Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Braveboy on Trapso, Soca, Zumba & Building a Global Music Career | Corie Sheppard Podcast

Transcript

Braveboy on Trapso, Soca, Zumba & Building a Global Music Career | Corie Sheppard Podcast · Corie Sheppard Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_00: And I go on Fitch Street.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: And you know that fellas are goal and everybody watching me like I confuse, you know, like they confuse because I the same big big chain like them, but it's silver in the bull.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: You don't get a made up.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, there's online.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: This actually a Bluetooth speaker.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Let's play music, can't you?
0:21
SPEAKER_00: I play it on the phone, they say.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: You all hear my song?
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Why keeping all your back?
0:34
Corie: Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast.
0:36
Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
0:38
Corie: Let me tell people one time too.
0:39
Corie: It's not just on YouTube, it is audit also available on all audio platforms.
0:43
Corie: And talking about audio platforms, I have a man here today.
0:45
Corie: We have plenty of audio things to talk about.
0:47
Corie: Yeah.
0:47
Corie: I have the great brave world, brother.
0:49
Corie: Hi, brother.
0:50
Corie: Everything good?
0:50
Corie: Everything first.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: At the start of I said, I'm a big fan of the show.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I don't know someone on the table, anyway.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's from the heart.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate this.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of stories to be told.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, and this is yeah, yeah.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Great greatness in this podcast.
1:10
Corie: Yeah, I appreciate the fact that people not just willing to listen to these stories, but they're coming to tell their stories.
1:14
Corie: So I appreciate you coming through.
1:15
Corie: So audio is a good place to start, you know.
1:17
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
1:17
Corie: If it ever tell anybody first time I've seen Marcus in person, I'm telling you something.
1:22
Corie: Since I know myself around this industry, your name bubbling.
1:27
Corie: I don't know how old he is.
1:28
Corie: So we're gonna figure out that today, right?
1:30
Corie: Because I haven't done yet to be older than me.
1:32
Corie: Because since I know myself, but the 50s for sure.
1:38
Corie: Your name always bubbling wrong.
1:40
Corie: So I was saying brave boy and thing and you rap thing, and you know what I mean from early days.
1:43
Corie: And then a day I was on a flight, but I can't remember where I was coming from.
1:46
Corie: Yeah, and I sit down and you're walking in.
1:48
Corie: I said, Cool, that's the brave boy fella they be talking about, boy.
1:51
Corie: And then a 90-minute cassette hanging around your neck.
1:53
Corie: You remember them years, boy?
1:55
Corie: I still be on right now.
1:57
Corie: Yeah, let them see, let them see, let them see your piece.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they said there's a new piece.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the rapper just had a new piece.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, they did it 2026.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Carnival.
2:05
Corie: I love it, I love it.
2:07
Corie: I want to get into 2026 carnival, no.
2:08
Corie: But what is what inspired the 90-minute cassette, boy?
2:11
SPEAKER_00: How come?
2:11
SPEAKER_00: I think you know, sometimes people say before your time or I I was I born in 1985, but I was always obsessed with the the 80s, you know, these boom boxes, and something about it was appealing to me.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: And there's a period of my life that I spent in New York, and I lived in Williamsburg, and you know, like that was the aesthetic, you know, they had a kind of retro graffiti kind of hip-hop.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: So I think that just stuck with me for life.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: I came up to Trinidad with that energy and that swab, yeah, and that became my signature, yeah, yeah.
2:38
Corie: But we was just talking about Umbo before we start.
2:40
Corie: Because when I see 90 minute cassette, the first thing I think is clash days, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:44
Corie: Because clashes don't used to be a 90 minute day.
2:46
Corie: The only time you used to get a 90-minute cassette, really.
2:48
Corie: Most cassettes was 60 minutes.
2:49
Corie: Yeah, but we lost the nudes, right?
2:51
Corie: So we get back on track, right?
2:52
Corie: Love on the road.
2:54
Corie: You know, what is that?
2:57
Corie: Love on the road.
2:58
Corie: I would go in, boy.
2:58
Corie: Congrats on the book.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much foremost.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: How would Bob Lints over?
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, this is the best response I've gotten to anything I've ever released.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And I've gotten some great responses like locally, internationally.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: This by far.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just locally here, like you know, I have my peeps away with Zumba, and they love the song too, you know?
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're doing dance challenge and things already.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: When you release it, uh, it was released on late November.
3:25
Corie: Mid to late November.
3:26
Corie: Nice.
3:26
Corie: The energy behind it, do you song about it before you start?
3:29
Corie: And it's funny you said, right?
3:30
Corie: That you know, when I sing in the song, it's difficult to sing because I had to be had to be martial, I had to be skinny, how to be voices.
3:36
Corie: But it's it feels like it has so much elements to the song.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Deliberate?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Deliberate because you know what?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I tried to find my space within soccer last year.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: It was an experiment where from Zumba I realized that soca is popular globally, but it's just they don't know, they don't call it soccer.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: So I hear in these Zumba inshopers dancing to actual so like soca songs, but then songs similar to soca.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: I realize the lot of other genres like Latin music, like Dembo and Reggaeton and Afrobeats, very similar to soca.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, there's something there, and maybe I could be the person to connect it.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: So last year my song Carnival Connection, it was myself and two Venezuelan artists, and I strategically wrote it where the first part of the song is soca, but then it goes into the Latin part.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I feel I lost some people to the Latin part.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: So if people who dancing to the song, they're like, Yeah, no, so I took some time and one thing about me, every genre I go into, I do my research now.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: So for all the other genres, whether it's EDM or reggae tone, I literally watching documentaries on YouTube.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So with Trinidad, you know, sometimes the documentaries lacking within our culture.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: But Sokamana is available on YouTube.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: You can see all of them.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I watch every single Sokamana.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And then you see when it reached Blazer Done, there's a there's there's something Blazer Dan used to do.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: A lot of other artists have done it as well, but I call it the beauty and the beast effect.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Where he goes from singing boys to men, you know, screwing and singing to girls to hold on tight.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: But you know, and there was something there, and I took inspiration from that, I took inspiration from Marshall, I took inspiration from Treason, Bungie, etc.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, how can I put this together to be brave, boy, and so kind of and I had a I started to experiment a lot of ballads, you know.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: I always wanted, you know, like those classic songs.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a classic song I lived on forever.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I always wanted one of those songs.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And I started to pen, I started to listen to Lut of Andrews, a thousand kisses.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And I got the inspiration.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: I was like, a thousand kissing, and I said, a thousand.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: I said, if I had to speak to Carnival, what would I tell Carnival?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's already a thousand letters, a thousand emails.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: So it was a lot a lot went into this.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: But fine, but but but then when I went by Mevon, Mevon said, hey that this, this, this talk like a Westmore soccer.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: He said, I love it, I love it, brave boy.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: But it's talking like a Westmore and so we had a so I had some ideas for the soccer elements, but I have to give props to Mevon.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Me and Mevon sat down and wrote this together, and within that, I didn't realize I could take my voice certain places within soccer.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, you have a comfort zone.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: So I would say it went from people saying it we could go from Kess.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Some people saying it, they think it's Kess singing it, and then it goes into skinny fabulous.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's that smooth, it's that smooth, you know, like a ballad.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think that is the beauty and the BC Fec if you remember Hog Blazer.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: So Resident Blaze Blazer.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: He had that now.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: You hear this nice, you know, and then it goes, yeah, yeah, you can suck it into the girl, be mine tonight.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Then you go, hold on tight, boy, baby.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: So that that that was my favorite song of that carnival.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So initially I just wanted to create that a song that you know what, if it even if it's not the biggest hit, somebody like me, like a younger me, would listen to the song and be like, they my favorite song for this season.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but the response I get, well, as soon as I release it, people start up talking roadmatch up.
6:52
Corie: Yeah, because of the build-up, like especially, and I mean, who better than Mevon?
6:57
Corie: Mevon, exactly.
6:58
Corie: Yeah, so there's road match, maybe for the last 10 years.
7:00
Corie: Yeah, you well, maybe 20.
7:02
Corie: You have to do that.
7:03
Corie: Yeah, have to do that.
7:04
Corie: Because back in the day, it's a Palamos here talking about it.
7:06
Corie: What Super Blue used to do right?
7:08
Corie: What you're describing on Blazer used to do with his voice, yeah.
7:10
Corie: Super used to use the music to do it, and he used to call it Vampin.
7:13
Corie: So when you hear that get something for a while before, and then you hear your voice coming in.
7:19
Corie: Yeah, no, this song, like if you if you want to bill it like a a road.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Like I and for people who play mass, I played mass for years, and we really thought about it.
7:31
Corie: Yeah, no, I don't play mass.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Nobody I paid to play mass at Storm, I was on the truck.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I was gone, I was I was prospering for this culture, you know.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Nah, nah, nah.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: I play in mass, I can tell you since teenage days.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Before I actually pay into play mass properly as an adult, we did for some reason hearts was the band that we was allowed to go and jump for.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't know.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And then it went, well, I don't have a heart story, yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Whoever wall this is, I apologize.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: I hope they just yeah, we can we can you can't assume it right now.
8:07
Corie: Yeah, the limitation gone.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: They had a song, I don't know if you remember the banyard rhythm.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: They had a song, Ricky Jai had and she talking, Chutney.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: When I jump on who you went, so that was my favorite song for the guy.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: So I prefer now say fellas, I tell my neighbors when that song comes on, I run it and jumping on our wall and whining.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: So it said so that, but the wall did the breaks was loose, and I go so and I just fall down.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And we two people see two people are sure, two people see those it is before camera phone.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Social media was then I would end up on MYOV.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: At your height, they can't miss it.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: You can't miss her, but but after that, you know, the well poison, the last year of poison, yeah.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: I had really almost still I watching all my friends on TV, partying and thing on stage, and I just yeah, right with the bummy at home, but then it was more like the tribe and island people.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: We were talking about island people earlier.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And spice mass and you know, um, spirit mass, and you know, I kind of experienced all different things.
9:09
Corie: So you're writing from the standpoint of one masquerade or one experience.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: That is the thing, and I think after find it because I always wondered how can I because I tried soccer from a very young age.
9:18
Corie: You say so was the first genre that you can.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: It actually was my first genre, and I started off.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I was the biggest treason fan, you know, still am.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And Ken Holder through our bigger Crystal Rose.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, them days I always lie, man.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: So you know, that I was networking anything.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: So one of my friends, Crystal, she was going Providence at the time.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: She was in a group that um Ken Holder, who is Treason's producer, was kind of managing.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: It was like the red girls with Cody here.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to do a kind of girl group, right?
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: So Crystal and Leanne, they were part of that group, and they used to go by Ed Gordon Studios.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people don't know, but Marshall had a studio, he invested in a studio behind Bishops, right?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Around the Savannah.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: So they were trying to bring up a lot of young artists.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And we had a demo tape.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: In them days, we, you know, like at a little home studio, makeshift, Mike and that kind of thing.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And we had a demo, well, we we did a compilation called Roti Goal.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: So it had reggae goal.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: We used to talk real shiftiness.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: So Roty Goal.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Rothi Goal was, you know, like Mr.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Vega, she's uh we have, I don't know what we can say on this podcast, but we we would say she likes bread.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh if a girl drink, uh if a girl eat two hops in our night, then we know she likes bread.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that is just immature, you know, shiftiness that we saying, and uh you know, um, still doubles as her next song, you know.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: But that got the interest of Ken Holder because he was like, we we remind him of treason.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So I used to be by Ed Gordon Studios, my father dropping me there 9 p.m.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: and I waited until Ken finished session until 2 a.m.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: just to get like 10 minutes in his studio.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I would have seen Marshall with the PowerPoft guilds.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: I was just a youth there, like seeing all.
10:49
Corie: Yeah, if you know that studio in the 50s for sure.
10:51
Corie: Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
10:52
Corie: 40, 40, 40, proud 40.
10:55
Corie: So you're real young going around them times.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And you're seeing, um, but I remember seeing Bungie this summer.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: I always remember, I never told Bungie this, but like I remember he walked in his studio and like he passed us straight, and he realized he passed us shit, and he turned around, he was like, Hey, apologies fellas.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And I always respected her, you know.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: I was always like, this fellow humble, you know, and it was a quality I really from my young age.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then just seeing who else, um, I believe I saw Blazer, I believe I saw KMC.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: We were just there, so many, and then that studio turned into synergy, right?
11:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I was there from like the booth of all these things, just there, just watching, you know.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Come we were just waiting for hours because we we get like what like half an hour in the studio, yeah.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: It's taking that.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, Ken used to give us his free time, but he actually had an obvious studio, so it's paid hours, right?
11:39
SPEAKER_00: So he would give us his free time, yeah.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Wherever he ever made it, but when we just live in there, that time we get robbed too by the studio, yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: We get robbed.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Um going for something to drink.
11:51
Corie: It's good days.
11:52
Corie: So this is where your name always is wrong.
11:54
Corie: You've been in his own.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And I don't pick up my dad too.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, my dad was in the media media um, so anybody from TTT days to government channel days, you know.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: My father used to host the um, you know, it's one station now.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: So when I was in primary school, my father's a celebrity.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows my father, and then um my father always dabbling calypso too.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: He actually had a song called St.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: James at the action.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a St.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: James one.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: I like this song already.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: I like the song.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: So so I grew up in the industry, I grew up around around it, right?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, and then my dad retired from like entertainment and stuff, and he ended up working in ministry education.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So you know, he kind of just went uh life of just being a family man, yeah, yeah.
12:31
Corie: But you stick with it all the way up to love on your road.
12:34
Corie: So you were talking about the difficulty of performing soaker, because we know you're for hip-hop.
12:38
Corie: Like if I had to say known, like hip hop and trap.
12:40
Corie: So if somebody had to ask me, yeah.
12:41
Corie: So I mean, when you mentioned Zumba, I remember seeing the thing with Zumba, and I was like, Zumba too.
12:47
Corie: It's my first one, right?
12:48
Corie: Yeah, it's another it's a no limit.
12:50
Corie: But your somebody's difficulty your power soaker as an artist.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, for me, it's like I'm not afraid crowd.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I perform, I can tell I performed, I mean, the biggest um I performed great for I opened for future chabarances, myself and young rod.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: We performed at Boom Champions Wet Rally, which is 10,000 people, you know, and it was a cast of only hip-hop artists, which was amazing.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh we I perform a Lollapalooza, a lot of people don't know that.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, like I we opened for Lana Delry.
13:17
Corie: You know, so well that's so with them experiences, you do be you're comfortable going on.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean you always get noobs.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it I always I feel like I'm almost like uh you know an out of season athlete, like somebody who can do this in here.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I I over the past few years I became more of a studio artist because of opportunity, too.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of my opportunities were recording for producers away.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But I don't really get book here per se.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll get little bookings here and there, but it's not like nowhere is like you have a song that's hot and you know, opportunities coming fast.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: But no, I say power soaker is different because the rapper energy is it's more about being cool and you know that that kind of sword.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Nobody care about that, whatever.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Did you mash up the place or not?
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was humble very quickly because I've been experimenting with moving more, you know.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Like when myself and young Rod were performing, I would be the more commanding, cool guy.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Young Rod would be the more energetic, right?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, he takes after he pops, he had the soaker in every yeah, but for me, that was my vibe.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Now I think over the years I kind of got stuck in that zone of and then EDM was me hype in an audience, but it's not about whining.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be hype yourself, you could just yeah, you can I remember the the the Caucasian persuasion.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: When you you say hands up, everybody but hands up they're like eh children that you say hands up and they don't say with you, boy.
14:34
Corie: Yeah, the work, you don't work, yeah.
14:37
Corie: So I think starting from scratch thing is a real thing, you know, because just yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And and and I I think that's something that's you know it's exciting to me, but also at the same time it could be a bit overwhelming.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And then you also had a move, you know.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I can't be sluggish as a power soak artist.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: So people can't fall asleep.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So all that I've been putting in the work, and you know, you're getting older and you know, you're poor and some more size, and yeah, you had to do all that.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, I try to figure out then I look at the artists like Bungie, artists like with my Iowa.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: They don't whine and you know, pelt waist, like how Marshall would whine on pelt waist and have dancers and stuff, you know.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: So I don't find my space within there, you know.
15:14
Corie: Yeah, and you say doing vocal training for it too.
15:16
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
15:16
Corie: Difficult song to sing.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a real because I learned from the vocal channel, I'm a second tenor.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And globally, second tenors are like um Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, locally, they they gave Marshall and Kess as the best examples.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and these these guys have been doing this.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Kess is is is properly vocally trained, you know.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, so but for me, it it's how do I sound good and execute live, which I which I know I know I could sing, but moving to now, and then shouting, shouting is a part.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: I was saying big shouting is a part of so people want you to mash up the place, yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm quickly reminded that it's not because people don't care if you didn't, because I just say real off note when I watch it big so carter, but nobody I just noticed a kind of music, but most people don't care, they just is our friends there, and I think all that is part of the phenomena that's so and carnival, you know.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And I don't look down at it, I just look at it as something different, right?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: But I just have total different vibe from international, and I was getting my feet wet in international, where if you do them thing internationally, red guard, yeah, for sure.
16:21
Corie: I always remember um a Super Bowl performance.
16:24
Corie: I want to say Salicia Keys, you know, Usher had his half-time performance, yeah, and she hit a wrong note out the gate.
16:29
Corie: Yeah, as soon as she came on for her part, she hit a wrong note, and yeah, you can't find it nowhere, you can't find it now.
16:34
Corie: You saw it like that.
16:35
Corie: They went on over topics, yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: They don't play them games, not generally you can watch performances, but nobody, and I think it's it's about it's about connecting with people, it's about mashing up the places, about soccer and carnival is.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, historically, obviously, it it's it's it's an escape in a different way, right?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: But in in modern day times, is the escape from your job, your your your home life.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: No people are really escape.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: It is that euphoria, of course.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: So is that a tough job?
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Rough it, rough it's a good thing.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Making the the the the road march or the soccer monarch or just songs for carnival, it's uh that is that is a tough job.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's responsible.
17:12
Corie: Like, yeah, people said that Trinidadian audiences come out to be entertained.
17:15
Corie: That comedian was saying that when they come out, they say, All right, make my laugh.
17:18
Corie: Yeah, but he was also saying that I think it was Junille talking about that.
17:21
Corie: He said, get to the point where they become a part of the thing, and now they're with you, and now they're with you.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's the opposite of way because I can give the Lala Palooza example.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Now I I performed with Bad Royal, right?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you remember Bad Royal, but they came down to work with Bungie Garland.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, some white guys wanted long blonde hair and stuff.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: But I ended up um linking with them.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean them bad doubles then.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And I took what happened, Bungie and Faye were busy for carnival, obviously, um being artists.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So they needed somebody to kind of take them around.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: So I remember my man, I bring them on top Digi.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: So this truck, that truck.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And I took such good care of them that they were like, come to Miami Music, week with us.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: And that that just was a whole game changer.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, I would then that'd be to perform and it's Steve, it's Steve Ioky.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: But but the point is on the Lollapalooza stage, people are such fanatics away that right after I performed, they don't know who I was.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: I was just a guest artist, they didn't know my name.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Somebody found me on Twitter and tagged from the audience and tagged me and tagged me in a photo.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, that is how, and then I walk in through the audience, people run up to me and ask me for pictures.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, different.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: The first time I ever performed in Miami, it had a line of 10 wide girls with another.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:30
Corie: David Well writers.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: No, I understand that these are experiences I don't get to talk about because most people are not really interested in that side of my career.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: But I've experienced that.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: But in Trinidad is literally, as you say, stand up and entertain, you know, like who are you?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: I have seen big artists perform.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, like if you perform a summer, people don't know.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: I've seen even the biggest artists perform a summer people don't know, and people just do this.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I can't understand it.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I saw my luna, and it happened to me just the other day in one of the Christmas parties.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Trinidad will stand up and watch yourself, and then after a performance, walk up there and be like, that was a really good performance.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Can I get a picture with you?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And you like what?
19:11
Corie: I still do that, same thing in the stadium.
19:13
Corie: We sit down and watch football like we now back inside.
19:16
Corie: We don't make no noise, we don't, you know what I mean?
19:17
Corie: So it's just one of them.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: And big up Tobago too.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Tobago is a now.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Luckily, young brother and myself, get love from Tobago.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: We say if you're from Bago now, boy, yeah, yeah.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: That line was a game changer for us because Tobago loves they love us and they still love us because I was there last week.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Um and that is the thing, but Tobago, if you feel Trinidadians, though, yeah, listen, if Tobago nothing here they're not today.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
19:39
Corie: And it's it if you you break it down, Trinidad and Tobago, because salt is a different ball game.
19:44
Corie: So they ain't sat until about 2 30 morning, them now warm up.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It's like everywhere, everywhere so unique.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere is different, East Crowd different.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: East Crowd will just you know they're watching it at different.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And then points.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I remember one of my first performances was Sukamana preliminaries in points.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And My bread Jen was my neighbor and he at the time looking back, he probably looked Venezuelan.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: So at the time, people was like, and he decided to wear like a proper shoot and and say, I say, bro, if we go in there, yeah.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: He didn't take my own.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: So as he comes on, he was he used his counterman back in in the West now, right?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: So he used to get the girls in the West and but they had the front ball game.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: So we have a boo, and I had to take the boat my chest on.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And we have after the boo, we have to walk through the crowd.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nice.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And he only seen gold watching it.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the front.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And the body had the smile went in.
20:32
Corie: Yeah, we hardly ever see the smile go in.
20:34
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:35
Corie: But you bring up Venezuela, you said that is Mevon and a Venezuelan producer who does love and hero.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you and me, which is interesting.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: I I never met UL me.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: So I work with a lot of people.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I forget I never met them.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Never met in person.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Never, never met on um ULM.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: So I started to get a big name in EDM as a vocalist.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: So this is a whole different world.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Just like how we have Julian's promos, right?
20:58
SPEAKER_00: They have YouTube channels like um like Trap City and you know Tribal Trap.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: And to young producers around the world, guys like they're Julian's promos for EDM.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So they saw me as an artist there and working with producer, producers, sorry, that they look up to.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: So they DM'd me and I was like, hey, can we do a song with you?
21:14
SPEAKER_00: So I was saying, you know, usually, because actually you can actually charge an EDM, right?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: You can charge for vocals.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: So I said, you know what?
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me help the youth out.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: But I say, what I need to do, all right.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I will do the vocals, but if you could produce a song for me, I kind of want to experiment with reggae tune.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: So the first song I did with Joel me was a song called Pronto.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And I released that journey pandemic, and that was my test.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: That was my business card.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Network.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: And I just DM every day, 10 people are DMing.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Every day I don't exercise.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: It's pandemic, yeah.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Every day, 10.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: And that is a level of discipline I learned now that and I always tell asked people want to know how do I network.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: You just DM people, they had a try.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you 10 a day, and 10 respond.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And so that's I do 10 a day for two weeks and only 10 respond.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So that is to tell you plenty scene.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
22:00
Corie: That's what it is.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I took that, it took that, and that um that led me to meeting Alex Murray, who is one of the biggest, um, he was pit bulls DJ, and he's also a current DJ for the Chicago Bulls.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: And you know, like he had a label he was setting up, and I was able to go to um to Chicago to work on music, go to Miami to work on music during the pandemic, and within that we were experimenting with Calypso and Soker.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And he loved especially Calypso.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: But the soccer song that he likes, Ready to Go Home.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Back and All Time.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: So we actually have a legitimate release uh version of Super Blues Back and All Time.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, called Ready to Go Home.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And as it has been played on radio in Germany, it has been played all over the world.
22:41
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
22:41
Corie: So those those those efforts to get into different genres, it's deliberate for you.
22:45
Corie: You working towards that?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, for me, I you know, I feel like I'm a DJ artist.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, like how DJs appreciate different genres.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And my brain thinks like that now.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: My brain thinks about mixing different genres and experimenting, and you know, like refixes.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm a re I was like a refix man, but as an artist.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: So that is a pro and a con because um in some ways you're not you're not known for one thing.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: So it's like people you never master one thing.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of seems random to people, you're jumping from hip-hop top.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: But the the pro is it's different markets that you could build in if you I learn how to curate it, you know, because I have songs out that already post on social media.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I have songs out for the like TV and film, and that is not stuff.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: So people will see I have that, but then they'll be like, how come on?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: How come you then put push it on Facebook?
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I say, well, on now, Instagram, because yeah, it's a different thing.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: You make music specifically for that.
23:38
Corie: You know, so you're making music in them times specifically for those foreign markets.
23:42
Corie: You have it mind that DISY market you want to look at?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, EDM happened through Bad Royal.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: I could say that.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And that just I just went with it, you know.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Imagine I was just saying, I mean never at the whole standard.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: I with I and me jelly's after party.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: I he was living with big celebrities, big NFL players, and you know, yeah, yeah.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And and wrestlers and thing, you know, and uh yeah, people I see on TV, right?
24:04
SPEAKER_00: I line with.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And that is because uh Shaq, I went Shaq, I mean Shaq, I went Shaq.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Um Shaq has this thing called Shaq's Fun House.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't know Shaq the Shaqy Don't Neil.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: He's an idiot, Mike Man.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't know that.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: He's DJ, right?
24:17
SPEAKER_00: So because of Bad Royal, I went to his party and he's just meeting more people and more.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: I remember I stand out there, right?
24:23
SPEAKER_00: It's been me tall fellow with dreadlocks from the caribbean.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wanna talk to me.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
24:27
Corie: And I hear you say too that your accent is one of the things that's work for you, Trinidadian twangest accent.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um, I mean, you know, they might think you're Jamaica no Haitian.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: I just go with it.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: I just say, well, I say I'm from Trinidad, but let's say let's just take any opportunity happening, right?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, or as they say, they say we want those Rasta vocals.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't correct them so that I say, you know what?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Let me just do the business and I'll correct them after and tell them.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is this is not Rasta vocals.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: This is very true, Trin big onion.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: But any param, I could just speak on the genres real quick.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Parang was um, you know, we started to experiment with hip hop, but then Christmas came and you know, Mevon, I know Mevon would have told a story on on the podcast, and it was just yeah, it's like let's be creative.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: We just had fun with creativity, you know.
25:10
Corie: I was surprised when Mevon said that's because again, I was like Parang with brave boy, that's where it started, you know.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Because just something you like, something you try.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: But I the funny thing is there are some people who know me as a parent artist at any gas station on Racing Road, and this woman stopped me and she was like, Are you a Parang artist?
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's from Guyana, right?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: She said she sees my music video in Guyana for the Param song.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: So she don't know nothing else.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: She knows me as this man who does SIG Parang.
25:36
Corie: Nice.
25:36
Corie: As I say, when people know you for one thing is a slow burn, but it could pay off in the long run, you know, because you play in so many different fields.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, now I reach a point where you realize you do have to curate it, right?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: So will I do a param again?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But so to me, I find a nice sweet spot with the international and local because Zumba and I call it like global party music.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: And that is after doing the backhand all the time.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: The um with with well, ready to go home with.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: I realize there's a sweet spot.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Alex put me on to this.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: It's like what back in the day they used to call world music.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, world music was very exciting.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: But in the DJ world, there's club music that they play in these clubs in Europe and in Latin America and in even in the Middle East.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And my voice, and it's a lot, it's people like Sean Paul and Shaq, he dominate that will.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So he saw the goal in my voice, and he's like, You are like that.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And then I would say Marshall as well.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Marshall's tone and Marshall's style is out there, you know.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just there's a disconnect in terms of people knowing.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: People just don't know.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, these what happens is they they um, you know what DJ Pools?
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, DJ Pools just like all his blasts.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, you can say like Julian's has a DJ Pool.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: So DJ Pools are pretty big in like the global DJs.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: DJs are DJ, just in top, uh they play a lot of top 40 stuff in clubs away.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: So so songs would fit into a damn soul category.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: So if they're giving out like they have a damn soul pack, you know, like they have packs, you might randomly hear like Marshall Fast Wine, they might randomly a lot of kiss songs.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Hello, Kess Hello, hello.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Because my same brethren from Chicago tell me that hello, hello was in the Latin DJ foods.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, as is or remixes?
27:12
Corie: No, as is.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: I see.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Right, but to the Latin crowd, that is just another song they hear and they don't know, you know.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the time it's in the mighty shazam it.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And it cast might get a new fans.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think I still feel it's a missed opportunity there to do hola, hola, hola, boo, bojo, boju.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, shh.
27:29
Corie: Makes sense.
27:30
Corie: I had a conversation.
27:35
Corie: Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
27:37
Corie: So in the earliest days, you so can you said was the first genre that you want it again?
27:41
Corie: So by that time you realize you want to be an artist, that's what you want to do for free life.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Because I literally remember it like it was yesterday, and I went, I went Saints right there, yeah.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So big up to the CIC.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't, I don't see what is the big school though.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Saints man country.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: You start 2026, man.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Nah, don't saints, man.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And my dad picked me up from school.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And I remember, I think it was Carnival Week and I heard on the problem in hard for the car.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And I just something because I was always a fan of soccer, but that was the game-changing moment where I was like, What is that?
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to be a part of that.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And here in Treason, because they brought a kind of cool to soccer that I never heard before now.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: They was like the it was like dance hall, but it was us.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, and fast forward, I think that's what Trapso did for youths, right?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And I had that moment, and I was obsessed with everything to do treason.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I know the full names, I know all the lyrics to the songs, I know everything about them.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And it was again to meet them.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: The first time I went to Marshall's studio, Ed Gordon Studio, I met Ace from Treason.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And Ace was real cool, and Ace was freestyling because he made us very comfortable, you know.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So, but that was the moment that is when I realized, and I was obsessed with the rag as soccer.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: So I was there, I I see Bungie, Bungie perform at Bishops, kind of jump up with the green shoes and days, and it was like remember Tano social media.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: So when you see a social uh soccer artist, it's almost like you had to commit to memory, yeah.
29:07
Corie: Those days you can't really take a picture with them, the phone thing wasn't as good as it's a good thing.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was you just had to remember it, and I still remember, and then the all-star, you know, the all-star show.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, I think that was the only time all of them, or maybe the last time all of them really performed.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: But I saw Ghetto Flex, KMC Attack Attacan, and Bungie Garland perform.
29:25
Corie: Oh, right, they performed together.
29:26
Corie: I saw that, yeah.
29:26
Corie: I saw that.
29:27
Corie: I don't think I ever see all of them perform.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that I don't know what what reason that, but I saw that.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: I saw that live, so yeah, and then KMC, you know, like big fan of KMC too, and ghetto flex.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Ghetto Flex is I think is an unsung hero in so I think he he led a generation of like that raga soaker.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: He was real big, you know, of course.
29:45
Corie: At that point, you know.
29:47
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
29:48
Corie: Because he would not come from that, huh?
29:50
Corie: So like my time and you you there too, so you see that.
29:53
Corie: And it is important to see what bungee treason came see.
29:58
Corie: Them fellas change.
29:59
Corie: They change the games, they change the games.
30:00
Corie: Not talked about enough.
30:02
Corie: Of course.
30:03
Corie: Because when them fellas come out, again, like I hear the discussion a lot now that youths don't like soccer.
30:09
Corie: Yeah, that is not a new discussion.
30:10
Corie: We used to hear that in we time.
30:12
Corie: I don't know if I like for me, for instance, that that that middle of the 90s time late 90s going into 2000 is when it changed, right?
30:19
Corie: Yeah, I couldn't take no more of them jump away for them.
30:21
Corie: As much as I love it now, like back in our time, I think that's one of the songs I hate the most.
30:25
Corie: You just hear too much when you're taking a.
30:29
Corie: It was just repetitive.
30:30
Corie: You hear preacher, you hear things.
30:32
Corie: It just feels like this like again.
30:34
Corie: You know this thing.
30:35
Corie: And then when Treason and the men called Bungie, salute to him.
30:39
Corie: Because I remember Bungie and them make we come brass festival and customs and like David and them kind of fed, you know.
30:44
Corie: I know we fet.
30:45
Corie: Yeah, but you had to go, you had to go to see Bungie and them.
30:48
Corie: It was crazy to see Bryan.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And then the musical experimentation remember here and dun dun.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: And you know that remember around that time everybody watching BT on MTV.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: So you know that is Ali and Timbalon.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, wait, that isn't so it it locked the youths in on there and the producers like um like Ken Holder, Daryl Braxton, Shell Shock, because he crossed generations.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Shell Shock is our next legend.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I feel he's unsung hero.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Unsung hero, the music that we like still listen to to this day.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: He crossed generations, you know?
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course, of course.
31:23
Corie: So it's in seeing that you find yourself, you find where you could you could soon.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm a soaker nude, you know.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think people think I think people surprised that I know so much about so, but I I am a soccer nude.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
31:35
Corie: So, what went on with the original soaker you do?
31:37
SPEAKER_00: The first song I did was called the Bretley Show.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And around this time, I started off as a producer.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: That's an excellent people don't know, right?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, and my father was very supportive.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Evidently, yeah.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: So no, no, and I say when I hear stories now about the sacrifices he made just to do these things, but you know, he bought a drum machine for me, right?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: So I used to add a little makeshift, you know, the living room was a studio, right?
31:59
SPEAKER_00: And I made up a beat um which was like Juve mixed with hip-hop, and uh Ken Holder co-produced it.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: And that song actually got airplay.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: So the first my first at the airplay was on 98.9.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Pick up Miller Team, man.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Hands the beans was um was was was part of that too.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: So it's Hans, Flex, and an ex Virgin.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, them they they liked it, they saw the innovation.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you get played, you only getting played rare like 2 a.m.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: At 15 years old, that's a big deal.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: So we did the youth fest, we did the soccer monarch, and you know, like that.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: That's how it started.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And and the the the year after that song called Fling It Back.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I entered the soccer monarch again.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: But very quickly, I was kind of saw the politics of soca.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: I remember going backstage in point 14 for the preliminaries, and my father was in points.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: In point, yeah, we reach early.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: We come from the go, we reach early.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: My father organized dancers.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: He had no dancers on the boo.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: It was a good full liter.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: We actually try.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: We try, you know.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Nah, that that that that that point.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I know.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: So we went, we reach uh early, right?
33:07
SPEAKER_00: So like we say that they told us call time was two o'clock.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: We reached two o'clock, and I performed probably like 2 a.m.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Because you saw the politics of and I'm only saying this because it's just the truth.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: You reach, and then a big artist reach, and he gets to go one time, and she got to go one time, and then we just waiting and everybody dancers falling asleep.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's an order or they just it's just it's it's it nah.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: But then you realize how things happen and how things work, and it's who you know, and I think that's a very important thing, you know.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, then I mean I drop CD by station, remember?
33:38
SPEAKER_00: You can't email.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: No, it's on a bit and them thing we traveling in Hudson to go by on Chagrid Road to drop, you know, to drop CD for and you had a label it, and most times they may even listen to it.
33:49
Corie: Never use that and is like for people who listening now who from this era, yeah.
33:55
Corie: It's hard to describe for them when it was just 98.9 and then a little bit after 96.1, it's like they have two urban stations because most of the airwaves wasn't playing soaker anyway.
34:04
Corie: Most wasn't playing soaker, which apparently is still the case now, but most of them are playing soaker.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's a different time and they didn't have any can of soaker switch.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's no soaker switch, it's no nothing.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: So that's why when people talk about whether it's uh whatever they want to say, so mafia or I think it was just a different time too.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And as remember, they said people, yes, artists make, you know, you you take your time and you create something and you want to put it out there, but it's a business, yeah.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: So them promoters, the the these the the everybody in the industry, the radio station has our business, the the the business of a radio station is to sell ads, right?
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Not to play music.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: So when you when you grow up, you realize those things.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: But I've been there when you're young and you when your song gets played, you're hungry and you like work so hard to do this.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, so I've been through it all.
34:44
Corie: So some of your politics make it pivot from soak, or you just wanted to try other things.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: I think so because I think after a few years of trying, I mean, the the early socks, I would say uh uh at 15, 16, getting a sound radio, I would say some kind of thing.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: But then you realize that you're not fully accepting.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Then what happened is remember, I was in a group and my brother Jen, he went away to study.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: And then you say, you know, your father have that conversation with your son, you know.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I know music is your thing, but I think you need to get a backup.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the group at the time?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: What's the name of the group?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Breathless crew.
35:12
Corie: Breathless crew.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is from Tobago.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: We were the last crew on the beach, we won last crew on the beach, and we needed a name.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And remember, there was our slang Breathless, we moved in Breathless.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I tell you from my ear, and that is that and we went with that, you know.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: We say, well, I see name we see Breathless Crew.
35:27
Corie: Yeah, so your father now telling you you had to make some choices.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, well, yeah, yeah, because I actually had a plan because music was always my passion and music business.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mention Graham Wilson.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Rest in peace, Uncle Graham.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Graham Wilson is one of the most prolific producers and jingle producers from Trinidad.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: So all them, but there's Chubby Had and all them things.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he produced all them things.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: He was the but he also produced a lot of soccer songs he worked with from the from Marshall and a lot of big artists.
35:55
Corie: But wasn't about him when people were doing the rest in peace posting or so how much people were talking about.
35:59
Corie: He's an on-song hero too.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And you know, my father was trying to get me some mentors in the industry.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: So he took me to Graham's studio, and then Graham was like Mark I said, because I went CIC and he was like, You have a brain, you you need to take this industry.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: I think he was coming from a point where there are real people who could make music and creatives.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: We need more brains in the industry.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: We need the one missing, he saw it from since then.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: We need more people who were on MBA level and things to really develop, who care about the industry.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, so he was telling me, I think you should study music, study the business of music.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: And I never even knew they had a courses in the music or any business of music.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: So I started to go online and look for courses, and I was actually gonna go away and study in the UK, right?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And um, I start my dad was saying, Hey, well, say he he found a job for me.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: He said, apply for this job.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: It was uh I was actually a core transcriptionist.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: And for those people who don't know that is 90 person who doesn't type, but I was isolated, so I used to type, I used to type in code outside in an isolated room, right?
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And that was a part of my career, and then I was working Digicel, so I was I was a core transcriptionist during the day, and then I used to work the the um as a call center agent when digicell in all.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:11
Corie: And I talked about my hustle as about making money because I thought no scientists know everybody, yeah.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: No, I say I was saying a long time.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: So I was saving my money to go.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: So this is just after Saints.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: This, yeah, this there's after Saints, right?
37:25
SPEAKER_00: So I did a course in in Custard.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: So people know me from I went to Custard to people and I'd saved my money, and I you know, uh at the time, you know, I you know, I had my girlfriend and you know, they're slack reds.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I became quickly known for having a sweet girl and being this raster man who does just dress up and you know that life now, you know.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: I was saving my from a Sephero.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: In my mind, I success.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was successful, yes.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Sephero.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can say different.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Zen Upstairs.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Women the big deal.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Zen Upstairs, women.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's how a lot of people always wondered who is this guy at me.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: I was 2021.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: At 2021, you're standing out now because you have this hot girl, everybody looking at, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: My frogs had friends who were kind of on the popular scene, and so people always thought, well, he's a somebody.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: People used to call me, he had a bit entertainer or something.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: So I think that kind of helped me in the social scene.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I was always known.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I was always very known, you know.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Got it, got it.
38:28
Corie: So somewhere along this line, I look and I put things with you, and some of the people who are most concerned about who's around by the stable is people who have LLB.
38:35
Corie: Not the drink.
38:37
Corie: They agree.
38:38
unknown: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:39
Corie: Low lions come here and say you have an LLB and play and take me home and all this kind of thing.
38:44
Corie: You know what I mean?
38:44
Corie: And there's a personal lawyer like hell Maxine Williams talking about being out in here.
38:48
Corie: So I started to study, you know.
38:49
Corie: I'd start to tell my son, I say, boy, whatever you do, yeah, don't study law.
38:52
Corie: Okay, you ain't gonna use it.
38:53
Corie: You ain't gonna use it.
38:54
Corie: You ain't gonna use it.
38:55
Corie: What would that come about?
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people think that is like something like my parents say you need to study law, but I remember watching a lot of, I always watch a lot of documentaries about the music industry.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And the one thing I always saw is that people get ripped off.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And I always wanted to protect myself.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And I had a big up Karen James too.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: He's uh he was the entertainment lawyer in Trinidad.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: So he was Marshall lawyer, this one lawyer, that one lawyer.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: And I actually apprenticed with him, you know.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: So we did some work, promoting work and stuff.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh Karen, there was we had some meetings with Karen.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: I saw the way how people uh listen to him, and I saw that the value that he brought to the industry as in being able to draft contracts and being able to decipher contracts, you could really it could it could change losing$50,000, you know.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I always saw the power in.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And then remember the time I was working magistrate court, say kind of lawyers have a way to carry themselves.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Where, and I you know, people say lawyers, lawyers are arrogant, right?
39:58
SPEAKER_00: But there's a kind of a level of brilliance and And what they bring to the table, and I admire that too now.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: It's like I want I want people to respect me like that too.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: So when I walk in the I I'm gonna dress the way I always dress, but when I say I have a low degree, you really get a different look now.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, you have a brain, which is unfortunate because people are very judgmental.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: But I from a very young age was very strategic, and I was like, I want to be seen as this, I want to be seen as this, and I want to be seen as this.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Because it's one of those things they can't deny you.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: If it is you have the look, if it is you have the brains, if it is you have the networking still and the personality.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: So I always from a young age strategically wanted that.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: So law was a missing part of it.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh I went another how it happened.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I went, I was supposed to go to go away to study music business, and I started to save money as I was saying.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: And then some of my co-workers started to do the LLB.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't even know you could do that, and even though you could study from the University of London externally.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, right.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then I saw Jillian Lucky at a cut meeting because I used to I went cut meeting since I'm a teenager.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Why?
40:57
SPEAKER_00: I I want to learn, right?
40:59
SPEAKER_00: And then she told me about her school ATS, and um I went to ATS, actually wanted to study intellectual property, right?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: But I ended up doing my LLB, and that's just how the low parts started.
41:09
Corie: So that coming from Mr.
41:10
Corie: Wilson's advice in terms of learning the business.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's connected.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Like I now that I'm older, I realize all of this was connected, but it definitely started from his advice, um, and him saying, you know, you you need to be a brain in the industry as well.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I spent a lot of years on the business side of the industry.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people do not know that.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: So like I've been studying, licensing, and publishing, and by using my own songs to learn.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Understood.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, so that was something.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm very knowledgeable about it.
41:36
Corie: Yeah, this is at a real young age you're talking about, and you already have some of the music business, you have performing, yeah, you have writing and composing under your belt already.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing that since writing?
41:46
SPEAKER_00: We go into elementary school lab, kindergarten, and and dad, me and daddy extempoin.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: So I writing since I like two years ago.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so school days is calypso competition, all them things, or yeah.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: I was in NJAC.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, is NJAC Calypso Competition?
42:02
SPEAKER_00: My dad wrote a song for my daddy Take Back the Gun.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, and it's still the dad's crazy thing, it's still relevant to today.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I could imagine, I could imagine.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I did the Calypso competition for sure.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: I was on 12 and under, I won the best instrumentalist.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: I used to play clarinet.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, we should start with way and do.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna say it with my only child, right?
42:20
SPEAKER_00: So, and big up to the to the parents who really support the kids, you know.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: Like my mom and dad really worked hard.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't come from a wealthy family or nothing like that.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think you're from the West, they have money.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: No, my parents are middle class who work very hard just to just to give me love and just to give me opportunities, right?
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, I I know I was in class with with uh Brass Institute with ATN Charles.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, seriously me and ATN though, I know 18 since he had Fatima uniform going going um with uh rest in peace to Anthony Woodrow.
42:49
Corie: Of course, seriously, but this man knows that was I was in everything.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: I was as a DJ and a sound system called Fifth Element Sound System, right?
42:57
SPEAKER_00: And I used to do with the the the first house party, we get the computer shut down.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't think no more, and then we couldn't afford the plates.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: So people we were talking about love on the road and how I can switch my voice.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: That started from the plates.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't afford the plates, so I had to imitate elephant man.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: So I used to be like, This is elephant man, big up this elephant something.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: So we had fake double plates.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's be like my voice, and and sprung our hands, and you know, okay, yo, yeah, love, and that is that's how I started starting to do it.
43:31
Corie: Come to use today, yeah, yeah.
43:32
Corie: So there's not a place you can bypass things like clarinet on thing, you know you're still playing on thing, or you nah, that's something that I know my mom and my dad wanted me to continue.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: But I felt that was just for time, but it allowed me to be very musical.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: So even with Love on the Road and how I could write, I think people, when you're when you're a rapper, people box in, you know.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: So I'm a very musical person, and I think it's gonna show more and more as my career progresses, right?
43:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and and I understand music.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: From several sides, from several sides, right?
44:02
SPEAKER_00: I understand the cool side of it, I understand the more theoretical side of it, I understand.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: But I never really liked theory to be honest.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: I always like I like jazz because it was like I like improvising, you know, and yeah, but the the theory thing was I remember I think I did up to I was doing grade five, and I was like, nah, but you know, most people don't come here and say that.
44:18
Corie: You used to see that people don't nah, there's no further.
44:21
Corie: We had to find a different way to teach music theory and trend.
44:23
Corie: I find we had too much options to teach people music theory.
44:27
Corie: Um colonial version of music theory.
44:28
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
44:29
Corie: Because we end up with great musicians who carry that thing.
44:32
Corie: No, for sure.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: They know if it's right, or they know if it's wrong, or they don't know if it fits or if it goes work.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: And these so come musicians are on a different level.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, I remember when I was in LA, I'd play one of my favorite songs to play for people who don't from Trinidad is Iowa Hannah.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And I remember this older white guy who plays um for this band in the UK, and I play Hanna Nana, and he just watched me like he was amazed that a drum, because he's a drummer, he was like, drummers play this live.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, yeah, but Iowa performed, they have drummers playing this.
45:05
Corie: Yeah, it's something that we miss.
45:06
Corie: I don't know.
45:07
Corie: Because, like, um, there's a book I read, I was read this all the time from Gladwell called Um Outliers.
45:13
Corie: Outliers, yeah, yeah.
45:14
Corie: Real good book, right?
45:15
Corie: I meet them the other day.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: It's on my Instagram.
45:20
Corie: I don't want to forget it, right?
45:22
Corie: But Gladwell of Outliers and talks about the 10,000 hour theory.
45:26
Corie: Yeah, in in that book, 10,000 hours mean anything you do for 10,000 hours, you'll become an expert or world class at it, right?
45:31
Corie: So give or take 10,000 hours, people paint to it.
45:33
Corie: But early in the book, he talks about the Beatles and why the Beatles became great.
45:37
Corie: And he was saying that the Beatles, similar to things you say, they're playing anywhere.
45:41
Corie: So they end up getting gigs where they end up in a cafe, and no other bands want to come to the thing, so they end up playing four, five, six hours a night.
45:49
Corie: Yeah, that's how they that's how they're 10,000 hours.
45:52
Corie: Think of our musicians, brother.
45:54
Corie: Yeah, how long they play for in fact.
45:56
Corie: Just think about a band musician, a drummer in a band, for instance, like you're giving the example.
45:59
Corie: Yeah, you had to learn about 200 songs in case our artists run up.
46:02
Corie: In case I don't play whole night because I Colin Lucas and them coming here talking about band playing for 45 minutes and thing now.
46:08
Corie: Band playing whole night.
46:09
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:09
Corie: Think of Skinner Park.
46:11
Corie: I don't know how musicians hear anything in Skinner Park after a while.
46:14
Corie: Because when you play for so long, shit music or not, you had to get deaf.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: And some of these musicians play in other genres too.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: They're playing when jazz come around, they play in there, then they play in in wherever police band.
46:26
Corie: They bad the police band is a good example.
46:28
Corie: It's bad, bad musicians.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Now we really tell them I think sometimes I would say this industry, as hard as it is, it prepares you.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: If you could if you could succeed in this industry, you'll be a boss in the international industry once you understand their rules.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: But in terms of work ethic, in terms of remember, we don't have all the resources here, so you gotta figure out how to do things.
46:50
Corie: Yeah, it can't be it can't be just one thing in this market.
46:52
Corie: So, how you at Gladwell?
46:54
Corie: So these are my heroes, huh?
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: So um, me and my girlfriend went to um Battle Rouge recently.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: Um because I knew I was about to start this season.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: I just kind of wanted, no, I don't take vacation and thing, right?
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Like anytime I go away, is I end up doing some music stuff or whatever, right?
47:13
SPEAKER_00: In between.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: But I actually wanted our like just just to just to clear my head before I went into this chapter.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: And um, our family in Baton Rouge, I just never visited.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: And you always say, I always want to go to New Orleans, yeah, right?
47:27
SPEAKER_00: And I went to Baton Rouge and before going on the trip, I was just looking for stuff for me and my girlfriend to do.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: And randomly on Eventbrite, I saw this Malcolm Gladwell thing, and it was like 20 US.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can meet Malcolm Gladwell for 20 US.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: I went, man.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: He's a very shy person and a very um socially awkward person.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: But when I met him, it's just like a line of people to meet him and they get the autograph and stuff.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you know, he's Jamaican.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: So I said, hey, what's up, Malcolm from Trinidad and to be what I get him to smile at all?
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my pictures he wouldn't make you mad smiling.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're not.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: And that just shows you why that means something.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Being from the Caribbean connects us because he's totally disconnected from all of this.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: But it made him smile to see somebody else, to see somebody from Trinidad who knows his work and who and recognize him as Jamaican.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: And recognize him as Jamaican.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm advocating.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: For those who don't believe it, check my Instagram.
48:15
Corie: Yeah, it's one becoming the interest most interesting person ever.
48:18
Corie: Maybe I should tell my son do that law degree.
48:20
Corie: Love people who come here as most interesting people to talk to.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: I used to see Lou.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: I used to see Lou when I was doing my LLB exams.
48:26
Corie: He passed in three, you really have it.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean I see that's Bobo Shanty.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: I was like, but who says Bobo Shanty?
48:32
SPEAKER_00: I said that is I thought it was cool.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: I said, Look, Bobo Shanti do it all about it.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the militant too, right?
48:39
SPEAKER_00: He's an extra little love.
48:40
Corie: It's one of those things where, again, as you say, you become so multifaceted in our industry.
48:45
Corie: It's something we must tap into more.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't I'd have thought I was in Rock too, you know how to pick up Five Miles to Midnight.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I tore with Five Miles to Midnight.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, Reese from Bobo Brook.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: So Reese was the drummer for Five Miles to Midnight.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in Rock Rock Days.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: We opened for Evanescence and Steven Marley.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: We should have just started with what the man didn't do.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I think as the thing, so it's like I have a I've done a lot.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: It's just people in those circles know me.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but so is the mainstream of that.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: And what I realize, especially as of recent, unless you do something successful in soccer, you're underground.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: It's the truth, right?
49:22
Corie: So for years and the funny story, but when you say underground, sometimes you're huge abroad, and they're still calling you.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of bigger people like Malon Asher.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, I remember going to LA and you know, they didn't know who some of the other soccer artists were, but they knew who Malon Asher was.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: You see it was avenue.
49:42
Corie: You see it with Queen Omega, Queen Omega.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Even Jillian Air from Jillian Air from Major Lisa, you know, Jillian Air.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in person that he is, you know, like a superstar.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like he is a superstar, you know.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: And um Mark Stuntman as well.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: Man stuntman is from Belmont.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: I've two songs with the man stuntman, by the way.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: I've two songs, and right now he on tow in Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but right now he onto in Kazakhstan.
50:08
Corie: Yeah, another one of them, like you say, the iconic voices.
50:11
Corie: You must know it when you hear it.
50:12
Corie: Yeah, people calling for you by voice, I suppose.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: And he's yeah, he really that I like to move it, move it as uh as legendary.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: And I I really wish that some of these people would be respected more.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Here, fireball, big up fireball.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah, fireball.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Like people don't realize the history, fireball, mate.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: And even people like H2Flow, H2Flow is doing a lot of big things, you know.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
50:31
Corie: So, what do you think leads to that?
50:32
Corie: Because it's an interesting point.
50:34
Corie: Yeah, that you're underground regardless until you have a big soaker.
50:38
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: You think it's just because of what we see soakers and how yeah, and I think I had to really revisit what soccer means to us, man.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: And when the more I travel and the more, you know, if you're out in the coal or you know, you're looking for community.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: Can you remember when you go, when you when you're living away, it's very community-oriented, so you kind of end up falling into community.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: So Latin America realize is a community, they kind of stick together.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, I guess Africans from Africa will kind of stick together.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: The Caribbean community sticks together.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: That's what kind of brings us together when you're away and you know.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: So if you're Trinidad and if you're Jamaican, you're like, hey, you know, from Montread.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody from Barbados.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: So I started to see what soccer means to us from a diaspora perspective.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: But then you know, I I started to get invited to a lot of weddings with at that age, right?
51:26
SPEAKER_00: And I started to see how soak will come on and people dress up in a suit and thing and on the ground rolling.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I dropped it on the ground and rolling, and then I started to go corporate events and I started to realize I realized so is that gasoline.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: That is what people, it is what it is, you know, and you have to be part of if it is here you want to be recognized locally, it's up to you, it's not for everybody, but for me, my journey started with soccer, so it's something that I'm just trying to complete the journey, yeah.
51:57
SPEAKER_00: Rather than I just doing it for this reason or that reason.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: This really means it's and my father also wanted me to sing calypso on soaker.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's some sentimental stuff there, too.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
52:06
Corie: Well, Lou was saying, and something that I agree with.
52:09
Corie: Kenny Phillips was saying the same thing.
52:10
Corie: Anything you do is so, anything you do is Kaiso.
52:12
Corie: So that is weird.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: So I've got Kess story with that.
52:15
SPEAKER_00: Kess is my brethren from a long time.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: I forget.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: And um he's somebody who would always, he knows me from performing wood for days to know.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: Um I remember the children, right?
52:26
SPEAKER_00: Dad didn't want it in movie talk.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Wood for the woods, which was a big hub.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: Big of his hub.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And we would have these debates now, and we said, like, um, Rudd's, uh, young Rudd's or David Rudders, other son is Kafra Rudd.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Right too.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: So Kapra is a promo, he's a free spirit promoter.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: And I would bong subcast there, and we would be talking about music.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: We always born on music.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: And he one day he told me, he's like, Brave boy, you know you're doing soccer, right?
52:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, use a soccer.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't Rafa, you stay the other thing.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: That's how I used to be that guy.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, I you know, I do my thing.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: But what he used to tell me is like, you're not realizing it, but it in, you know.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: And the style that you are doing in all these other genres is really soccer, it's just your version of it.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: So how you approach it and how you embrace it is really important in terms of and I started to see it because when I would do a lot of EDM songs, I'd be Jamaican artists and myself.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: But what these producer would want from me is so they would be like, they'll give me soccer references and be like, do something like this on it.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: So they started valuing me as somebody from Trinidad.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: That means that's my unique selling point.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: So I started to tell artists that recently where you're running away from could be a could be a your platform to greatness.
53:35
Corie: Sometimes it usually is.
53:36
Corie: You read enough books, it's telling you the thing that you're most afraid of is property.
53:39
Corie: It's a platform to greatness, of course.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: I started, and I think Zumba, well, Alex is a big part of the story because he saw the value.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: Because we would just be playing, because he loved Calypso.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: I was playing Mighty Spiral and Kitchen of him, but then like the ready to go home, he just latched onto that record.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: He was like, This is gold.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, you know, this like this 90s, early 90s, late 80s soccer kind of thing.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: And Zumba made me realize, wow, like so is global.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: And then I had a song that was a hit in Zumba this year called Jump.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: So every day I can tagged from places, say shells and Japan.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see if you just keep going and going and yeah, and it's just happening, and that is so, you know, like when I say like the energy of that song, how I perform now the musically, it mightn't be what people consider so the vocal performance is soccer, and that's a whole next um mood pointer.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: What is so?
54:30
Corie: Yeah, that's a good thing.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: Because is so, how do we judge so?
54:34
SPEAKER_00: Is it based on the instrumental and the music, or is it based on the vocal performance?
54:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: Or like the vocal style or the combination of both, or is it the lyrics?
54:42
SPEAKER_00: Because H2O Flow is so treason is so, Marshall is so, superbloo is so.
54:48
Corie: Yeah, I guess that's how he ends up having to break it up so small, which I feel is a disadvantage.
54:52
Corie: Is that disadvantaged?
54:53
Corie: A marketing disadvantage, yeah.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: And I've always I always thought about that because all the other genres, dance hall is or hip-hop is but then so this power soca, this groovy soca is RB soca, this this soca this, that soaker.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: But then maybe so is any song released during Carnival that talks about carnival content, of course, but then there are songs that people are releasing now, like for example, uh Big Up the Free Tongue, Kaya, it's not really carnival lyrics, it's a song.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: But then the instrumental makes it soaker.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: So I think we have to figure out it's like is is is business and marketing one-on-one.
55:30
SPEAKER_00: Before you bring a product to the world, you have to kind of define what the product is.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: You have to be clear on it.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to be clear on what you're selling.
55:37
Corie: But the good news is that a lot of the producers, at least the ones I talked to last year, yeah.
55:42
Corie: Yeah, any work being done to define it to define it.
55:45
Corie: You're typically somebody who had to define it, to define something in a box of the team.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think even with this song, I would say again, I get a lot of people messaging me saying, I don't usually listen to soccer.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I come from the gospel world, or I'm just not the secular music for me, but I really love your song.
56:03
Corie: You must get it a lot with a lot of your releases.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: With a lot of, yeah, yeah.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: A lot of song called Big Man Do Cry that we released before the soccer switch two or three years ago.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: And that was blazing on the radio regularly, and the only thing that stopped it was the soccer switch.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I had a ballad about big men, you know, like you're going to try to break up on big men, you know.
56:21
Corie: But you say for marketing, you had to define anything.
56:23
Corie: You don't be worried that you're not definable.
56:25
Corie: You you do it, you create and based on where you feel at the point.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I feel like the individual song may not be, but who I am.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: You can tell my voice now, like you know, I have found a sound.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and your look is unique, and look and unique, yeah.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: So but even with that, I have to do some homework there to to to you know narrow it down a bit.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's why this this uh the lane I'm in now, the past few songs I've released kind of connect to the same artist.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
56:50
SPEAKER_00: So Zumba, I found a way to tie international and local, and which is really hard to do.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: Jump in particular, yeah.
56:57
Corie: You had Zumba in mind and when you make it, because there's a few of them now that you have any Zumba circles.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: So Zumba is a whole different way, right?
57:03
SPEAKER_00: Zumba, you work with their producers, so I would have worked with a Zumba producer, show up.
57:08
Corie: So you went there for that?
57:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we we we um we wrote the song together, record our song in like half an hour, within half an hour, write and record the song, and whatever happens after that is up to them.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: We sign paperwork, and whatever happens after that is up to them.
57:23
SPEAKER_00: So that is not me creating some, it's more me working with them, and but they it they just like how Mevon is an expert in his field, they are experts in their field.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: You said Zumba's like a record label, it's a record.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Zumba is a it's a huge company globally.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: That's okay, so there's different sides of the business.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: They're the there's a Zumba app and the classes and stuff.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: So to be a Zumba instructor, you gotta pay to train, and so there's that side of it.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: Then there's also a record label.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: They used to use other uh independent songs and sign songs.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: Now they have in-house producers, in-house artists, so they're doing everything in-house now, writing camps, and then they bring in bigger artists like Jason DeRudo, Carol G.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: They have particular situations with them.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: There's also Zumba where, so they have much, they own much.
58:10
Corie: I started to do business, yeah.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what I think people don't realize.
58:14
SPEAKER_00: Zumba is probably one of the biggest independent labels, it's almost like a 360 new.
58:20
Corie: I imagine that.
58:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, it's like when I when people saw me doing Zumba last year, they was like, What are these people in exercise class?
58:28
SPEAKER_00: But Marcus really do it by these, and I don't know call it Lucas Titan.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: I I get people saying, Marcus, what are you doing, bro?
58:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: But people don't realize how many opportunities have been coming.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: Like right now, um, I have bookings for um in the US.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: I just getting my visa sorted, my um, my artist visa.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: But I have bookings, they have bookings in Germany.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: I just like this is a real thing.
58:53
Corie: Congrats on everyone.
58:54
SPEAKER_00: Nah, thanks, bro.
58:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something I want to tell creatives here is that there's a whole wheel out there, man.
58:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think that carnival is one part of it, but our soaker could or our local music could go so many different places.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't limit yourself.
59:07
Corie: Yeah, you're a good example of it.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't let me.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had somebody to kind of guide me because I think certain things would happen faster for me, but I have to figure it out.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: I have to figure it out.
59:16
Corie: But we're back to some of them youthful days because most people like myself, if somebody advised me to learn body music business, yeah, not any LB, I could tell you that.
59:25
Corie: I learned I'll Google a few things and we're done with that.
59:27
Corie: Exactly.
59:28
Corie: At that point in time, when you when you find yourself diving into the music business, when did you get back on track to say, alright, front-facing artists, or did it ever change?
59:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was part of a project where uh we were trying to, we were managing a female artist who we were trying to make the next Rihanna.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: All right.
59:45
SPEAKER_00: So a good friend of mine, um, you know, he got some capital, like proper capital to invest in this artist.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: And it took us that took us to travel into New York.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: And um, we met with Atlantic Records, like the the um the the former head of ANR for Urban for Atlantic is a guy named Sycomo, who's from Trinidad.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: And he took a liking to us on the project.
1:00:06
Corie: And this is a straight rap project.
1:00:08
Corie: This hip hop at this point?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: This was she was she was saying.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, this is for her.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: This is for her.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: It's Anya, right?
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: And um, and that changed my life too, because that that's why my brain thinks differently from a lot of other people in Trinidad, just because I at a very I was 21, no, 22, and at that age, I was exposed to older.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: So you get to see real music industry and they kind of understand, okay, this, but then this this, you know.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, she's the person who encouraged me.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, while we she would be recording her songs, I would help her write songs and stuff.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: She'd be like, Marcus, you're all talented, like you're the white dog sat back singing or night.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: I was like, by that time, I was like, uh I like the business side.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: I knew I was wearing suits and I not just like this.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: I was a different person.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: I was I was executive, right?
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: And then uh there's a producer from Albania she was working with, and he kept on telling me, You sound like Shaggy, you sound like Shaggy, you sound like Shaggy.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: And I did a song with him, and his wife, who was um a former Miss Dominican Republic, and that song did pretty well.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of stuff.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: So I've been doing I've I'm actually on a big Albanian pop artist album named Ardeon Buyupi.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you that I can tell stories for this, you know.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh the name of the album is R Dicted.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: So he was signed to Universal Germany.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't know nothing about the music business then.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: So I get no, I I got I didn't sign anything.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but just do it.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm on a song called and the name of the song is Carabion.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: Not in Caribbean, Carabian, right?
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: Because they have language barrier.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_00: So for a little while I had fans in Albania.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: I like it, I like it.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know, I didn't know what was going on.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: This happening, and I just I have nobody to ask.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_00: I reached out to some of the managers here.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: They like, why those things so come?
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: So this going on, and then I I had a um got into hip hop.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: I started like this when mixed it so popular.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: I started experimenting with like freestyles over instrumentals, and I got a following in the call it the like college like white college American.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh white college, yeah.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like the white college market kind of thing.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: So I have been through all these things.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: I actually won a competition beating other artists.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, from it was in Delaware, it was a radio competition.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_00: So I get these are crazy things that have happened to me, but I never had anybody to guide me.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_00: I just it's just happening, and then I don't know what to do next.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: You're following your passion, yeah.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: So I just I'm leading by passion, and and then you know, you have to fund this because at some point, you know, and this is after the transcriptionist and the that and booking and things.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I started social media when I was in New York.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: Facebook was becoming more and more popular, and I saw people who manage Facebook accounts, there's only business accounts.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: So I came back to China and I started my own company called Ike, and I really started, I know everybody consulting to fund music.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: No, because the other thing about is like you need a job where you could be flexible enough to still do music.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_00: It can't work on nine to five, but you had to make the money to fund it.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so social media is on nine to five with inflexible, you know?
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's how I was able to fund rap career, fundament, understood.
1:03:08
Corie: I know everybody was interested.
1:03:10
Corie: Yeah, number one, the name.
1:03:11
Corie: It's still out to immediate the acting and the I know everybody.
1:03:14
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:14
Corie: At that point in time, you're doing just social media marketing, digital marketing.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: I started off doing that, so it was Facebook, right?
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: And you know what it is.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_00: I actually wanted to do it for people in entertainment.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_00: So before I I uh at the time I I got another job within entertainment for a distribution company that my friend set up, so I was kind of dealing with all the artists, and I was from a legal background.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's how I meet real people in the industry.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: Right, I meet real people, I I I um so many people came.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_00: We had an office on Mukarapo Road, and I would bring those out.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: I had my suit on and all I'm talking about, all them in a room and talking to them about publishing and distribution.
1:03:46
Corie: I love it, yeah.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_00: So I became known known as that guy.
1:03:51
Corie: Yeah, and you're going back now fully you're getting the money so you could fund your your career.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: So you could fund it, and it it developed into me doing apps, you know, at websites, and it was building out staff and you know, had business partners, staff, but then reach a point where trap so was starting to take off.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_00: So just before trapso, my company was was building like a pro and then a lot of advertising agencies were reaching out to me, they wanted to bring me in house, so they were giving me office and saying nice.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: No, because if I then that you see, yeah, you go trap.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: I had to find a way to pursue my dreams while surviving, and we don't really have you know, like in in a way, a lot of people they'll be a waiter or they'll be uh don't have that, you know, that that kind of vibe.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: So social media, and I think a lot of people who do social media, that is a story.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: They're really pursuing something else, but social media is that hustle.
1:04:42
Corie: Yeah, at least you can do it.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I saw I used to I live two lives.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: I was two, and that's I come to most seven.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: No, no, but I'll say I live a double life where that's where Mark Hardy came in, right?
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: Because my real name is Marcus Brave Boy, for those who don't know.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: My my government name is Marcus Hilton Brave Boy, right?
1:04:59
SPEAKER_00: And Mark Hardy had to figure out a way because I at this time I don't know if I wanted to do the bar with law and stuff, so I had to figure out a way to be two people.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: So I used to go to meetings with his CEOs and say what's like night cover.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm a rapper in Woodfold Campus.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so uh Mark Hardy people, Mark was short for Marcus, um, and then Hardy means stronger resilient, which was a closer than them to Brave Boy, and then that became the persona, Mark Hardy.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
1:05:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then there was a date, people knew me as I was the social media guy, right?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, so those then after a while I started to go to meetings, and people will be like, Well, I like your song, you know what?
1:05:39
Corie: I was like, ah so by the time Trap Sun thing swinging in, you're known as artists, people know you because it's hard to figure out what people know you for.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's different.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: I think what started my career here in terms of people knowing me was when nobody was really going viral for music on Facebook, yeah.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: And I was one of the first few people to go viral for a song called Amateurny, and I had Santana in the video.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_00: And me and Santana kind of look alike.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: And it was it was so it was just funny now.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was at Synergy, and it went to number one on Synergy, and then like Slam used to play it on rotation, and and for a while it was myself on Nebula 868, can the same gigs, like we were I used to open for them, right?
1:06:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that's back then.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: Nebula 868 is big flag kills creeping out, yeah.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_00: When I come on, they just watch it.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_00: But so I went through all and and yeah, and there's so many, you know, my brain all over the place because there's so many things like that.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to forget anything.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_00: But that's that started it.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: And around that time I was balancing my social media company and that.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_00: But then when we started traps on things started to take off, it reached the point where we started to travel a bit, you know, to for opportunities.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_00: And I had a conversation with my business partner, Annalise, at the time, and I was like, I think I need to we need to scale down the business, or I'm I think you might need to take it over.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_00: And she ended up wanting to move on to do other things.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_00: So I ended up having to just run the business by myself, and then I had to make a decision.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_00: I decided, you know what?
1:07:09
SPEAKER_00: Better take just scale it down to one or two clients.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_00: So I could I believe in this chops out in a way there.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: And that, yeah, that and then traps so took off.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but then the reality of hip-hop being underground, we have all this local celebrity, and you know, but then when it comes down to the money ain't adding up, the money ain't adding up.
1:07:28
Corie: Yeah, you can't get in trouble.
1:07:31
Corie: Life, life, life, life, life.
1:07:33
Corie: We like women and them kind of thing.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, everybody knows you.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_00: Like I say, like we get police escort.
1:07:41
Corie: Yeah, it's a hard thing when everybody knows you have the money in adding up.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think that was sad.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_00: We tried for for four years, and I think around that time it was starting hip-hop was out and dip in Trinidad.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_00: And then for me, I started to see I needed something else, and EDM did EDM door started knocking.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_00: I saw it as an opportunity.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_00: All right, this is global, and this is something else, you know.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_00: We could always do traps, so we could always, but this is an opportunity.
1:08:03
Corie: Makes sense.
1:08:04
Corie: And them traps who was the early days of connected on mevones who correct, yeah.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_00: I know mevonne too, and that's where it all ties in.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: My my girlfriend Minta, who uh should well, big up Minta, big up yourself.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_00: And he got red girl who everybody had big up to Minta.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, she worked ministry with Mevon.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you just see she we out in public and she sees her work friends, so that's how I met Mevon.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_00: And then Mevon and I had a mutual friend who I went to see I see it, um, Nigel Pochran.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_00: So big up to Nigel.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_00: And we were just bumps up each other at Limes and Mevon just told me no have a studio if you ever want to pass sure.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, sure.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: And around the time when Amatruni was doing well, Scotch, I was on Scotch committee.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: So that is I really that person doing everything.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_00: IKE but I was one of the first, I'm literally one of the first to do everything in in like this our generation, but I was one of the first Scotch committee members.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: So big after Hoppy.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, boy.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: And Hoppy, and they were doing um a summer mixtape, and they wanted a Scotch double plate.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_00: So I was looking for a studio to do it, and I had the studios I usually work about.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: I was like, you know what?
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: Let me do it by Mevon.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_00: Because my one close to me, and my one I'd say, come and check out the studio.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_00: And the first time I went, I did the doublet, and then my bone was like, I have a friend away to meet.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: Can he come to the studio?
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: I was like, sure.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: And that was youngrud.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh sh.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: So Young Rudd came to the studio and we worked on a song, and then we shot a music video one time.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then we just worked so well together.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_00: I just they just felt to be very honest with you, I just felt the genuinity with them because there were a lot of other teams who were trying to get me to join because that was when everybody was trying to form crews.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, them they I chose Mavon and Young Rudd because at the time you couldn't see who Mavon was, then is not who Mavon is today.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_00: In terms of you already, you can always see talent and ambition, but the level of product it wasn't, it wasn't like that.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_00: You had to see the potential and and and rudds too, same thing.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: It was just everybody was green, but the genuinity, I really felt like these fellas like my brothers, you know.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: Like I felt something with these guys in terms of brotherhood that wasn't like the others felt more transactional or more, you know.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if these fellas are trying to use me because I'm already green.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: But these fellas, it was genuine.
1:10:15
Corie: Yeah, my fon did say so when he came here.
1:10:16
Corie: And one of the things he said before he leaves here is hey you had to get brief, boy.
1:10:19
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:10:20
Corie: See, that trap so that trap so well because the parallel, and you you said it like that time, what treason and them did for us as little fellas who just bring me into the soaker wheel, really.
1:10:30
Corie: You all did that with with trap.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_00: So was some of the original hits when you started realizing now with going from underground to start a mainstream yeah, no, it started with the first one we did was pumping, which was myself, Rudz, and the other two daughters that we saw pick up Simba Mani, but he ended up you know going through some stuff in life and he didn't perform a lot with us.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: So then ended up being me and Rudz performing, performing, performing, and that's how it became a duo like that.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_00: But pumping, now boy, Isa Trini with Jimmy October, Wisconsin, Mood with Abdiel, and then we have some others that casually were known Don't Blush Baby.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's with Christian Calpe.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, The Beach with Kevin Carter.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: That is still a favorite.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_00: And um, I think those were the main ones.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_00: And what was beautiful about our movement is soaker artists were starting to reach out to us, the younger soaker artists, to say they want to work with us, they like what we're doing.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_00: Like people really love that movement, and yeah, the energy shift.
1:11:27
Corie: Pumping is the one I remember first.
1:11:29
Corie: Like, I remember when Pumpkin is on radio and it's like wizard.
1:11:32
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:11:33
Corie: It's like we know what because like radio then, it wasn't like they used to get a whole lot of information on who's the artist and where they come from.
1:11:41
Corie: You just don't know who is who.
1:11:42
Corie: And it's Shazam was not really.
1:11:43
Corie: No, it's true, yeah.
1:11:44
Corie: No Shazam, you can't check nothing.
1:11:45
Corie: Yeah, so you're just you're just hearing this song and it bubbling.
1:11:48
Corie: What it feeling like at that point in time when you when you when you had pumping in buttick, yeah.
1:11:52
Corie: Um and you're performing it all about it by that time.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think Synergy.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_00: Now I already had a foundation because I'm a trainee, and that's around me and Nebula movement that that that that time there.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_00: So Synergy knew me.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: I was already popular on Synergy.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_00: So they the first time we went on Synergy to perform, they now see this person with me.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_00: And young Rod who yesterday wasn't, he wasn't as confident, was not.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_00: So it took a lot of all right, like who this is Mark Hardy, but who is this guy?
1:12:21
SPEAKER_00: And I used to be like, well, listen to Son of David.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: Which is something that looking back, that wasn't fair to him.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_00: But I was kind of trying to be like yeah, it was a weird, you know, shouldn't be a big brother.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course, yeah.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, but other than that, I think we quickly got really popular.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, around the time people who were studying in university or in uh away or here, UE, we got that crowd.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_00: They were happy.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's like what Shitty Bar and Z is now, where you have your young local heroes, like so, but then it had this.
1:12:49
Corie: Yeah, you're seeing yourself a little bit more in it, yeah.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think both young Rod and myself and my one, we are people, you know, like we are very humble and and people person.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_00: So we're cool now, so we're everywhere.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say come through this.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_00: We I can come through that.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say come through this.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_00: So we was in every studio, every partial real hoods, we pass it was we're everywhere, and and I have so many funny stories of um, you know, like at the time I was so I really do everything, and okay.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_00: I know.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_00: I so me and my boy Mikey, Michael Molida, who's somebody I'd interview as well.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_00: We did Roscoe's Saturday night for two years.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: Russell's at a point in time we was competing on 51.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you remember Roscoe's days was crazy.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_00: So we we did Roscoe's, and uh, I remember the other night, so I would go and be in charge of making sure everything was okay.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_00: And um, Mouse, who's one of the house DJs, was DJing, and then you know, this had some drunk fella who was there from early.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_00: And he grabbed the mic and he just had a shout and say, uh, uh, he's had a mic.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_00: And then he DJ come to me.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Marcus, this fella, tell him he can't be out of time.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_00: So I talked to the fella, and the fella was like, Who is you?
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, I'm the promoter here tonight, it can't be getting onsoever.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: But he said, Let me take this outside.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: So I say, and it's a big fella.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_00: I beg and he beg too.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_00: So I say, Well, I'm not as big as I was now, right?
1:14:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're going outside him, man.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: Say, So who is you?
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, you know, I'm a promoter, and he said, No, no, but what is what else is do?
1:14:12
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, I'm an artist too.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: Now he's like, But what was your name?
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, Mark Hardy.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know you.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_00: What song you do sing?
1:14:17
SPEAKER_00: You just trying to mess him up with me.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_00: So I say, Well, I sing now, boy pumping.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_00: He said, Wait, you say that?
1:14:23
SPEAKER_00: He said, I real like your music, boy.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm real sorry, boy.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What do you have?
1:14:28
SPEAKER_00: And that is one story.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I was outside Zen.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_00: I went to get a burger outside Zen.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_00: And these fellas, you know, not the stereotype at all, big up all my brothers, but you know, the hairstyle and the pants thing and the slippers.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_00: But boy, how joke, yeah.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_00: It was an energy.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_00: If a man comes out in a pair of slippers, sometimes he's ready to activate.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_00: He just he just go.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: So a few of them surround me uh by the bigger style, and they was like, Tall man, who is you?
1:14:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why that is be the question.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I mean I'm the artist, look, right?
1:15:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, you know, I is Mark Hardy, I don't know.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_00: They say that who down there.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_00: Wait, wait, wait.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, now, boy, they say, Boy, we do the rent style, my way, boy.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_00: And then the funniest part of the story is like, yeah, now we now take our uh um what it was, we now take our painting from the red house.
1:15:22
Corie: So you're gonna get take too.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I say listen, but it showed me how far we were reaching because as I say, especially that that audience.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_00: That audience, now, and I think it's because of our personalities.
1:15:32
SPEAKER_00: We and I'm the same way today, where I could be anywhere, you know.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_00: Anybody, if I know you know you're healing out, I'm very approachable.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_00: I could go anywhere from the block to the boardroom.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_00: That is my father was like that, and I think he instilled that in me now.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_00: So we gotta respect now is that people wanted to see these youths win.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: Like these fellows are positive fellas, and they they they prep pension of that on Tobago, but yeah, yeah, they always get out, you know, they did the line.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_00: If anybody ever comes wrong, yeah.
1:15:55
Corie: Yeah, yeah, no call that I say, yeah, yeah, I don't love that.
1:16:01
Corie: And the hip hop movement, like it had several iterations of the hip-hop movement over the years, like salute to everybody who was part of it.
1:16:07
Corie: Sport from Dredging, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_00: To Spot Rushers, to and I don't big up Nebula, Nebula was a big part of that movement.
1:16:16
SPEAKER_00: Chromatics, chromatics for sure, SR Farm, and then Mark Hardy and Young Rudd, um, Jimmy October, Jay Naj.
1:16:24
Corie: Yeah, it's when Jimmy October was here, you were stuck just a random thing, yeah, because I remember he was asked with fully loaded, came up.
1:16:30
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
1:16:34
Corie: Yeah, every everything, everything, you know what I mean.
1:16:36
Corie: But I remember the the show would have been I don't know, bouncy kill up beanie man, if I remember right.
1:16:41
Corie: Went to unlock that show.
1:16:43
Corie: That was to see the response to it then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:16:48
Corie: Still have that grip on people, yeah.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: No, for sure, for sure.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think even like Tobago, like the pumping is a staple in the Gen Z is no pumping.
1:16:56
Corie: Yeah, it's a funny thing Nevon had said, right?
1:16:58
Corie: Um you say, in terms of doing the hip-hop, because my instinct would have been to do hip-hop in as Yankee accent as I could have got, right?
1:17:04
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:17:05
Corie: But I remember him talking about y'all deliberately deciding to include Trinidad places, Trinidad foods, culture.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_00: For sure, and I think it was like a social commentary.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_00: That was, I think that is what was missing in the industry at the time because soccer is not social.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say it's not social commentary because it, but it's one part of it's a limited social commentary.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_00: But things happen every day, and they have slangs and they have maybe Rapso would have covered it a bit in its time, but there was something missing, and I think that that is what we wanted to speak on everyday life.
1:17:35
SPEAKER_00: And we're not the first to have a big up mechasmiastic day um, remember cheese pie and pack juice.
1:17:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they had that movement too where they were talking about everyday things, and I think that's what we focused on, like being proud.
1:17:46
SPEAKER_00: And I needed that too, because I started off on an international trajectory, and I feel like I needed to remember that listen, I'm proud to be from that traps project, really made me proud.
1:17:58
SPEAKER_00: Like after that, everything I do, and even in my international stuff, I have little trendy lyrics, just yeah, that's really important, right?
1:18:05
Corie: Like it's really important to me.
1:18:06
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
1:18:07
Corie: I was watching um KG.
1:18:08
Corie: It wasn't an interview.
1:18:09
Corie: He was doing a podcast with he and a brethren talking the other day.
1:18:13
Corie: Yeah, and he said something that was real profound to me as an older fella.
1:18:16
Corie: Yeah, they were saying so, all the soccer on them is take me home, kind of, I'll come home, come back home.
1:18:23
Corie: He said, Listen, we sing it for foreigners, what are we?
1:18:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:18:25
Corie: It's an important statement when you hear you to sit there and listen.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: It's an important one, and I think even with this song, because I thought I listened to it, and and I'm a fan of KG's podcast as well.
1:18:33
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I wanted a one if you're talking about our song too, right?
1:18:37
SPEAKER_00: But what one thing that Nevin and I made sure in this song, you see that line at the ending of the day?
1:18:42
SPEAKER_00: At the ending of the day, how no mask, how to play?
1:18:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever heard at the ending of the day now.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_00: So I could be wrong, right?
1:18:49
SPEAKER_00: But that was an important line.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_00: And since then, I'm noticing more and more how much you feel to say at the end of the day.
1:18:55
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:18:56
Corie: People who are line, yeah.
1:18:57
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, at the end of the day, right?
1:19:00
SPEAKER_00: And those things are important.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_00: So we have a little bit of the trap so sprinkle even in this song now, right?
1:19:06
SPEAKER_00: It's true, and then give me a chance now.
1:19:09
SPEAKER_00: It's the triniest you're talking to.
1:19:11
SPEAKER_00: Give me a chance, Nike.
1:19:13
SPEAKER_00: Give me a chance.
1:19:13
SPEAKER_00: It's important, and that is, but there's a way is ingredients, right?
1:19:17
SPEAKER_00: They're cooking a soup or a pillow.
1:19:19
SPEAKER_00: You have to figure out how to make it palatable for specific things, right?
1:19:23
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so while I hear what KG is saying, I think that there's a sweet spot where you could kind of mix or you could do something that is for us, but do something for global too.
1:19:33
SPEAKER_00: Because music is for everybody, of course.
1:19:35
SPEAKER_00: And there could be songs, nothing is wrong.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_00: Like there's songs for hair only, and that's fine.
1:19:39
SPEAKER_00: But we want to see the genre travel and so cars a lot of potential.
1:19:43
SPEAKER_00: Of course, a lot of potential.
1:19:45
Corie: And you travel you will, right?
1:19:46
Corie: So we know you are plenty of state, so I've been to most of the world.
1:19:50
SPEAKER_00: US, Canada, um, Amsterdam, London, and we're gonna keep it.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, next year in top five.
1:19:57
SPEAKER_00: When I do the follow up interview, we're gonna do the I'll bring my passport too.
1:20:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to see.
1:20:02
Corie: I'll say curry watch.
1:20:03
Corie: You got a feeling about the general thing, just like everybody who's come here.
1:20:06
Corie: Yeah.
1:20:06
Corie: You bring up stereotypes, right?
1:20:08
Corie: That's some more reader.
1:20:08
Corie: I can't do reader, David, all the other beard, right?
1:20:10
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:20:12
Corie: You say this, right?
1:20:13
Corie: Yeah.
1:20:13
Corie: I've never publicly spoken about this because to be honest, I never felt that in the big scheme of things it was really anything important to talk about.
1:20:20
Corie: As everyone goes through stuff, and this felt so minor compared to what other people are going through today.
1:20:25
Corie: But like my last story post highlighted, as a 6'5 close to 280 pong black man, a daily quest of my trying.
1:20:33
Corie: Daily quest of my trying your best not to come across as intimidating or coming across as a threat.
1:20:38
Corie: I think because I smile so much, I've always been able to disarm people and make people feel more comfortable.
1:20:44
Corie: Remember posting this?
1:20:46
Corie: I can remember this little Macwinois.
1:20:49
SPEAKER_00: No, I I can speak, and I'm glad you brought that up because I want I will I want to just speak about it more.
1:20:53
SPEAKER_00: Please.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_00: I think because of my personality and even uh um like ex-girlfriends and stuff, they always surprise when I have an uncomfortable experience, whether it's police, whether it is somebody, you know, like discriminating against me, because they just think everybody likes me because they see the energy when I go out, it's warm energy and good energy.
1:21:17
SPEAKER_00: But it's true, like you know, like from a simple thing, like I saw a tall basketballer post this like if you go into elevator alone with a woman who's much smaller than you, as a big black guy, you kind of had a their natural reaction is you know, so you kind of like my I mean I get out, like my father was always somebody to smile, and I just am not generally a happy person.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_00: But I recently I started to wonder, is that do I do that as a coping mechanism to deal with discreet, like people discriminate, you know, people fearing you, you know, because uh and I saw it during the pandemic because my back you can't see a smile, but I would see people who I know for years, and I have my mask on and I I do this and they like a pull.
1:22:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's a real thing, and I've had experiences in the States too, where they talk about Karen's, I don't know if you know what they take.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_00: I had a caron experience, bro.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_00: Where I minding my business, and this Caucasian girl came up to me, and she was just like she kind of flirting, so I was just like, okay, what going on here?
1:22:17
SPEAKER_00: And then it went from flirting to you stole my phone.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
1:22:22
SPEAKER_00: Serious?
1:22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I real confused.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_00: I like, is this am I being pumped here?
1:22:28
SPEAKER_00: And then yeah, and then I say, Um, I did not take anything from you.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_00: I think he mixed me up with somebody else.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_00: She's like, You stole my phone, you stole my phone, give me back my phone.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and then she started put her hands in my pockets, and I was like, You need to imagine.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: And then the guy with her watching me, like, I'm so sorry.
1:22:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he knows.
1:22:45
SPEAKER_00: So this happened, all is going on, and my friends were wrong, but they were in their own will.
1:22:50
SPEAKER_00: And then I lose it, I cuss out because and I'm not somebody to be like that, but I just and I say, like, you are racist, and I lost it now because it was.
1:22:58
SPEAKER_00: But then it it it makes me realize sometimes people see you and stereotype you as different things.
1:23:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it could just be it.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_00: People ask me if it happened here, like if uh when I posted that story, and I can say I've been to certain neighborhoods, and you know, like whether it's the the van or drive or uh being in the elevator, and you just see people kind of watching you like what like how you are, you know, like who are you to be in this environment?
1:23:22
SPEAKER_00: Because I move, I dress the way I dress, but I move in so many different spectrums.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_00: Every space at all.
1:23:25
SPEAKER_00: So it's very real.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_00: I think this is something that we and I'm guilty of it.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, I could say, you know, like naturally, if it is you see fellas dress a certain way, and it's late in the night, and it's five fellas coming towards you.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's stereotyping at the end of the day, because if it was five like Caucasian fellas, they wouldn't feel that same way, right?
1:23:43
SPEAKER_00: So it's one of those things I have to do some deep thought about because I think we're all guilty of stereotyping, and it's because we're trying to protect ourselves, we're trying to protect our families, we're trying to, especially with, and I'll had a lot of conversations with women about it, where they were saying, Marcus, you know, like being a woman is different.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, we just to walk to our car, if we have to walk from the mall to the car, we have to be thinking about so many different things in terms of a man could just come and snatch my puss.
1:24:06
SPEAKER_00: A man could, and that's life for us, that's everyday life, you know.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I was saying.
1:24:10
SPEAKER_00: When I told when I told this story, is like I feel like this not that important.
1:24:14
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, I don't feel, I mean, I'm a big guy, so I don't I don't walk around fair and nothing like that.
1:24:19
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I do go through stuff where you know, people I always have to be, I feel like sometimes I have to be pleasant so I don't come across intimidated.
1:24:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that is when they're leading, that's exhausted.
1:24:30
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm gonna be exhausted.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: Exhausted.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: So I think I came from that place, and some open talking about because um everybody has their own version of it.
1:24:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think before that story, a lot of people didn't think I went through anything like that because I'm always a positive, smiling person.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_00: But that is that is life for me here and away.
1:24:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I find it was supremely important.
1:24:48
Corie: I've never seen you posted, and I guess from me seeing you all over the years, yeah.
1:24:52
Corie: Last time I see you, or maybe this really just seen person was by K-Pok though.
1:24:56
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:24:57
Corie: And my eyesight ain't good.
1:24:59
Corie: Yeah, so I don't really see so far.
1:25:00
Corie: Fix it now.
1:25:01
SPEAKER_00: But back then, I can see another place for you to go.
1:25:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be like, Yeah, yeah, we gotta get to that.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_00: We gotta get to that push it out.
1:25:08
Corie: But um, I come in out of K-pok, and then I see the same thing.
1:25:11
Corie: I see a Rastaval coming.
1:25:12
Corie: It's when you smile.
1:25:13
Corie: I said, should I bring my but I always know you would have a real big smile all the time, regardless of ways.
1:25:20
Corie: You have a pleasant demeanor stuff.
1:25:22
Corie: So both sides of that coin, I found it real interesting that your post, I found it's important to say because I would never think that you stereotype like for more.
1:25:29
SPEAKER_00: Nah, I've been through like roadblock experiences that weren't pleasant.
1:25:32
SPEAKER_00: I've been through, you know, um, just knowing, as I say, in certain neighborhoods and police stop here, like what you're doing here, you know.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, just just people wanting to search a car like for no reason, or or just people not, you know, like just staring at you like what you're doing here.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_00: But for me, I I it's just like I know some people who have tattoos to break their stereotype in terms of you can have tattoos and be an MBA, uh, you know, like a scholar.
1:25:59
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I this I could say I I am an educated fella, I'm cultured, I'm everything, but this is how I choose to look and and dress, you know.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_00: I am me, I am me.
1:26:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think I want to help break some stereotypes.
1:26:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say I am guilty of stereotyping too.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_00: We're all humans.
1:26:12
SPEAKER_00: All of us.
1:26:13
SPEAKER_00: But it's important, no, it's important.
1:26:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think I I sort of think about the way like crime in this country.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I have friends all over, right?
1:26:20
SPEAKER_00: So when you get into the psychology of persons who are involved in certain things or have been involved in certain things, they start in from uh is that them versus us, they starting from uh people treating them a certain way.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_00: And um, I could talk about this.
1:26:33
SPEAKER_00: They had some youths, I went to a food establishment and they had some youths begging, and they had asked me, they're like, so you know, we could get something to eat.
1:26:40
SPEAKER_00: I was like, no problem, let me let me, you know, like Dory, sit down there and I'll bring some food for you, right?
1:26:44
SPEAKER_00: Well they want.
1:26:45
SPEAKER_00: And um when I spoke to the woman I was buying the food from, she's like, them is pest, them is so-and-so, them is okay, I'm always here so-and-so, so-and-so.
1:26:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, imagine you are 15, 16 years old, years old.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is how you see society treating, you know, like you are pests, you uh, and I felt it for them now.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up um they uh being involved in some stuff related to them on football, and you know, like quietly, I'm only talking about this because we're on the podcast.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_00: But me and my friends put up some money and bought them some gear, and yeah, like you don't know who life you can change, you don't know who, and and that feeling how some so I know it's like to be treated as a big black fella terras.
1:27:21
SPEAKER_00: And I used to tell my mother, I say, Mom, because I look like this, I it people will treat me a certain way, you know.
1:27:26
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes my mom's not me.
1:27:29
Corie: Of course.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_00: So I think about these youths, and I think that is, and I think there's something that Orlando Octave said on an interview already, where people pass like seal odds on the beat them every day, and you know, they have this like, oh god, they sent the this the that, they have this negative stigma, you know.
1:27:44
SPEAKER_00: And people don't realize what it's like to be on the receiving end of discrimination.
1:27:49
SPEAKER_00: I think there are a lot of people in this country who in a bubble compared, they don't know what it's like to be discriminated against like that now.
1:27:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think that when your life starts off like that, it makes you angry and it sends you somewhere else.
1:28:04
SPEAKER_00: And that is something I just want to mention.
1:28:06
SPEAKER_00: A lot of crime in this country is because of social issues and the psychology of, and and it's it's not that there's just pests and them is just it's it's people don't people not born like that.
1:28:16
Corie: No, and it's an important discussion because you cannot you can't escape it, the chickens will come home to roost.
1:28:22
Corie: Exactly.
1:28:22
Corie: So the reality is that this the notion that we can build more gated communities and put more security in front of them as a way of escaping crime does not exist, it's not a real thing, it's not a real thing, and it's the same way you say your mother will see a child.
1:28:36
Corie: Yeah, it's the same person mother seen a child.
1:28:38
Corie: Exactly.
1:28:39
Corie: And so what I said.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_00: So when they're ball and they say to work it out, or my son was a good boy, my son was a good boy.
1:28:44
Corie: Yeah, it's uh far from the time.
1:28:46
Corie: We're off track, yeah.
1:28:47
Corie: But let me tell you something.
1:28:48
Corie: I have a I have a cousin who died at 24.
1:28:51
Corie: Always used to say you will never live to see 25.
1:28:54
Corie: Yeah, he used to say it all the time.
1:28:55
Corie: Do we grew up together?
1:28:56
Corie: They used to call me, they had a cat who named Danger Mouse.
1:28:59
Corie: Yeah, they call him Danger Mouse, they used to call me Pinfold.
1:29:01
Corie: That was your right hand man.
1:29:02
Corie: And just we take two different parts, and he died a violent death.
1:29:08
Corie: Yeah, Christmas Eve there, yeah.
1:29:10
Corie: And when you watch what his life was, to me, this is a good youth.
1:29:14
Corie: I understand that he does things and all them kind of things, but in the moment of grief, in the deepest grief, it's another time to say, Boy, Ainsley was this and he did it, but he was a good youth.
1:29:24
Corie: And it wasn't if you go and say, But he was a good boy, yeah.
1:29:26
Corie: So yeah, I think apart to that post and why it stood out for me so much is that it spoke to me about your willingness to try to understand each other.
1:29:34
Corie: Because you were talking about something to you, but most of the trend was really about how we look at others, huh?
1:29:39
SPEAKER_00: No, for sure, and as you humanized, you know, you know, like and I learned that from my parents.
1:29:43
SPEAKER_00: If it's one thing, my parents always, like my father, I'll say my father when I was a kid, he technically would have been like a celebrity on TV.
1:29:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, my father used to treat everybody the same, like the the the everyday, and you know, I mentioned this at his funeral, and it's important to mention here too.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_00: So I went to private primary school, I went to Sim Bunadet, and it's because my grandmother was a standard five teacher there.
1:30:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's uh I would say it's one of those shelter, more sheltered schools, you know.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, but very regularly, regularly, my dad would pick me up from school and carry me by St.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_00: Paul's Street to play basketball.
1:30:12
SPEAKER_00: I just I never thought about it.
1:30:13
SPEAKER_00: I just bounks and ball on the public courts to play ball.
1:30:16
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to balance me off and to really make me know that listen, that's the school here, this is an opportunity.
1:30:22
SPEAKER_00: That's my whole life.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and all the time I'll say I've been in N-Jack, I used to be walking through Tom and my father, like and my grandfather lived in Silmarge Road.
1:30:29
SPEAKER_00: Right, so right.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_00: So I grew up.
1:30:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes, people know Brave Boy as this Westboy and thing, but I used to be in Humbertage Road, right?
1:30:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:30:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so I I have been grounded like that, and I think humanizing is important.
1:30:41
SPEAKER_00: I know we have a lot of racists in this country and classes and stuff, but I think we need to humanize crime in this country.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: I've met so many youths who want to do music, want to do, want to play football, want to opportunity, opportunity is a hell of a thing.
1:30:56
SPEAKER_00: I you know, I just mentioned my life and I am blessed with so much opportunity, but I am grateful for it.
1:31:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I don't take those things for granted.
1:31:04
SPEAKER_00: Even having coming from a two-parent home.
1:31:06
SPEAKER_00: That is something that broke my heart.
1:31:08
SPEAKER_00: Is sometime I was in St.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_00: James getting um getting something for my parents.
1:31:12
SPEAKER_00: And the girl was like, You parents?
1:31:14
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Your mom and dad together.
1:31:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah.
1:31:17
SPEAKER_00: She's like, What was that like?
1:31:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, she and I was like, I just was shocked.
1:31:20
SPEAKER_00: I was and it realized that's a privilege.
1:31:23
SPEAKER_00: So all these things to say now is like I it really irkes me to see to hear when people use the word pest and people just look down at at you know persons from certain areas, you know, not understanding what they you know, nobody's born like that.
1:31:37
SPEAKER_00: And survival is a hell of a thing.
1:31:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have been broke already.
1:31:42
SPEAKER_00: Might take something because you're mine.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I have I have reached the point where you need to, like you say for music, you need to get X amount of money to do this, uh, but you have all these expenses or things just not working, or this client didn't pay on time, or whatever.
1:31:56
SPEAKER_00: And I've had people approach me and say, Yo, bro, if you do this, X, Y, Z, L Gail, and it have that two seconds where you think, you know what?
1:32:04
SPEAKER_00: I wonder, boy.
1:32:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, so it's one of those things when you you don't know what you'll do when you survive.
1:32:09
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't want to.
1:32:10
SPEAKER_00: So whether it is, you know, people um rubbing, or whether it is you just don't know.
1:32:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy for us to say there's pest, and you know, that that that that that yes, but it there is but you not we're not in a position to to to to say that or not.
1:32:23
SPEAKER_00: I just check real people are that percent because pesting means kill them.
1:32:28
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, and that it is like that is not solving the problem, you know, and that and as it's creating a bigger problem, it's easy thing to say, and you know, and it's all it's it's it's very deep-rooted, and that is my thing, and uh I could tie it back to the industry.
1:32:43
SPEAKER_00: Um so is uh and pan, you know, because I I was watching um uh uh something on Pan the other day, and pan kind of brought together uptown and downtown, you know, and so is the same thing, calypso is the same thing, yeah.
1:32:56
SPEAKER_00: It brings together, but I've seen personally how one day somebody watched somebody as a pest, and then the next day watch them as a superstar.
1:33:04
Corie: What do you mean?
1:33:05
SPEAKER_00: And that is that is that is the power as the power of DJ Entertainment, so anything like that now.
1:33:13
SPEAKER_00: But the it the fact that people are so Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:33:19
Corie: You know, it's so funny you bring up Gladwell, like a lot of Gladwell.
1:33:22
Corie: Um, there was the last book you wrote was about that talking to strangers was the name of the book.
1:33:29
Corie: Bad, bad, bad, bad book.
1:33:30
Corie: Make me think, and that post you make is so similar to that because it makes me rethink, okay, the assumptions are real poor.
1:33:36
Corie: You know, after I read that book, I stopped doing interviews, like job interviews.
1:33:40
Corie: We used to interview a lot of people for work, yeah.
1:33:42
Corie: And he was making the point that when you're doing an interview and people had a qualification, he said, Boy, were you really judging us if you like the person or not?
1:33:49
Corie: He said, You're doing it based on people looking good if the song.
1:33:51
Corie: And and he write.
1:33:52
Corie: And that is true.
1:33:53
Corie: That is 100% true, but um, sometimes you blind your own biases.
1:33:57
SPEAKER_00: No, this is an as I say, I'm guilty of it too, so I'm not gonna be playing saint here.
1:34:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think especially with our thing, that's a big problem.
1:34:04
SPEAKER_00: The us, because I think that's what Orlando said.
1:34:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't check that interview, but he was saying it's a us versus them thing now.
1:34:11
SPEAKER_00: So it's like on the on one side of it, if it is that you, you know, yeah, somebody treating you like, you know, like you go, you say you're begging outside a grocery or something, and the person's shunning you.
1:34:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I get this, there's there's somebody uh like I guess I'll usually with homeless person who um I talked to I talked to the person they go by me and during the pandemic, you know, um, he's just saying I could get some money, da da da da da and I was like, I stopped and I was like, boss, today I know, but you know, like let me see why you wanna, you know, I just spoke to him, and he just he said, Thank you so much for just treating me like a human being.
1:34:44
SPEAKER_00: And that that's that stuck me because everybody's just shunning him.
1:34:47
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
1:34:48
SPEAKER_00: They're not even letting him talk.
1:34:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, of course.
1:34:50
SPEAKER_00: And people forget that I have our next brethren who's telling me you are a few bad decisions away from being homeless or drugs.
1:34:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:34:58
SPEAKER_00: And that is very real.
1:34:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a humbling thing.
1:34:59
SPEAKER_00: People feel that will never happen to me, that'll never happen to anybody in my family.
1:35:02
SPEAKER_00: But pandemic showed that anything could happen in this world.
1:35:05
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
1:35:06
SPEAKER_00: And we gotta be humble and we gotta be kind to people.
1:35:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35:08
SPEAKER_00: As always say that.
1:35:09
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I just especially like the young youths, young black youths, I'll be very specific here.
1:35:15
SPEAKER_00: Um try to understand what the as a society we need to understand the problem.
1:35:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, the problem is not that these youths just want to commit crime.
1:35:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes, maybe people can say that to you.
1:35:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, education is free and opportunities are free, and these youth is just, but it's not as simple as that.
1:35:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not level, you know.
1:35:33
SPEAKER_00: And look at the I know real people who I grew up with who went away and extremely educated and can't get a job.
1:35:39
SPEAKER_00: Or if they get a job, is they they overqualify.
1:35:42
SPEAKER_00: So imagine you don't even have one, and they they their parents might still know somebody who knows somebody.
1:35:47
SPEAKER_00: But imagine, and I see to the public hospitals too, is like, if you don't have a link in the public hospital, you could be on a waiting list for two years.
1:35:53
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
1:35:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and these things uh are sad, and I feel like I mean, I come from middle class, you know, dad, and I just want people to really just lead with kindness and understanding with the rest of society and other parts of society if you come from that bubble.
1:36:09
SPEAKER_00: Makes sense, makes sense.
1:36:10
Corie: I appreciate you posting that because I've since then I'm looking forward to this conversation.
1:36:15
Corie: I'm happy to talk about this as somebody who um I just always saw you as somebody who in the mix.
1:36:20
Corie: And when I say in the mix, it's not a high society mix, you're just everywhere.
1:36:23
Corie: Everybody is just I know everybody, kind of thing, and everybody knows me.
1:36:27
Corie: But the last thing I want to talk about before we wrap up, do you just tell me before we start that you're doing digital marketing for somebody too?
1:36:33
Corie: Is that nothing never doing it?
1:36:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't pick up a wear my um my monarch will take off my glasses.
1:36:38
SPEAKER_00: This is this is monarch, monarch frames from optometers today.
1:36:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I actually do digital marketing for optometers today.
1:36:45
SPEAKER_00: They are my uh one of my long style standing clients, and and they have been great to me.
1:36:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I know you have some people say they can't see Curry.
1:36:52
SPEAKER_00: Tell me you almost say, Well, yeah, I say but Curry fast for shit.
1:36:55
Corie: Yeah, but if you didn't smile there, yeah, yeah.
1:36:58
Corie: I don't see your time, man.
1:37:00
SPEAKER_00: We were gonna cover um it tests for you.
1:37:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let me do that.
1:37:05
Corie: Yeah, you mean you're gonna really make me see David and them clear items.
1:37:11
Corie: No, brother.
1:37:12
Corie: Well, thanks.
1:37:13
Corie: I appreciate you just coming and share part of the journey.
1:37:15
Corie: I mean, it's it's so much like you're always in them spaces.
1:37:18
Corie: Every time your name comes up, it's be like Brave Boy, Brave Boy.
1:37:23
SPEAKER_00: So I would have introduced Rome to Maverand.
1:37:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:37:26
Corie: You say so, you say so.
1:37:27
Corie: Yeah, Rome episode coming up tomorrow.
1:37:29
SPEAKER_00: Rome episode now, and Rome is somebody I have my respect for because we went to school together, and you know, like in terms of driven, people is telling me I had working, and I had but he's somebody I look up to in that regard, like you know, he's getting after it.
1:37:41
SPEAKER_00: You're not the fan of yeah, for sure.
1:37:43
Corie: Well, soon we had to put um some space between Rome and Brave Boy, right?
1:37:46
Corie: We can't have you come on camera and we ain't done enough.
1:37:52
Corie: We can't put two St.
1:37:53
Corie: Mary's men so close together.
1:37:55
Corie: No, I mentioned AT and I mentioned, yeah, it's a lot.
1:38:02
Corie: You guys have a name on this episode too, though, because listen, the amount of names you talk about today randomly.
1:38:08
SPEAKER_00: Who is that man in the shad interview?
1:38:10
Corie: Uh Archie.
1:38:11
Corie: Oh, yep.
1:38:11
Corie: Archie.
1:38:14
Corie: Next time for the first quarter.
1:38:15
unknown: Remember, we get in trouble with that, huh?
1:38:17
Corie: Oh, yeah, we did get in trouble with that.
1:38:19
Corie: Let me rap the yeah, they say too much.