
  Corie: But I think players was the first people I see who I suppose, in a sense, we as teenagers, going back to our Barry Periman say, Right.
• 1:01:29
  Corie: We wanted to see us our common enemies.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm sure, right?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_05: But again, it's so funny, though.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine we had those rivalries, right?
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_05: It's so funny, right?
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_05: We had those rivalries.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_05: Is it the same?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_05: That's the Joker.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's the Joker.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_05: I actually saw the Joker.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_05: They did a party, right?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_05: This has never really uh Chris, you probably know about this.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_05: But Jokers did a flyer, and I was like, this visual is so wicked.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I was probably at the stage where I was just like, oh, the creative side of me.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_05: I love this visual.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna tattoo this on my arm, right?
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_05: That's the real trait.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_05: I think I am players, and I take and tattoo with Jokers on it.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_05: That is hilarious.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_05: That is crazy.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm trying to transform it.
• 1:02:13
  Corie: I feel like we transform it, even in the um in the height of it.
• 1:02:16
  Corie: We just used to go both.
• 1:02:17
  Corie: I don't I don't think it was as separate as well.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_05: It's vibes, rivalry, but in a sense, healthy rivalry.
• 1:02:23
  Corie: And I think both song systems was booked for both anyway.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_05: It was booked strongly, they were booked strongly, and in a sense, um uh that was just the era, right?
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, it's almost like uh who can be more renowned, who can be more popular, who have the best dub plates.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_05: That's right, that's right.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_05: I remember they had little little skirmishes and thing.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_05: Run legend of jugglers is my one of my best friends right now.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine that.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_05: Salute run.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, salute run, right?
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_05: Run is part and parcel in terms of my friends, Johan and Ron, as they musicale, the musical gods.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_05: Help them create their brand, but run was our jugglers.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's weird that after all these years of rivalry, because I remember I think Ron brought out a Rottweiler for me and Sandy for that time outside the house.
• 1:03:13
  Corie: I've run as one of the coolest fellas.
• 1:03:14
  Corie: I think Runners and Mutant would be so whether he only does wrong, and Ron was right to be good.
• 1:03:22
  Corie: That's how we're growing up, we're growing up and we're figuring it out.
• 1:03:25
  Corie: So when when you started to move out on your own, because you say F1, I forget about it.
• 1:03:29
  Corie: I didn't remember that.
• 1:03:29
  Corie: That was the first movie made outside.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um The Foreigners.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_05: So it was like my mom and I said that at a point in time, um, we were all going away to school.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um Mark Jardin.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_05: Philip.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_05: Dwayne Cambridge, right?
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_05: All of them, Ja.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_05: All of them were going away, Adrian Navarro, right?
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_05: We were all Jerome Brahmer.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_05: We were all going away.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_05: Jerome Boy.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_05: We were all going away.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_05: Well, they were all going away.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_05: Because while they were going Mo House and all these other places, my father wanted to take me to Mona.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_05: I spent one semester in Mona and then I bust out, right?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_05: Where you went to do where you was going to study?
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's business administration.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, remember what it was.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because I wasn't staying there.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_05: I was not on I was not on that vibe.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_05: All of them were going away, right?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_05: But there was this group, a big group.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_05: All of those names that are called, right?
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_05: We were F1.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was Foreigners One or something like that.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_05: So ideally, we used to do events.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_05: I think one was in Christmas and one was during summer, right?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_05: That was a big group.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_05: I was a part of that group.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it just got it was too big.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so a lot of opinions and whatever the cases, but it was a very strong entity.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_05: Let's just say it was a the the persons in the collective were very strong.
• 1:04:48
  Corie: Everybody you called in have a real strong opinion about a lot of things.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I'm saying, right?
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_05: That whole group.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_05: Foreigners, right?
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I eventually left that group, right?
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_05: On good terms.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just making sure that I'm transparent here.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_05: I left on good terms and we formed J Cube.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_05: That was myself, Idra Navarro, Jack, and Jerome.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_05: That was J Cube.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_05: So it was J3.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_05: So it's three J's.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_05: We did events for quite a while.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_05: Those were my bona fides as well.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_05: And eventually, I think like everybody kind of did their own thing.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I just trying to summarize it.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_05: And then that's when I actually created, after I I kind of left that group in a sense, um, I created Julia Caesar.
• 1:05:33
  Corie: I see.
• 1:05:33
  Corie: So it's Julia Caesar event first.
• 1:05:35
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:05:35
  Corie: Right.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_05: And what happened is that with Julia Caesar, I was doing all the Might Thai and uh Dark and all these other events.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_05: And then what I realized is that I remember I was aiming to try and get into carnival.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_05: And what I realized is that I could not really I did pan as a section first.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_05: I actually did red ants first.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_05: That's the first time I ever did a carnival.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: I was a section in Red Ans.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_05: Juve.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was called Juve, but it was a it was their pan posse.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_05: I see.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_05: And I was a part, Dwayne Naburger allowed me to be a part.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I did it with them.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_05: And we just printed Julius Caesar entertainment on the um jerseys, and we are part of the thing.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_05: And then I realized like I could do this.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_05: But I realized if I had to elevate, it couldn't be on a one-man thing.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where the Julius dropped off and it became Caesar's army.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_05: I understand.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_05: I understand.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_05: Caesar's army really started off in pan.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_05: What year is this, you remember?
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_05: 2006.
• 1:06:38
  Corie: So 20 years.
• 1:06:38
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  Corie: I remember seeing Brahma in particular, so Brahma boy, but I remember seeing because you would have been working TST anytime because it bungs back up.
• 1:06:46
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:06:46
  Corie: I didn't see any years then I spun you up in TST at that point.
• 1:06:49
  Corie: I remember Brahma handing out flies outside every TST.
• 1:06:53
  Corie: That would have been F10 or one of them at that point.
• 1:06:55
  Corie: Kid B JQ.
• 1:06:55
  Corie: Okay, could be B JQ.
• 1:06:56
  Corie: Kid B JQ.
• 1:06:57
  Corie: Kid B JQ.
• 1:06:57
  Corie: Defense was making money at that time, it was successful.
• 1:06:59
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_05: The I mean, I trying to think back and in such a way if it was that lucrative.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_05: But I think back in the day was also like, how is your brand being recognized alongside the money?
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_05: So the money would have been part and parcel of it, but I don't think it was necessarily the priority.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_05: The priority was building the brand so that it could continue and become bigger.
• 1:07:23
  Corie: In your mind, those times, experiences, because I remember brass was its experience, right?
• 1:07:28
  Corie: But I don't know if it was planned, right?
• 1:07:30
  Corie: We come from a time where maybe, maybe in my simple mind, I could credit Island people as a feto for one of the first people who really changed it from is a fet raw.
• 1:07:41
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:07:41
  Corie: To really create an experience.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_05: I actually was very much inspired by Island people.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_05: Big up Derek and Dean in that regard.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_05: I got you.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_05: I remember when um Island people would have taken me, I want to believe it's caution.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_05: And it was in the bush in Shagaramas, and I was like overwhelmed.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_05: I was my mind was blown.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, I can't wait that I could actually do an event like this where you just bring people, you cut like it was a platform in Shagaramas, and it cut down the bush, and it was like parked somewhere outside, and you're walking to this thing, and then it's like caution signs.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_05: It was like, oh my gosh, this is what this is what I am talking about when it comes to events now.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_05: So I used to look up to them highly.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, they would have done all the other um, it's not amnesia.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_05: What was the water one again?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_05: Insomnia.
• 1:08:30
  Corie: Right.
• 1:08:30
  Corie: They had a black party and a white one to glow over them.
• 1:08:33
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_05: They were glow as part of um Keith, but not Wilshire, Ian Wilshire.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_05: Part and parcel.
• 1:08:40
  Corie: So in your earliest days, your concepts coming into where you're doing in terms of J3, just train party at that point, as you say.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think those events earlier on were more or less like based on your network.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_05: So they had a little bit of storytelling.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_05: Like I had to put storytelling in it.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_05: So it's still kind of like literature thing.
• 1:08:57
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_05: I just remember, I remember I did an event as well with Quasey.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_05: We had one on the Tuesday and one on the Saturday.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember telling Quissy, let's do a combined story about it.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, nah.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I ended up doing something and he ended up doing something.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when I realized like my storytelling was key.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_05: But what I realized is that it was instrumental in not like letting your concepts and your themes overpower what you're trying to achieve because some persons were just there for the popularity of things.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_05: And it was key, you know.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's like we had this kind of group that was basically saying, okay, well, three of us are cool kids.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_05: Let us combine networks.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_05: But in those days, you were looking for that exclusive venue.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_05: Who have that backyard?
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_05: Jerome had a nice backyard up in Mocha.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you see if we could work that, you know.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's how it used to work.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_05: Like anytime you had something that was a little unattainable, you'll try and see if it is that you could plug that in the mix.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_05: Venues was key in that regard.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's why I used to use Federation Park.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_05: As at some point in time, too, I would have used to beg my father and be like, you know, can I do a little party here?
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because Federation Park, you don't get to use it.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_05: No, nobody don't want to party there.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_05: You never hear about it before.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, he denied that.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I had to find other places.
• 1:10:16
  Corie: I say with him, though, when you first started, I don't know which iteration of it it is.
• 1:10:21
  Corie: If it's when you start seasons, I mean you say you're going to him to invest on that kind of thing.
• 1:10:25
  Corie: So start putting many behind.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_05: My father was my first investor.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_05: Did he reap returns?
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_05: Well, casinos work that way, yeah.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that's another thing I have to give thanks for in terms of dad.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_05: Dad invested in his son's boy, right?
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_05: In terms of like what it is that we personally aspired in, what we believed in, he invested in him.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I could remember, like, you know, don't worry, Dad.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_05: You get this percentage back, and once we make this thing, and wherever the case may be.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I feel like he was fully well aware that he was not going to get back anything because he is hoping.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think like that's how he also instilled now.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_05: He's hoping that once you are successful, reinvest it and go again, but be even stronger with I guess your framework and wherever the case may be.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_05: He would push you on that.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_05: He never he never asked back for things.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_05: The most he ever used to ask back is when I used to try and get dubs for Que C and M.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_05: I think he should ask me for that.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_05: Because Queen C and M never used to send the money back.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_05: Check that out for me too.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Fact-checking in fact checking.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_05: Capleton.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_05: You never collect that.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_05: Let me do some more fact-checking.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_05: 500 US was the Kepleton plate.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_05: My father needs back that money.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and US no scale.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_05: US and too.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_05: No, but I was always into that too because you're excited about it.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_05: You want to be able to send plate back.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I dare begging dad.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_05: I said, Dad, I have Sizzler there.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_05: All I need, I tell you, Dad, they will pay double for this.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_05: I just need to get this thing.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_05: And whether he will give you sometimes, he won't give you sometimes because he's like, if it is that they wanted so much, let them send the money up.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_05: Western Union.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, right.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_05: Send it with somebody who's traveling, right?
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_05: It always worked out in a way that dad was always teaching you a lesson about business, about purpose, right?
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_05: So ideally, he knows that I are excited because I'm part of the radioactive clan.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Be able to at least work your business rules.
• 1:12:45
  Corie: It's an investment, it's like university.
• 1:12:46
  Corie: You can't get that.
• 1:12:47
  Corie: When you're sending a university, nothing and also the same thing, guys, your university.
• 1:12:52
  Corie: Let me fact check something now before you go into Caesar's army.
• 1:12:54
  Corie: Alright, fact-check.
• 1:12:55
  Corie: You know Lim Crazy Hopkinson?
• 1:12:57
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:12:57
  Corie: Alright, good.
• 1:12:58
  Corie: Just making sure.
• 1:12:58
  Corie: He was here and he tells a story about someone.
• 1:13:02
  Corie: You hear his story before?
• 1:13:03
  Corie: I heard it.
• 1:13:04
  Corie: So let's see my memory good, right?
• 1:13:06
  Corie: He said that there was a gentleman who was involved with all yeah.
• 1:13:08
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:13:09
  Corie: And he decided when the money comes by the door, he wore him money.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:13
  Corie: And I was told that a gentleman by the name of Keith Sovian said, well, let the man come inside.
• 1:13:20
  Corie: There's in flags.
• 1:13:21
  Corie: Hoppy.
• 1:13:22
  Corie: Yeah, he's saying flats.
• 1:13:23
  Corie: That's what's a true story.
• 1:13:24
  Corie: It is a true story.
• 1:13:26
  Corie: So your father tell the man my god.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the money.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is my gun.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_05: The guys and them are bullies, man.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_05: Oh god, man.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_05: They know that we will run any things.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_05: This whole thing was a popularity thing in a sense.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_05: We were really young boys trying to, we were part of the whole radioactive thing.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_05: We were doing the DJ thing.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_05: We had them as they were part of the cast.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_05: But we were doing this because we elevating ourselves, we're getting older, so we have relationships, we have partnerships.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, of course.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_05: Let the thing be subtle now.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_05: We honest boys, you know, in a sense, right?
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_05: So after the whole party and thing, you know, typically you don't keep money any venue, right?
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_05: The money had to go.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_05: After you collect, I mean, I tell you, my mom was a cashier at that point in time, right?
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_05: Mom say, You see this party business.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_05: I know about this party business, right?
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_05: But then she eventually became a cashier.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_05: And as a cashier, as you get money, you proceed.
• 1:14:34
  Corie: Because them days it's no way to pay online.
• 1:14:36
  Corie: Everybody coming with cash to pay by the door.
• 1:14:38
  Corie: And hope you gain.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_05: As you after a particular time in the night, you leave with your bulk of cash because you ain't know what go happen.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_05: So the money left.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_05: So I find it was a little unreasonable.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like they, I don't know, we didn't establish ourselves.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_05: That was the first time we were really kind of doing things of that nature.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_05: We're not robbers, we're not thieves.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_05: So the money went home.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was actually dad who took it home.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_05: So, in a sense, they like jumping us after the event.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_05: And dad just wanted to, they were older than us.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_05: They could have, you know, they were a little threatening.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_05: So my dad just basically, you know, just and I mean, I can't remember the ages, right?
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_05: But all I know is that I was real proud of my father, that means I say yes, boy.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_05: Caesar's army will always be part and parcel of the journey.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_05: But the highest level now is dedicated to my dad.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_05: That Caribbean man has resonated in more ways than one based on what I have done, and I see it right now.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_05: I must I must lead an army of Caribbean creatives that pushing Caribbean culture to the world.
• 1:16:00
  Corie: Well, listen, we want to be a part of the army.
• 1:16:02
  Corie: We want to be a part of the army.
• 1:16:03
  Corie: Because I think it's a it's a useful transition.
• 1:16:05
  Corie: So look for following.
• 1:16:07
  Corie: I mean, every step of the way, it's all about your father and the things that he instilled near you.
• 1:16:12
  Corie: You're living it.
• 1:16:12
  Corie: And you're instilling it in your daughter now, so is a blessing.
• 1:16:15
  Corie: I want to tell you thanks personally.
• 1:16:17
  Corie: I appreciate it.
• 1:16:17
  Corie: I know the jokers here, but I know the Caesars have me here too.
• 1:16:20
  Corie: So I don't know if that space in the Caribbean happy to go.
• 1:16:22
  Corie: But wherever you go, I think it's an important thing for us.
• 1:16:24
  Corie: I think we in the Caribbean must visit the spaces where we were taken from.
• 1:16:28
  Corie: And you know, don't I don't want to go to the whole colonial thing.
• 1:16:31
  Corie: I know your marketing team says that's not it, right?
• 1:16:33
  Corie: But that's important.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:16:35
  Corie: And I feel like there's nobody better to lead that church than you.
• 1:16:38
  Corie: Generality Caesars are thank you very much too much.
• 1:16:43
  Corie: Thank you very much for what you have to do.