Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Rikki Jai: The Hits, the Hustle & His Return to Calypso | Extended Conversation

Transcript

Rikki Jai: The Hits, the Hustle & His Return to Calypso | Extended Conversation · Corie Sheppard Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I had no intentions of doing Chutney music.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: Dong in St.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: John's are getting on.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: Donglin Lions are getting on.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Dong in point fourteen are getting on.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: If you see Ricky Jai getting on.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: In them days, a record had an A and a B.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: Sumantra is my B side.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: I put Sumantra as the B song.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: Ricky Jai might come there and sing Sumantra Pump in Wyana Bum C.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: When I jump on, Ba Man, Motor, Scorpion.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: I rip up the place, but the promoter still asking me.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: He's still singing.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: That man I know his song this year.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: We can't hold the audience responsible for these sort of things.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think it's it lies solely and squarely on the mindset of people who are promoting the events.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: It's never too late to correct things in your life.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: That's my philosophy.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: I was always a hustler.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: In my early days when I was working CSO, I would buy oranges in Pinal, come up in the office in the car park, bag it out in plastic bags, and resell.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: I I say this to all my fellow artists out there and people in the entertainment business.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: One stream of income is not gonna do it.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: You're setting yourself up.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: If one day um somebody comes build a dam upstream, you are on water.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: I will know my Kenny Phillips to record.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the same question.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: So we're we're calling yourself a full of the album, you know, all excited.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: I say Sammy J, he take it, he said, right, Alright, we need that one.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: So what's the what's your whole name?
1:40
SPEAKER_02: What's your last name again?
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I said Jay Mongo.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: He said, right, but from today use Ricky Jai.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: And that was it.
1:49
SPEAKER_05: You are now live with us on the Cory Shepherd.
1:53
SPEAKER_05: Corey Shepherd Corey.
1:55
SPEAKER_05: Shepherd Cory Shepherd podcast.
1:57
SPEAKER_05: Mommy, look also man, I'll get through.
1:59
SPEAKER_05: Don't miss this one.
2:00
SPEAKER_05: It's gonna be sexy.
2:06
Corie: The notion that I was doing in the beginning where I asked to like and subscribe, and it looked like that.
2:10
Corie: So I just want to do that over, please.
2:12
Corie: Like, share, subscribe, comment, and tell us how you feel about the episodes.
2:16
Corie: We're always looking forward to your feedback, and you would not believe how much it helps when you actually subscribe and you're not just watch your favorite person and then cut.
2:25
Corie: Subscribe to the channel, help we grow.
2:27
Corie: Bang.
2:28
Corie: Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast.
2:29
Corie: My name is Corey Shepherd.
2:31
Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
2:32
Corie: Thank you for everybody who's tuning in for the first time.
2:35
Corie: Today we have a special guest, a man who uh when I first started this podcast, this was one of the people I was excited to talk to.
2:41
Corie: Nine time Chutney Monarch, Sammy, Sammy J.
2:44
Corie: What Ricky Jai, I mean Ricky Jai.
2:47
Corie: Welcome to the show, Dr.
2:48
Corie: Samra Jai Munger.
2:49
Corie: Welcome to the show.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: I like I I I see you've been doing your homework on how the name Ricky Jai.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: That's where you come from Sammy J.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was the layout.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: That was the layout.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: Alison, who was my graphic designer at the time, um, asked me, so where are you gonna call yourself?
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Because he wrote one of my songs called Getting On.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Right.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Gregory Ballantine wrote Sumintra.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: But you know, I was coming off uh um singing in a in a band called Treveni and watching Drupal T mashing up fets, and I I said, This is this is where I gotta go to.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: So um one of these songs was Getting On, and Alison Nez was like, so we gonna call yourself?
3:30
SPEAKER_02: We can't call you Sam Raj.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, that Kenny J, that brother J, Marvin J.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, what what about Sammy J?
3:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: So we drop everything, you know, layout of the album and everything, Sammy J going across.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: And then um I went down my Kenny Phillips to record.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: And he asked the same question.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: So where are you calling yourself?
3:57
SPEAKER_02: I say Sammy J.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: And I pull out the album, you know, all excited.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: I say, Sammy J.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: Hey, you are your artwork done.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: I have my artwork done already.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: He takes it, he said, right, he put it in the dustbin.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: He said, um, we have enough Jays in the business already.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: Kenny, J, brother, Jay.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: He said, What's your what's your home name?
4:19
SPEAKER_02: I say, Ricky.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: He said, Yeah, what's your last name again?
4:23
SPEAKER_02: I said, J Mongal.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: He said, right, well, from today you use Ricky Jai.
4:27
Corie: Yeah.
4:28
Corie: And that was it.
4:28
Corie: This is a place we avoid calling Kenny Phillips' name too early, yeah.
4:31
Corie: But salute to Kenny.
4:33
Corie: Salute to Kenny.
4:34
Corie: Kenny, you're responsible for plenty of people's name.
4:36
Corie: Kenny say you write a nung, something on your jacket or going good.
4:38
Corie: Kenny should write a book.
4:39
Corie: Yeah, he should, he should.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: Kenny has mentored a lot of us.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: I I I would say I owe a lot of my um experience as a uh co-producer from sitting behind him while we're working and observing uh his styles, his techniques, you know, how we would layer tracks, how we would, you know, play the guitars, you know, it was amazing.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Um Strangely enough, Casey Phillips was riding next to me as a baby.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, on the side, you know, um Casey.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: We would hear the door open and then you see Casey come with a blanket and a pillow and crawl up on the um on the on the the couch there, and Kenny would say, Hey, upstairs.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: And Casey take the the pillow and go back out five minutes after the door open back again, and he comes back.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: Kenny said, Look, let me leave this child alone, yes.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: And now we have the great Casey Phillips.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:36
Corie: You yourself, you're telling me because you're waiting for when your book is coming out, but you're telling me you you you came, and every time I talk to you and you tell me why you're here, I say, Boy, you have a notification record today.
5:45
Corie: You say, nah, any studio, any studio is still active.
5:48
Corie: You know, tell me now by um Kyle.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, how to put this to you?
5:54
SPEAKER_02: There's no not being active when you're a musician.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we we're not gonna create hits all the time.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: But part of us, part of what keeps us alive and keeps us um, you know, the musicians that we are, is by constantly writing and constantly going back into the studio, searching for the next hit.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Um I I can't say was gonna be a hit song.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: I think even the great Michael Jackson at one point in time wasn't sure what was gonna be our next hit because after Off the Wall Um Triller bad, you know, things the music was start was starting to go a little too high in the clouds, you know.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: Um it it might be selling, but it's it's not the life ain't so bad at all.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: Not gonna say wall, you know what I mean?
6:46
SPEAKER_02: Or beat it, you know, that kind of thing.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: So similarly for um artists like myself who you know have been creating music since 1989 to now, um because we're going through generations, and I am I am close to 40 years in in music, there's close to four generations if you you put them in ten year gaps of people that would have liked or loved Sumintra.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: Pump in, show me emotion, why not see.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: That was the time when Ricky Jai was the Calypsonian.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't even doing Chutney music.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I had no intentions of doing Chutney music.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: When I came out, my thing was to just be the Indo-Calypsonian that wasn't really present at the time.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, nobody else full in that space.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: No, there were there were there were Calypsonians like the Mighty Indian, Raja, uh Hindu Prince, but they were doing commentary.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to do party.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: So that was my mission, that was my goal.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, but coming back to why we why we are always in the studio, we can't help it.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: At least I can help it.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about anybody else, but I can't help myself.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:06
Corie: When I watch your discography, I say this man's still in the studio, I'd never go again.
8:10
Corie: You know, I'll be like um, you know them bands who told the world, uh Smith and these fellas, yeah, just do that.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, unfortunately, I would say our industry doesn't allow for that.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, unless you're one of the guys who does a lot of cover versions and you're able to cover songs every year and uh use that as your repertoire for gigs and otherwise.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Um our industry, and I say our industry, the soaker industry, doesn't allow for catalogue and repertoire to keep you in the party.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: Age also has a as a uh a factor there.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: But when you say age, well, people look at you as an aging artist, they look at you as um for me time this are they called you iconic and legendary and and as a code word for Pacabo.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: You understand?
9:05
SPEAKER_02: All right, um, uncle and um you know uh you see it coming from a distance.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, you know.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: Um so that that is something that you know you all while we can't stop the aging process, and a part of us always want to reconnect with um the audience.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh well, my audience from let's say 89 coming up, they were young, they followed me all over the place, coming to all my events.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: It can't stay too late again now, isn't it?
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Now they're married.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Now they have kids.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: They have mortgages, they have their the money that they were spending on partying, going in other places.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh their kids now growing up to another set of artists, their kids probably get to the point where they're having kids.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Now their kids growing up to the Ravi B or the KI or Voice, Nyla, you know.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: I I'm seeing it, you know, in in a lot of um events, I'm seeing a lot more of the younger artists um in the receptions and the parties, and you know, it's all good.
10:11
SPEAKER_02: It it shows that there's continuity with the with the industry.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: But for me who have all this catalogue of hits, a promoter watching me and say, Well, but this man I have a hit song.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: This man has a hit song.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: And as far as I could see, Marshall Montano might be and him, and his name might come up a lot in my conversations with a lot of people.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: But Marshall Montano might be one of the few Um legendary soccer artists that could really talk on his catalogue.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Um Kess is now getting there.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: Um stop me if I go if I call in too many names.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: No, you're good, you're good.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: No, I say stop me if I call in too many names.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: You're running out of names to call already.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: You see what I'm talking about?
10:57
SPEAKER_02: Of course, of course.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: And you see it every year in the carnival.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: Um and I don't want to call anybody's name, but you might have a monster hit this year and the promoters calling you and sending limo and thing for you.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: But the next year you have a right song.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're in answer different.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: And you're hoping that the you know, the vibe and everything from the year before is going to transfer across.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: And by the third or fourth year, if you do have another hit, then you are you suddenly fall into the category of a one-hit wonder.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Never to come back.
11:32
Corie: Yeah, this is something I I hear you talk about before.
11:34
Corie: It's something I don't understand about our let me start with the audience.
11:37
Corie: Let me talk about myself.
11:38
Corie: We go in fets and going events and stuff.
11:40
Corie: I don't know if it's the promoters, the artists, I don't know who it lies on.
11:44
Corie: So I'll give you an example today, right?
11:46
Corie: Uh uh in a meeting with a gentleman who's in his studio, yeah, my little brother, right?
11:50
Corie: He's in charge of the business, right?
11:51
Corie: I'm a boss.
11:52
Corie: We had a meeting before.
11:53
Corie: This is not the first time we had a meeting before recording, right?
11:56
Corie: So most times I tell him, Who you say, who you have today?
11:58
Corie: I say so and so.
11:59
Corie: And I come with an explanation.
12:01
Corie: When I start to explain what you say, nah, no Ricky Jai.
12:03
Corie: I come in.
12:04
Corie: Right.
12:04
Corie: He's young, I ain't gonna tell you he's age now.
12:07
Corie: But so that if you talk to people of different generations, you say, I go, I you talking about mice versus what makes me want to come outside.
12:14
Corie: But then they go have more.
12:16
Corie: So they have so many different eras of hits that you have.
12:18
Corie: So I don't understand what is this thing where we have a catalogue like yours where we care to allow.
12:23
Corie: So we're the only genre in the world that cares to.
12:26
Corie: And to ask a man like you if you have hits is a crazy question.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: Correct, correct, correct.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, um it's not only in China, it's all over the Caribbean.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: The Caribbean artists.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: So it's a genre is a so crazy.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a genre.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: It is not, it's not a reggae thing, it's not a pop thing.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: It's you know, because if you look at the pop industry, they have different tiers for working.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: They have the A level, the B level, they have the Vegas strip, then they have the casino strip.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Then they have the clubs, then they have the smaller.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: There's so many levels to which um American, or I say, you know, pop music people still work.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: And when you break through, you break to the next level, you break.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: One hit song and you and you're working, you know.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Kevin Little um has one really major hit, but he's still working.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Because that became a global hit, you know.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: And you know, unless we do have that same sort of um success, then we are trapped in this what what what is man saying?
13:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, you have this year?
13:33
SPEAKER_02: Or you or you meet people and they're asking you, so we sing this year?
13:36
SPEAKER_02: As opposed to, hey man, I really love the body how you're working.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: And the funny thing is, you go to a fet and the guys with the one hit technically don't have what it takes to really make that audience enjoy themselves.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: You see, over and over, Edwin Yearwood would come with a bag of old songs and rip the place apart.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: Ricky Jai might come there and sing Umintra, Pomp In, Wyana Bum C, uh, When I Jump On, Ba Man, Motor, Scorpion, and rip up the place, but the promoter's still asking me.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, what what hits or his team, you know, everything now is a committee on a team.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Say, but um that man old boy, or that man, that man I know his song this year, here he's still singing.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, so therein lies the the the the problem, and therein lies the reason why artists like myself and many others showing Destro.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at Destro's catalogue.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: But you don't see Destro in a lot of fets in Trinidad.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: She's more popular out of Trinidad or the Caribbean.
14:46
Corie: 100%.
14:47
Corie: And then when you do see her in a fet, you're right.
14:49
Corie: Because when you have that kind of catalogue, like yours, like the names you're calling, you know what to do when you go on that stage.
14:54
Corie: It doesn't matter the age of the audience.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Mash up.
14:58
Corie: That is it.
14:59
Corie: She can leave the stage.
15:00
Corie: So the problem is the audience or is the promoters?
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Who where you think it the estuars?
15:04
SPEAKER_02: I I I I don't think it's the audience at all.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: The audience, um, while the audience wants to see or hear the new song, it it can't carry for the whole event.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's demonstrated every time you go to a fet, you see DJs don't have enough new music to play in a party.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: They have to resort to the older songs.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: You know?
15:27
SPEAKER_02: So I I don't think it's the audience at all.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: The audience, we can't hold the audience responsible for these sort of things.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think it's it lies solely and squarely on the mindset of people who are promoting the events.
15:41
Corie: Alright, I with you.
15:42
Corie: I with you.
15:42
Corie: It's something that I I can't figure out at all.
15:44
Corie: In terms of you I figure it out.
15:45
Corie: You figure it out, tell me no.
15:47
Corie: Tell me the secret.
15:48
Corie: Stop recording for a moment.
15:50
Corie: You understand it.
15:52
Corie: Because I don't know that the audience, like you rightly say, the audience, you want to hear the new songs, but you can hear the new songs in so many different ways in an event.
15:58
Corie: Yeah.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: But listen, I don't hold it against nobody, you know.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, music is uh an entertainment, is a business.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not um, you know, holding anybody at fault or judging anybody for the manner in which they want to do their events or the way they want to do it.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: But it just brings me to explain to you why I had to keep searching for another hits.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Understand you.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: I understand you do that.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Why I gotta um stop people from saying, he retired?
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Or, you know.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: I understand.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, is it's almost as if I purposely took a break from the industry just around COVID.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, for the first time in my life, I found myself unable to earn money.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Because I I had, you know, um dropped everything that I was doing and was doing music full time.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: Because when you're doing something that you enjoy technically, you're working.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: So I having fun going out in parties, meeting people, and getting paid at the same time.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: COVID comes now and throw that curved ball.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Suddenly, I I I can't see myself just doing this streaming thing to to earn money.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: So I decided to take a uh uh a break and focus on other business ventures.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Cause, you know, like I said before, mortgage.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, them take no stop coming up.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: CMF um didn't send me a a letter telling me that um, hey Ricky, um, we understand COVID is here.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man, tell me the other day, the bank like they didn't take no vaccine, you know.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, and um, you know, we want to give you a little cushion.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: So don't don't pay for the next six months.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: I wish.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: I wish.
17:44
Corie: I wish they did do that.
17:45
Corie: You know your mortgage payment will be like after six months, they come into so that's when you went in because when I hear Sheriff Street, for instance, my first thought is Guyano.
17:53
Corie: You started that after COVID or when it's COVID.
17:55
Corie: After COVID, yeah.
17:57
Corie: Hey, quick one before we get back into the conversation.
17:59
Corie: You're always in the comments asking about part two, right?
18:02
Corie: Guess where part two is now?
18:03
Corie: It's on Patreon.
18:04
Corie: Join us on the Patreon, subscribe so you could get extended versions of the conversation, and not just this episode, but all the episodes in the back catalogue.
18:12
Corie: So when you're done taking the first hour here, go and subscribe, file us, and you'll take in two plus hours of the best conversation you'll ever see.
18:20
Corie: Bang.
18:21
Corie: So, what was the inspiration for it?
18:22
Corie: Just diversifying for you?
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Just diversifying, you know.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: I uh, you know, I um I always knew that I had uh um I needed to have more than one income stream.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: And I I say this to all my fellow artists out there and people in the entertainment business.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: One stream of income is not gonna do it.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: And it it it you're setting yourself up.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: If one day um somebody comes and build a dam up the road, upstream, you are on water.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
18:53
SPEAKER_02: So it's never too late to correct things in your life.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: So that's my philosophy.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Um two things I don't look at really.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't look at my age and I don't look at money in the bank.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh because my philosophy is if you if you keep dwelling on your age, then you will start to feel it.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: And I don't feel my age.
19:16
SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is, you know, a long time ago, a good friend of mine, Paula Pantin, she gave me a book by Deepak Chopra.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: And in that book, you know, Deepak Chopra was saying that you we need to take our minds off money.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: Because when we focus on money and we put too much focus on money, we don't money to come to us.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: So I I I don't think about money.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: I just know money in the air there, and I just think in our ways of how to keep pulling it down.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um those those two things have you know really worked for me.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh fortunately, I've always been in a good place, you know.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, even in my early days, I was always uh hustler, if you want to call it.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: Always buying and selling something.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: I see.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, in my early days when I was working CSO, the Central Statistical Office, I would buy oranges in Pinal, Medibag, come up in the office, in the car park, bag it out in plastic bags, and resell.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: Right.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: I come from a business background.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: My grandfather had shop.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, all my family have, you know, some sort of business.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: So it looks strange to you.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: You're naturally seen that you had to buy and sell something.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
20:32
Corie: But it's a restaurant and them kind of thing is one of the hardest businesses to go into.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't let my worst enemy go into a restaurant.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't, if if I hate your Corey.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: This is before she would push you into a restaurant.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: It's too much of work.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean?
20:48
SPEAKER_02: Why?
20:48
SPEAKER_02: It's too much of work, it's a lot of work, long hours, um, staffing problems and everything else, you know.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh the first year was, I mean, I was just changing staff and changing chef and all kinds of different things, man.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, but you know, after three years, things kind of level out.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: I could I I couldn't travel for a whole year.
21:07
Corie: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: I was thinking how to even run away for carnival.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: But now, you know, my wife is is there during the day, my son's uh managers in the night.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: Um I must say I have a very wonderful staff now.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Um very loyal, honest.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: Um I've you know, we're able to keep the taste of the food, um, you know, to a kind of consistency, you know, where people I ain't getting so much reviews like in the previous, you know.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Now you know, we we live in a world where everything is a review.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Everything online is written in ink for everybody to see, you know.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: If I put a napkin in the um in the bag, I get a review for that.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: But the pepper sauce are too hot.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: Man, I tell you.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: So it's Caribbean food?
21:49
SPEAKER_02: Caribbean Chinese food.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh, nice, nice, yes, yes, yes.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: We have curry too.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Um so if he's a Trinidadian, it's curry chicken, but if he is a guy, he's um chicken curry.
22:00
Corie: So what's the connection with Guyana that making him in Sherry Street?
22:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, where I'm situated, it's it's um it's called Little Guyana.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, it was renamed by um Mayor De Blasio.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: That area is renamed as Little Guyana.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: But really and truly the population in that area in Richmond Hill is pro-Guyanese.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Alright, so um unless you open a roti shop, then you could go hardcore Trini and you cuisine, double Zalu pie and you know, sada roti and all these things.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: But I didn't open my roti shop.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: I opened my I would say semi-fine dining restaurant.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: You could come in it let me say I am the um Caribbean version of Applebee's or something, but but Chinese.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't want to dress up and come by me.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, come with your family.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: It's it's not a rum shop.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: You could come with your family, bring your kids.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: I have two levels.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: One is like a lounge area, and then upstairs is more for dining, or if you want to have like a little party or something.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
23:02
Corie: But you're saying no, you ain't gonna push your wheels and me in restaurants.
23:04
Corie: You didn't know that before you started, so no.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: I listen, I went into something blind.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: So you didn't have no experience in that.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: No experience in restaurants at all.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: What makes you decide that's where you want to go?
23:14
SPEAKER_02: My brother and one of his friends, they wanted to go into it.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: They didn't have the capital.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: So I said, alright, I go be the behind the scenes man, and we're gonna make this thing happen.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: But um, I end up being the cook, the bottle washer, the janitor, everything in one because HR.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I learned the greatest.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: It's all good.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I look at everything in life as a um as a learning experience of how to do something better the next time around.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Um or how I could share that knowledge with somebody else.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: When I say it, I wouldn't let my worst enemy go into it.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I know what you mean.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a difficult business.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: If somebody were to say they open a restaurant, well like now I could tell them, hey, let me get you a little checklist.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
24:06
SPEAKER_02: Um so at the end of the day, if I could impart some knowledge to somebody else and help them in their quest, in their adventure, then you know, uh my my part is done.
24:18
Corie: Well, congrats, that's good.
24:20
Corie: Most people just leave the business within the first year, they're gone, you know, man.
24:23
Corie: Once it gets too difficult, people just jump off.
24:25
Corie: No man, now man.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: A restaurant is an investment.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: And um, a lot of times a lot of investments like you know, could could fall in the first year or second year.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm thankful, knock on wood that mines didn't.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Three years we still run it.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: It is real good.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: We got into four.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I'm maybe looking to expand pretty soon, a new location.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's good.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Maybe Florida or see yourself to state.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
24:53
Corie: All right, okay, like need a headache.
24:55
Corie: I see what is happening here.
24:56
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: But like I say, all is not um lost.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: You you know, whatever heart hardships and heartaches we experience in life must be um documented, sorted, sifted, and let's see how we could make it work the second time around into something else.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: Um so maybe I might open my second location, it may not be the same type of food.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, so you could adjust.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: It might be more American-style food, it might be where I do have to pay high salaries in the kitchen.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: I just hire an 18-year-old out of college and fry, you know, tenders.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, short order cook.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you look at a uh business like um Keynes, and you're familiar with Keynes, you know?
25:45
SPEAKER_02: This guy's selling chicken tenders and fries.
25:47
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Some big business.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Makes sense.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, why why try to reinvent the wheel?
25:56
SPEAKER_02: While we want to keep on, we want to hold on to niche markets and and represent with country and culture and food and everything else.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: At the end of the end, this is to make a dollar.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure, sure.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: And if it they're making a dollar, it's gotta go.
26:09
Corie: Yeah, I think sometimes the way we look at businesses like I don't I feel for me, anything Rikija do is of the culture, it don't matter what kind of food you're selling, you know, you've done who is.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And the name Sheriff Street, like I say, you know, I have been practicing my craft in Guyana for so long that Sheriff Street is to Guyana as to Arya Peter Avenue is to try and that's that's the stretch.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it's all the entertainment bars.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh when when I used to go there with the late great Sundar Popo, um when we finished doing we we we um shows and things, we would end back up on Sheriff Street and go to the Sheriff Bar.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: So for me, there's a lot of connection with that street.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: Um also you know it lended well to the marketing aspect of the of the restaurant for the people in that area.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: For most, of course.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: When I map uh people from Sheriff Street in Ghana, yeah, they're glad to my restaurant on the bucket list.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: Must go.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: As soon as they reach New York, they come in by the restaurant.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: You see it on Instagram, no.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: You see it on Instagram.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: All the time, all the time.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: And and and that's it.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: They go on, they even come inside.
27:18
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
27:19
Corie: That's when you build something iconic.
27:20
Corie: That's good.
27:20
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
27:21
Corie: No, we had to go back to um you bring up Sundar Purpose there, right?
27:24
Corie: And I hear something about you, Sundar Purpose, GB and Kenny Phyllis are stories a little insane to me.
27:29
Corie: But we go get it.
27:30
Corie: I want to ask you about Calypso Monac this year.
27:32
Corie: See you.
27:33
Corie: Um don't spoil my name.
27:34
Corie: Don't spoil my name.
27:35
Corie: Oh, you enjoyed this year by performing this song, and uh I see you performing it in what was the tent we went to?
27:41
Corie: Dung and Radison?
27:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: We um we are the number one tent in the whole world, you know.
27:49
Corie: Thanks for saying that.
27:50
Corie: Maybe I could get the manager the tent to come now.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: But you know, earlier in the conversation, I said something that, you know, when I started in the business, I wanted to be the Indo-Calypsonian that wasn't existing.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: And um, even though I was even though I wanted to be the party Calypsonian, the word Calypsonian is really and truly who I am.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: I I I still feel that even though I might be the nine-time Chutney soaker monarch or Chutney monarch in in in other places, I am still I I'm I'm the Chutney Calypsonian.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Because I still telling the story, I still um, you know, relaying things in in song to people.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes you're on a flight and the pilot said, you know, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna get to our destination a little bit earlier.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Why do you think that's happening?
28:56
SPEAKER_02: Because one of two things could happen.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: They have a good wind wind behind them, or two, they deviate a little bit.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, the tower tells them, hey, move a little 10 degrees left, you get way a little faster.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Or sometimes you get there a little later, depending on weather condition.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: The same thing happens in your life.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: There was never any intention for me to be a Chutney artist or a Chutney king or anything of the sort.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: My goal was to win Sokha Monarch or become the Calypso King, just like the Mighty Sparrow.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: Um so while I was doing party music, I was already planting the seed of singing calypso, entering Young King, um, auditioning to make the big yard.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: But I knew I I knew everything, and you know, a little as a go.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: Um Chutney came and kinda threw me off the the um the path.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: You sure you want to sing this?
30:04
SPEAKER_02: I have no um qualms about saying what I say, yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay Chutney Soka kind of threw me off that part.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: When um Jordan Singh and Colin Talmer called me and said they have this competition called Chutney Soka Monarch, I asked them what what you want me to sing.
30:24
SPEAKER_02: I I do have a Chutney Sutra.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: And they say, Well, you could sing Sumintra.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: I say, Well, Sumintra is not a Chutney song.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, um it might have Indian elements in it, but it's certainly not a Chutney song.
30:39
SPEAKER_02: And um I say, listen, in the first year we allowing anything, anything with an Indian fabric in it.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: We lay it, we lay it go.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: And um, I say, alright.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: Here you go in.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: And um I did it was you had to sing two songs then.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: So I did some intra and I did uh an old song my mother used to sing.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: Um a record of that fast, and we do the two songs.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And strangely enough, I came second to Sonny Man with Low Taylor, of course.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: And that was that that changed the course of everything right there.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Because suddenly now I seen something that's um exploding, Chutney Soker, you know, shows all over the place, people calling Ricky Jai, um and now everybody's saying, Well, you could win this thing, you know.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: You could win this thing nine times.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: Of course, the next year I run straight out, yeah.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: I even come in the first ten.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: As life would go.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I was almost tempted at that point in time to just shelve that whole Chutney thing and go back to Kaiso.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: And one of my good friends, um Barry Emirat, you know, my sister had a bar in the village, and you know, he came one day and we were talking, and he said, So what are you doing for the Chutney next year?
32:05
SPEAKER_02: I said, Chutney.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't see no part of that boy.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: They rub me.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: They rub me and Dennis Plumber and Chris Cassia and Dennis Belfone and all that we can.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, big big computer.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: So names plays from 11 to 20.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Then he's plumber included.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: And um, I say, nah, they treat me bad there, but I ain't going back there.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: And he said down and he listened to me, and then he said, um, you know, I thought you were stupid, you know.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: You look stupid, but uh you know proving to me how stupid he is.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, evidence.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he said I now realize how stupid he is.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: He said, Listen, you have more um to give to this culture than you giving yourself credit for.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: Um you have more to achieve.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: This is just the early part of this thing.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: If I were you, I would just throw that loss in the back of you and move forward.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: And I say, nah man, I ain't doing it, I doing it.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: But when you leave, I sit down and think about it.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: And um sometimes you need a friend to pull you back on the right path and to to correct what may be a wrong decision or a bad decision in your life.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: And that was that was a defining moment in time.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: I could still remember that conversation where one of my friends was able to pull me back on the on the path.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: And well, the next year I went on to win 1998, 1999, um 2000, 2001, 2003.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Um I didn't win for a while because I dropped out in 2004 and five, and I started to show people how to win, and that that proved to be my downfall.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: They started beat me.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: You shared too much trade secrets.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: I shared too much of my trade secrets.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: Um but I take my licks.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I take my licks, and in 2011, I came back and I won the first two million dollars.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I was like my susu.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my hand comes back.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Investment had to pay off again.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, moments in time you don't forget.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: I am singing for the UNC big rally in the savannah, yeah.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: And the the would-be Prime Minister, um, the honourable.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, she makes the announcement then.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes, come on stage and say, and I will give two million dollars for Chutney, yeah.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Pan, calypso, and I in the back there and I say, oh yeah, two million dollars.
34:54
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: That's coming to me.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I say, if if um Ravi B and M feel they're gonna pull that, they have another thing coming.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's 2012.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: What's your song again?
35:08
SPEAKER_02: I white oak and water.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: White oak and water.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um, yeah, I I put all my all my focus on on winning that, winning that title in next year.
35:18
Corie: Well, I was gonna ask you if you deviate from the part, but if you regret it, I don't know regrets that it can't be.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I don't I don't regret it.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying that's what I say.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: I I I I don't have no qualms in saying how I feel or felt about something at a particular time in my life.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm very thankful for the success um I've achieved, attained in in Chutney Soka.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, I don't know if there'll ever be another nine-time winner.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, um, I don't know if there's a there's gonna be another competition that is gonna come to give artists that forum to achieve that kind of success.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: But I I'm I'm very, very grateful for everything that I've achieved in Calypso, in Chutney, in Parang.
36:06
Corie: Yeah, maybe there's my um just the way I view it.
36:09
Corie: I don't know if it's a faulty view, but I just see all of them as one thing, you know.
36:12
Corie: It's just our culture, as far as I concern.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, when I was uh a bit younger, it was easy to um so to come back to don't spoil my name, you know, it was easy to concentrate on a lot of things at the same time.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Um I didn't have a wife, I didn't have a I didn't have any kids, I get married late in life, I had my kids late in life.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: So music was my baby.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: I eat it, drink it, live it.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: That's all I did.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: So it was easy for me to in in uh 2001 enter six competitions, win four, make the finals of all six.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Soka monarch, uh calypso monarch, Chutney Soka Monarch, Young Kings, Unattached, Calypso Monarch, South Calypso Monarch.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: I win South Calypso Monarch, Unattached, Calypso Monarch, Young Kings time with Bungie, and then Chutney Soka Monarch.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: I played seventh in the Dimash Girl and sixth in Soka Monarch.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: But I can't do that again.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: So I made a I made a decision, okay.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm staying out at Chutney Soka Monarch.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: I only went back in two years ago because it was like the 30 years.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, universe.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: I wrote I wrote a song for a guy that entered on the 30 years of the celebration, you're on Ravi?
37:45
SPEAKER_02: Nah.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Nah, nah.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Um a guy named Robin J.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: So another J.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: And he had a song with Super Blue, and he wanted to go with that song.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: So I end up with this song now done crafted and just for the competition.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: So I enter, not knowing that Marshall entered also.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: This is a calypse you're talking about.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Good time, man.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: That that year I also entered Calypso Monarch.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: I came, I think I think I came 9th.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: But but my focus really and truly over the last couple years has been to uh reinvent and and and reposition myself back in the Calypso tent, which is where I started, and to be back on the marsh grass stage, which is you know where don't spoil my name, has taken me.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, after being out for um 22 years, uh to come back and in and to place to is I can't ask some more.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Trust me.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: It's a great anybody see me the marsh granite, they would have thought I win.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: I was literally rolling and jumping all over the place with my tood, place trophy.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: Because you know, um we we had to take the win when we get it.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Of course, and to me, that was a big win.
39:16
Corie: Yeah, yeah, and the song was an important message for the country.
39:18
Corie: Yeah, great, great song.
39:21
Corie: So you perform it in the tent on a saree right here.
39:23
Corie: Yeah, under something.
39:24
Corie: You were there when Marshall win Calypso Monarch as well.
39:27
Corie: I think I can't remember the name of the song, but I think he was singing a similar theme of what you're talking about here.
39:31
Corie: Yeah, the Indian man coming back in Calypso.
39:33
Corie: Yeah.
39:34
Corie: I I uh you know, that night watching from on TV, right?
39:37
Corie: And it seemed to have a lot of issues with people who I accustomed seeing as performers.
39:42
Corie: It sung like they wasn't hearing, you're seeing people off key, you were saying people off time, and the Savannah Stage known for that.
39:47
Corie: And then Ricky came on and like it had no more technical problems.
39:51
Corie: Remember this night?
39:52
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:53
Corie: It just holds it was an experience like then.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Um you know the Savannah Stage is is is um is is a unique experience.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: It's so huge.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, it it it overwhelms you the minute you walk on.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Um and then they have these little monitors placed, not even like big side fails to really full it up.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: It it it could it could get better, yeah.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: Um experience alone is what um kind of settles you on that stage.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: But even the most experienced artists go out there and have have have problems.
40:31
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:32
Corie: Yeah, I tell myself you go win and all this.
40:34
Corie: Like just like one Marshall and don't chop me, you know, because I find the song was real good on your rendition on the night was one of the best renditions.
40:41
Corie: Um so as much as you celebrated, when you hear the night on things, but you always feel when you're you No, it your heart drops.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm not expecting nine, honestly.
40:53
SPEAKER_02: Um the song going on real good in the tent, you know, semi-finals was you know, I mean, when I w when I walk out in Skinners back for semi-finals that yeah, I feel like if I win, they just got to see if Nintendo Savannah was like, Look, we son come back.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we bought it.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, so that whole momentum that you know took me to the savannah and when they called 9th, um it was a hard pill to swallow.
41:26
SPEAKER_02: But anybody know me will know that I never complain about results.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't see me posting anything on Facebook about results.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't go to the media.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: Um there was one time that I I may have included the media in something where myself and here are all had tied for First and Chutney Zoka Monarch, and I wanted the same treatment that was given to Dilamo and Luther in the Calypso Monarch.
41:57
SPEAKER_02: Give them the prize.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: They got the same prize.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: But in Chutney, they didn't do the same thing.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: They split it.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: So my thing was why why one was able to enjoy that, and then on the on the other side, we get split.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: Of course, I was the only one complaining, so I learned my lesson.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: I learned I learned my lesson well that I I complaining and I think it have people behind me when I turn back.
42:24
Corie: Tends to be the case from time to time.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: Where everybody who was saying, yeah, Ricky, go and tell them, tell the minister, tell this one, tell that one.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: And then um, I look back, not even Hero there with me.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: Don't get you off he got.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, I tell you, I remember moments in time, you know.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: I talked to Hero the night before.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: And he said, he said, yeah, bit, I with you.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: So I stand up now in Caribbe Kongong, away from the building, because the prize given was in in the um hospitality lounge.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: And um I waited for a hero.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: To my surprise, a Prado pull up with Minister Junior Williams, and who think in any backseat with you?
43:18
Corie: I was waiting on him.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: And then he really jump out the car and pass me straight and walk up the step.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: And I'll earn a valuable lesson there.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: I stop complaining after.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: Fear, fear, fear.
43:35
Corie: Yeah, I just you know it happened, it happened, yeah, you know, and you move on.
43:39
Corie: Yeah, well, I guess it's your seasoned in it.
43:40
Corie: Yeah, yeah.
43:41
Corie: Don't forget you could also reach out to us to advertise on the show and have your brand placed here, anywhere here.
43:47
Corie: You could get your brand.
43:48
Corie: So don't just call to get on the show, right?
43:50
Corie: We'll call and get on the show till we know you have big brands and you do great work in this country.
43:54
Corie: But don't forget you can also advertise with us to help support the stories of our countries and our.
44:00
Corie: Region going out to everybody.
44:02
Corie: Help you out.
44:04
Corie: Just call your friend.
44:04
Corie: Don't just call David to come on the show.
44:06
Corie: And advertise, you know what I mean?
44:08
Corie: Pay, spend.
44:09
Corie: How are we going?
44:10
Corie: Which way are we going back?
44:11
Corie: How does it go back this way?
44:13
Corie: Back to your conversation.
44:14
Corie: Yeah.
44:14
Corie: Going back to those early days.
44:16
Corie: You're growing up.
44:16
Corie: It's Friendship Village and Friendship South, right?
44:19
Corie: Yeah.
44:19
Corie: Your early years, like primary school, as young as that, you're interested in performing and in music and that kind of thing?
44:26
Corie: No.
44:27
Corie: No.
44:27
Corie: No.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: So primary school.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm always singing.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: That's all I could tell you.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: Since I know myself small, I singing and I know all the words for all the songs.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: Hymns, bajans, pop songs, reggae, you name it.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: I hear it one time on the radio.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: It stick in my head.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: But I never had the um I never joined any choir or never part of any group or anything.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: Even when I went to Naps, me and Donston Williams and the rest of the crew, we would be we'll be singing during the lunchtime break.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: But just say be a part of any musical group up until age 22, no.
45:13
Corie: Oh, serious as well.
45:14
Corie: Yeah.
45:14
Corie: What was the what was your ambition then you remember what you want to do?
45:16
Corie: What you want to be?
45:18
Corie: Um I just want to get a work.
45:20
Corie: Yeah.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
45:23
SPEAKER_02: I I need to make money.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: I come out of school, O levels, A levels, and no work.
45:31
Corie: So all them time, no calypso competition.
45:33
Corie: You ain't doing none of them things.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: I was actually one time I do some background vocals for one of my partner.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Um you know general manager at the airport, uh Maiden Newton.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: I see.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: We he do a song called Fleas, Fleas, they bite in, and I was in the background singing fleas, fleas, they bite him.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: They bite in real hard fleas, the school had fleas.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: Dogs.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: The dogs invade St.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Stephen's College and fleas all over the place.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: And he writes the calypso called Fleas, fleas, fleas.
46:02
Corie: I'm sure he didn't win.
46:03
Corie: They could have never done that.
46:05
Corie: No, he wouldn't.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: And that might be my only time that I would say I was part of some, you know, um background vocals or somebody, you know.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: Um after that, I was I was only hustle, you know, just um trying to get a job.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, you know, when I reached the A levels, um my dad said to me, um, I said, Dad, well, um, I want to go UE and do preag.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh my results in A levels wasn't enough to get me in.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: So I'd go and do over um if we see in agriculture.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, son, well, this is as far as I could carry you.
46:47
SPEAKER_02: My father's a taxi driver.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: He said, um, you know, this is far as I financially could could take you.
46:54
SPEAKER_02: University calling for a different kind of money type of money, which I don't have.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta work and put yourself through school.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: So right away a new bread, you had to you had a work.
47:09
Corie: You had to work.
47:10
Corie: You gotta work.
47:11
Corie: So you end up going through with it?
47:12
Corie: You you went to TUE, work and do it?
47:14
Corie: No, no, no, no, no, no.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: I um I was the only one in my class that didn't go to UE.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: Really?
47:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:20
Corie: So we just went on working about the PD UE fees for a while.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: I just went to work.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: Um I get called Well, while I was doing A-levels, my sister had um encouraged me to write the civil service exam.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: So I passed that while I was going to school.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: And fortunately for me, that gave me um because I pass, and I pass, maybe I pass high, and I get a call from the Ministry of Finance as a temporary clerk one.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: And that was it.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: I joined the civil service.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: I get a work.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: People leave, you know.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: When they get that kind of work.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: And everybody in the village is like, ah, boy, you get a government work.
47:59
SPEAKER_02: You rich.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: You're playing full, eh?
48:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: You rich.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: All the old people in the village say, make sure and dress properly, you know, and don't talk back to the boss and them.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: And do your work, eh?
48:09
SPEAKER_02: And make sure and reach your work early.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: And real advice, because you get a government work.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: There's a holy grail, yeah.
48:16
Corie: You know, hold on to that.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And in the Ministry of Finance too.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: You must get pay.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:23
Corie: So you went on from there, you started getting bugged for it at that point, or you're just working and figuring out life at that point, too?
48:29
SPEAKER_02: So when I get into the Ministry of Finance, um, I started to get ambitions to become a customs officer.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: So I started making the the wrongs now to see how to get myself positioned down to customs.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: So I went to my boss and I tell her, I say I need a transfer.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: So she didn't want to give me up.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: Because I was I was early a good worker.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: I very committed, always early on time, wherever they want done, I'm doing it.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Um I was in CSO, I was um assistant to the office manager.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: Um So I told her, I said, listen, I could stay here, but I don't see myself becoming a statistician.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, because that calls for a different level of training.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't really want to go out on the field doing surveys in the hot sun and that kind of, you know.
49:23
SPEAKER_02: Um but I have an ambition to be a customs officer.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: So she signed off on it, and um quite coincidentally, too.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: I get appointed in Treasury.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: So she had to release.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: She really was following the money, but it was clear them with it.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so she had to release many.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: And um once I get to Treasury, well then Yeah, I end up in the the the um account department, accounts department.
49:50
SPEAKER_02: Now I do in payroll for everybody in in finance, the budget analysis, this one, that one.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: So I started to make friends with people over there and start to find out where the proceed and how to move from Treasury.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: Again, I go into the controller, she ain't want to let me go neither.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: I had to plead my case and say, listen, I understand what they're saying, you know, but all you understand where I want to go.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: And I want to go to customs because I want to become a customs officer.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: And um that argument fell on deaf face until I find a loophole.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how I find a loophole, but I find a loophole and I get out of the treasury.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: And I went across the road to general administration, and from general administration, um, I was able to move to customs.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes where you want, you don't always get.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: When I reached the customs now, I put a gone in and I was a clap too.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: And um uh well I already singing now.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: I start singing with um with a band called Naya and As.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: Right, something wrong here, because nothing you say before this song like singing at all.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, I started singing with a band called Naya and As.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: Low-key.
51:17
SPEAKER_02: Alright, good.
51:17
SPEAKER_02: Low-key, nothing major.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: Then I joined Travini.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: And um by the time I reached the customs, the ambition to start recording.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:27
SPEAKER_02: It now it's there.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: And um, lo and behold, the guy next to me is a fellow named Errol Bali Balantine.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: Imagine that.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: Imagine that.
51:38
SPEAKER_02: I I I I is his supervisor now.
51:42
SPEAKER_02: So this man's serious, like me coming to work when you want, how you want.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: And he's saying I'm right there.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: And I thinking, well, alright, now gears shifting here now.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Customs officer going through the door, music now.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Um I watching this man.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: How to talk to this man?
52:05
SPEAKER_02: Why this man is this is great Bali.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: This is great Bali Ballantine, Shaka Shaka, party time, you know, Maxi Dub.
52:17
SPEAKER_02: Take about a month to talk to him, they get some advice.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: And that's how the ball starts rolling.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: That's how I ended up um meeting up with Gregory Ballantine.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: He introduced me to Gregory Valentine.
52:30
SPEAKER_02: Gregory Valentine would have would be the one to write some intro.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: So uh talked to Bali finally after about a month.
52:41
SPEAKER_02: And um I I I ashamed to say this, but I I talked to him when he was in the back in the in the in the um urinal.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: I had to catch him at a weak moment.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: He can't move.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: He can't move.
52:55
Corie: He had to listen.
52:56
unknown: Wait, wait, wait.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: So the the urinal there, and I I I say as I I look across, I say, I wanna ask you something.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: And he said, You gonna wait till you come here to ask me that?
53:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Miss Wiggins.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Of course, yeah.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: He said, Alright, alright, meet me by my desk.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: And that was it.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: And I tell him I want to do one thing, and I tell him I'll singing with a band and thing.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: And we became best of friends, and up till this morning, me and him was talking.
53:31
SPEAKER_02: Nice, nice, nice.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I I didn't I didn't have a vehicle.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: He let me the Jeep to go and meet Jeep and go to Barataria, go to the record company.
53:41
Corie: So when he said the Jeep breakdown, he had a Jeep and true.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: Well the Jeep really break down, he had a Suzuki Jeep.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: That song is there is some truth to it.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: The Jeep break down and he jumped on a maxi, and when he jumped in the maxi, all he hearing is doubly bye, doubly bye, doubly bye, bye-bye.
53:59
Corie: And we can fact check that.
54:00
Corie: We'll check that out.
54:01
Corie: Check the box.
54:02
Corie: You could call him.
54:03
Corie: Yeah, you can call him.
54:04
Corie: So the story I hear it now is that JB was the person who would have wrote some intro.
54:08
Corie: You say you approach him, right?
54:09
Corie: You get a chance to Bali to go and meet him.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, Bali took me down from the room.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he took me down at the from after work.
54:15
SPEAKER_02: We drove down to South.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
54:17
SPEAKER_02: Then he dropped me home and he came back up.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if there was a gentleman in the business at the time that God could send to me, that was him.
54:28
Corie: So after all that, where do the dressing room really is?
54:30
Corie: So the low say by the stars, then you reach veteran dressing room.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when I reach by when I reach across by by the next dressing room, you know, walking there, like, you know, this this person in the shadows there looking like Yuda.
54:44
SPEAKER_02: And um You know, he look up the same way on his side, and I tell him, uh, uh, you know, I come to change my clothes.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: He said, no, no, no.
54:55
SPEAKER_02: This this is you're in the wrong dressing room.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: So it only had two dressing rooms spectacular.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: Both of them is the wrong one.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: And both of them is the wrong one.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: So that first night I changed my clothes behind the building.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:15
SPEAKER_02: The first night Bali wasn't there.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: He was um when the tent opened, Bali wasn't in Trinidad at the time.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: He was in New York.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, because you know, maybe for one reason or the other it was recording by Charlie's or on tour or something.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: But he missed the opening.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: So when he did come to the tent now, he looking for me.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: But I not in the I not in the dressing rooms.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: So when he when he did find me now, he's like, Where was?
55:41
SPEAKER_02: I said, well, when time to change, I just go in the back of the building.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: And um I said, what do you mean in the back of the building?
55:50
SPEAKER_02: I said the space between the building and the wall.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: Then I tell him, I said I tell him what happened.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that can't work here.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: He said, give me your bag.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: And he takes the bag and he go in and going into the room where Duke was.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: And he said, Duke, this is your bag?
56:11
SPEAKER_02: He said, Yes.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: Take it and he move it.
56:13
SPEAKER_02: He said, put your bag there.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: He put my bag there.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: He said, This fella with me.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: That's the hell.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: And nob nobody interfered with him or your bag.
56:24
SPEAKER_02: And um and strangely enough, nobody tells Bali anything.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: Duke didn't respond, or Gypsy didn't say anything, you know.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: And then um the next week he brings a bag for me.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so more garments bag.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: My first garment bag was actually Bali's um gift.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I should say.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh nice, nice, nice.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: Um we you know, we're working in the same office and we became good friends.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes, you know, I would stay by him if you know um the drive back to South or traveling late or something, you know.
57:02
Corie: Yeah, yeah, stay by him.
57:04
Corie: But when you get an idea, you have your own song now.
57:06
Corie: We take it's a GB.
57:07
Corie: And my understanding is that the first song GB write for you, yeah, you end up short.
57:15
Corie: I didn't have any money.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I tell him money was short in the MDs.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: Even though I'm hustling, whoever hustling, it amounts in that much.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how much orange?
57:25
SPEAKER_02: 10 cents.
57:26
SPEAKER_02: You know.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: Um so when he took me down to to GB, GB had a song called Rampasad.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: And um when he sang it for my boy, well boy, I I get real excited.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: He seen up 1500.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: Oh Rampasad, you marry such a young, young girl.
57:51
SPEAKER_02: I say, uh boy, I could hear the tasa rolling pran katanga tank patang.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: I say, yes, this is gonna be big just like roll up itasa.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: I say, um, right, too much for that.
58:02
SPEAKER_02: He said 1500.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know if the wool stopped spinning at that point in time, it stopped spinning at that point in time.
58:16
SPEAKER_02: If you ever watch Superman, you know when he the wool stopped.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: That was me at that point in time.
58:22
SPEAKER_02: I say, well, um, you gotta give me a little time to um to raise the money.
58:27
SPEAKER_01: So he said, okay, no problem.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: And I I left and I went about trying to find this 1500 hours.
58:37
SPEAKER_02: But in the meantime, Frank Martino and Claude Martino, the Martino brothers, they wanted to rival the review.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: Because the review had drop te with Rulabitasa.
58:52
SPEAKER_02: So now they need um uh Indian person in the tent as well.
58:58
SPEAKER_02: So they signed Sundar Popo to the tent without a song.
59:02
Corie: With no song.
59:03
SPEAKER_02: With no song.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: But he's the big man in the business.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: Of course, yeah.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: He's the Iwa George.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: And um, so they sign Sundar Popo to the tent with no song.
59:16
SPEAKER_02: So after I leave by GB, Frank Martin knows there.
59:22
SPEAKER_02: And he buys my song and give it to Sundar Pop.
59:25
SPEAKER_02: Rampasat.
59:25
SPEAKER_02: Rampasat.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: So, now known to me now, Sundar gone with the song.
59:32
SPEAKER_02: Sundar with my song, you can't say it.
59:34
SPEAKER_02: Sunday with the song.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: Um so I called GB about two weeks after to tell him that um I have the money, I want to come pay for the song.
59:46
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, pay for the song.
59:51
SPEAKER_02: He said, I say, you know what the song again?
59:54
SPEAKER_02: This is when you're finding out.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: I said, um, I sell that song.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: I say, how you can sell my song?
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: He said, hey, hey, young boy.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Your song?
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: I can't I can't remember you um I can't remember you you leaving a deposit or nothing here.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: Well boy, I in many times in life my heart dropped to the ground.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: That was one of them times.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: Heart dropped to the ground.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: I hang up the phone.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh living in my house in Friendship Village by myself.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: Thinking, thinking, thinking what to do here, what to do.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: How to get over this?
1:00:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, my heart set on this song.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: I call him back.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: I say Mr.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_02: Ballantine, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: But I do believe that you are a great writer.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_02: And if you write one great song, you could definitely write another one.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_02: So would you mind writing another song for me?
1:00:56
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, Yeah, no problem, but you gotta drop something, you know.
1:00:59
Corie: Of course, yeah, of course.
1:01:00
Corie: Business.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: A final 500.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: Make sure and leave all the deposit.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: And he wrote Sumantra.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: And um I wasn't as enthusiastic about Sumintra as I was for Rampasa.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: But I go on with it.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: And uh, even when I was recording by Kenny Phillips, my hopes for becoming you know successful and having a hit song was actually the song that Alison Hairs wrote called Getting On.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: Dungin' St.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: John's are getting on, don't in lions are getting on, don't in point fourteen are getting on.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: If you see Ricky Jai getting on, I what?
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: That's my song.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: I put that on the A side.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: Back in them days, a record had an A and a B.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Sumantra is on the B side.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: Sumantra is my B side.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: I put Sumantra as the B song and getting on.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_02: If you go and find the album, you ain't gonna see Sumintra on the front of it.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: The album is Ricky Jai Getting On.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: Me and um Nada Doki with a bottle of white oak.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: We get in.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: Maybe back in the days um was Fernandez Black.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I getting on.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: But when I reached the Port of Spain, and I give it to um Tony Um Ian Ellegon was on the drive, um Tony Lee at what by 100.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: There was the people there at the time.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: Ivar Ferrero was the librarian.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_02: Ivor called me and said, Ricky, the DJs don't really ain't feeling um getting on.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: And they started playing some intro.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: And that was the other you probably aim no I have a song called getting on.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I say no.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: And that was it.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_02: You're lucky to listen to the B side.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_02: They go busted on the four o'clock show, and that was it.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: You start calling in, saying his baron is is crazy, he's Chugallos.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, I I walk in Independence Square with a bag on my shoulder, trying to pedal this thing for$20.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_02: DJs telling me, yo, we gotta give you a free record, you know.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: I was like, free?
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you trying to sell your record?
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: I try to sell a record.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: Let's say I'm businessman, huh?
1:03:32
SPEAKER_02: I I literally had a bag with 20 records in it.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_02: I understand.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_02: And I walking around trying to sell this thing for$20.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: And like DJs, they playing it like, you know, I walk in the Christmas parties and thing.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_02: And men saying, yo, you know, you had to give the DJs a complimentary record to play yourself.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: I was like, You mad about it?
1:03:53
SPEAKER_02: You know what this costs.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: You know what this thing costs me?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_01: It's my life savings here.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_01: I just sell my car, take a loan, and everything else to make this record, and you telling me I had to give you a free record.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_02: But honestly, I know nothing.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: Nobody knows.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about the business.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about promotion and nothing.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_02: I think when I go down by Rhiners, um, I meet um Miss Rhino there, and she said down, and you know, when you go in Rhiners long time, she up on her little a little um thing watching over the store, and I go on and I I tell she I have these records, and she says, Alright, I'll take two.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
1:04:33
Corie: I was like, you don't want to take ten?
1:04:36
Corie: Yeah.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_02: She said, no, I want um two.
1:04:39
Corie: Seriously, that's self-seous.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_02: So and she did two.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_02: I write up the um the bill.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: And I wait in.
1:04:45
Corie: You're looking for cash.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_01: She said, What what what you want what you want?
1:04:54
SPEAKER_01: You want something?
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, I waiting for the money.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: Say money?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm taking this on consignment.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_02: If it sells, you get paid.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: And if it don't sell, I'll call you and tell you to come back and pick it up.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, boy, when I go and buy um Rhiners and um um Crosby's, I remember I traveling to her.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: So I travel to St.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: James, who will tell me the same thing.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: Everything is consignment.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm going by cams in long circular.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_01: Imagine me, I have a car, you know.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_02: Walk from Prince, go by the by by um University, square there, university day, take a taxi, go somewhere else, there from there.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_02: I walk in as much as I could walk to.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: And um, everybody's consignment.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, by going home real disappointed, but I reached back in in my House, no records in my bags and no money in my hand.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: But as as it would happen, the phone rang about eight o'clock.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: And Miss Ryan was on the phone.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_02: And she said, Young man, um, I need to get ten of your records.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: That's what's I said, but I was in the store till you take ten.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_02: She said, um, yeah, but the two you leave it sell.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: Apparently, people hear it on the radio that's.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: So them time you need me and it's on the radio, yeah.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: You don't know.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what's going on in the radio.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I walk- I remember I peddling, I move all around the radio.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:06:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, so it starts, it started to move.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, she takes ten, then Cam's called me, Will called me.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh Jimmy's on in in High Street in San Fernando.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, one or two places in Coover and things started called me.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: I said drop.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_02: I had to get somebody to drop me, drop off.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_02: I had to borrow card to drop five records, yeah.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_02: But you ain't got no money in there.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: You had to wait till it's sell.
1:07:06
Corie: At that time, you know it's Sumantra or your feelers get on still people buying the phone.
1:07:10
Corie: No, no, no.
1:07:10
Corie: I don't know.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_02: Everybody, everybody liked Sumantra.
1:07:14
Corie: Sumantra.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_02: So um I home in my house and the phone rang again.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_02: And guess who called me?
1:07:22
SPEAKER_02: Frank Martino.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_02: Say it.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: Hello?
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: Hello, this is uh this is Ricky Jai.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: I say, yes, this is Ricky Jai.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: So this is Frank Martino from Spectacular.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: I boy, the phone followed my hand.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: I hear in Frank on the next time.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: Hello, hello, hello, hello.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: I I pick up the phone now.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_02: Say, um, yes, Mr.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: Martino.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: I know who's Frank Martino.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: I know he don't take me a song too.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: So he called me and said, um, you want me to join spectacular and this and that.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_02: And I say, no problem.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_02: I'll be happy to.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, things are thinking about unfolding here.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_02: Um so when he done talk, I think I say, so um what what what kind of money are we talking about?
1:08:15
SPEAKER_02: So he said, um, we're gonna start you at 15 15 hundred I said Well I work in a whole month for less than fifteen hundred hours at a time in in um in my substantive post acting as a clock to this carrying me up to about 18 or 22 or something So this man says 15 I say I trying to I'm trying to negotiate I never negotiated in my life Use your own salesman your own manager everything alright so I say um I say um can I do better than fifteen I mean fifteen hundred a month kinda kinda tough you know I think in month I think in now I say so how much days we gotta sing he said well you sing Tuesday to Sunday we off Monday and some some Tuesdays we off so I think you know one two three four five six six days twenty-four days um for fifteen hundred dollars isn't making sense I mean I glad for the thing but I still I said let me try man see where you guys say he said um I said could do better than fifteen fifteen for the month kind of hard for me he said no no no no no fifteen hundred a week I say I'll take it I say I'll take it I said fifteen hundred a week yeah boy I I I I um I don't I fifteen hundred hours a week you know what I mean so that that was it you know that was it fifteen hundred hours a week um gone but even when I started I didn't have any I didn't have money to say like um to buy clothes and then you know I went down I went down by Deluxe in San Fernando there was a black pants in the shoecase with some glitter I think I paid like$30 for that shoe with a little tassel on it I must pay about$30 for that too and then coming through Voyager mall if you ever see my Sum Intra video you see a green shirt with a little cowboy thing um I think that was about$40 and that was that was my outfit for a whole week.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah because um I would wear it, go home, print it, go again, and iron it up and come back with it in the in the black garbage.
1:10:58
Corie: Yeah, of course.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_02: That's when he garbage anyway I raped up the road until you start a guy.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_02: There's uh yeah, when I get a first pay, um there was a seamstress in the village and then buy some clothing um Jimmy's Jimmy Abu Queen Shri De.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_02: Um there was another there was another big store at the time, not Jimmy's.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_02: Um I went in there, I guess some flashy shining stuff.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_02: And it looked like a star.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: Um turtleneck was in at the time.
1:11:31
SPEAKER_02: So the lady said she could make some turtlenecks and things like that.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: I can't afford to buy the turtleneck in the store.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_02: So she um she told me what material to buy, I buy it up, and then yeah, she makes about three turtlenecks.
1:11:43
Corie: Yeah, look for you, Ricky Jai on YouTube, no in spectacular turtleneck today, you know.
1:11:47
Corie: It's still documented.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what I mean?
1:11:51
SPEAKER_02: And that was it, you know.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh after that, um, you know, I meet a guy in South uh designer called Stephen Pazos.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_02: And um he started to make clothes to me.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: After in that in that time now, I started like I say, I watching how David and Tambu and him dressing, and the cloth was um dressing David and him, those big patterns and thing, you know.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I follow suit, you know.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: A lot of my money that I was making in those years was just spending on rebranding, on making videos.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_02: Um so even though you could you were seeing some level of success with the music, financially I was still in a hole because I was taking reinvesting in the business.
1:12:39
Corie: Yeah, I hear you talk about interviews many times, like that reinvestment itself.
1:12:43
Corie: Is this important to you have to know?
1:12:45
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_02: I still reinvested in myself all all the time.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_02: It it it is non-stop.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's non-stop, you know.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_02: Um like now I had to start as working with younger producers, younger writers, like I doing a song with a guy from Rio Claro right now.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_02: Um Big Up to my boy Shoto.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_02: Um and and I when I go on to sing this song, I was like, dude, all the young people, all you all you float the front.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:13:12
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, no, we this normal for me, you know.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_02: Guys them, yeah.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_02: It's normal for you.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_02: So I had a let him stay in the studio with me, guide me with it, sing it, and take it, carry it back home, and you know, Monday I'll go and re-voice it.
1:13:29
SPEAKER_02: Um But for me in the early days, you know, I like to consider myself, and I I blowing my own trumpet here, but I like to consider myself as the first influencer in trying to ad.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, because I spent all my money on videos and influencers before.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_02: The cost of a video back in the day, show me emotion, keep it pumping, and then with all them boats and models and things was astronomical.
1:13:57
Corie: I don't know that I ever see anybody do videos the way you do it.
1:14:00
Corie: I don't know if it's just my memory, like revisionist history, but so Sumintro was one of them, right?
1:14:04
Corie: All it went up on San Fernando, it was it was just unique.
1:14:06
Corie: It was it was it was different.
1:14:08
Corie: At this point in time, you're saying you gotta believe in his song now, because song A any tense you see any response to it.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_02: That had nothing to do with me, you know.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_02: Dave Surajin, who is the son of Tex at TechSprint.
1:14:21
SPEAKER_02: I I'm sitting down there waiting to see the father.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_02: And he comes out and says, Anybody in here need help?
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: And um some people he talked to them and then I'm sitting there still quietly.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_02: He says, Um, who you here to see?
1:14:38
SPEAKER_02: I say, I here to see um Mr.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_02: Siraj and uh what what are you here for?
1:14:45
SPEAKER_02: I said, Well I come to see about my record jacket.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_02: And he said, Record jacket?
1:14:50
SPEAKER_02: You could sing.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_02: You don't look like a singer.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't blame him.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_02: Are they in a long sleeve shirt with a tie?
1:14:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, you know, I uh I look like an accountant or something.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_02: So he said, um, let me hear your song.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_02: So I I had no walkman.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, what next?
1:15:11
SPEAKER_02: So I gave me walkman and put over here and he said, I come in now.
1:15:17
SPEAKER_02: So I said, Where this man go with Mike?
1:15:19
SPEAKER_02: This is the only version, this is the only copy of this thing I have on my uh Max L essay.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_02: Right?
1:15:26
SPEAKER_02: And this man takes my thing and go on in the back.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_02: But he went in the back to play it for the the workers in the um in the printry.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_02: Um them into calypso and partying and things.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_02: So you come back, you say.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you have a nice song here, no?
1:15:41
SPEAKER_02: Everybody like your song?
1:15:43
SPEAKER_02: Why you to do a video for it?
1:15:48
Corie: You start to hear price one time.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_02: This man in this man insulting me here, way.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_02: I say, boss, I barely hear a passage to go back to Potter Spain right now.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_02: The last$4,000 or whatever I had I just gave you know your father taking that just now.
1:16:05
SPEAKER_02: I do have no money.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_02: When I done with this here, I have no money for nothing like video and thing.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: You say, nah man, you ought to be a trendsetter, you know, you ought to do a video.
1:16:18
SPEAKER_02: Um I say, well, I have no money.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_02: You say, yeah, what?
1:16:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna make a call.
1:16:25
SPEAKER_02: A guy by the name of Barry McComy, who was now setting up a company called Advanced Dynamics.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, had just set it up.
1:16:34
SPEAKER_02: And Vishnu Balrup had just opened Vishrack.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: And the three of them were three good friends because Dave used to be a cameraman with TTT back in the day.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_02: And he and Vishnu are good friends, and he and the three of them.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_02: The three of them get together and say, they're gonna do some intra video.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
1:16:55
SPEAKER_02: With no budget.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_02: This is a no-budget video.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_02: So them tell me, get some clothes and come down to San Fernando Hill.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, boy, I have no money.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_02: I had just come back from New York and I buy a little track pants and uh a little yellow shirt with acid wash or something was the style at the time.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_02: And I have uh uh Adidas sneakers, so I pull what I have and I go along there.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_02: And that's what you see on San Fernando Hill, that is my wardrobe.
1:17:29
Corie: Yes.
1:17:30
Corie: That's what come true.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_02: That is that's what it was.
1:17:33
SPEAKER_02: Um the the white shoe that had on there, um in you know uh kind of make do with the way you have in your in your cupboard.
1:17:42
SPEAKER_02: Imagine that.
1:17:42
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:17:43
SPEAKER_02: And um they we did a piece of the video in in Harry Amar Singh's record stock, a piece in Spectacular and a piece on San Fernando Hills, and they edit it for free.
1:17:56
SPEAKER_02: And I will forever be grateful to Vishnu, Tex, and Barry for that first video.
1:18:02
Corie: Yeah, put that on Kai's history as a city can know.
1:18:05
Corie: Everybody knows any moments when you're doing things like that, you have any idea that no.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_02: All all Dave was was saying was like, you know, we had to move away from the videos that were being done in TTT, you know, long time.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for the screen.
1:18:19
SPEAKER_02: You wanna stand up by a plant in the corner there and you sing your song.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_02: That was the music video.
1:18:25
SPEAKER_02: Every video, yeah.
1:18:27
Corie: Um, so I guess when you do something like that, it must show.
1:18:30
Corie: Right.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_02: So now TTT have content.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_02: And my video is different to everybody else's video.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_02: So mine started running on TV.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's seen, everybody's seen a face to the artist now.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:18:44
SPEAKER_02: Whereas back in the day, you you're hearing about Skrunter, but you ain't really seen him.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_02: Or you're hearing about Rootsman, but you ain't seen him.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_02: Now that's changing.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, and now you're seeing um a storyline behind that you know and the iconics and Fernando Hill.
1:19:03
SPEAKER_02: You know?
1:19:04
SPEAKER_02: Understand.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_02: Um after that, uh, you know, whatever money I make from the shows and the tent and everything else, um, all of that went back into the pumping video now.
1:19:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so you can get that one for free or didn't they?
1:19:15
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no, no, no.
1:19:16
Corie: No, it's another thing.
1:19:17
Corie: Now the Naughty Bill coming.
1:19:23
Corie: Pumping was another one iconic video.
1:19:25
Corie: Big, big song.
1:19:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, by that time now, you see wardrobe change.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:19:29
SPEAKER_02: Looking right, looking dapper.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_02: Right?
1:19:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, super models inside of the thing there, you know.
1:19:34
Corie: Pumping was the one of the cartoon and thing.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_02: Nah, no, no.
1:19:38
SPEAKER_02: Pumping is the one where um I put a glasses through a frame on a girl.
1:19:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_02: She was dancing in a in a bikini or something, and I reached through her.
1:19:48
Corie: Yeah, it's starting now.
1:19:50
SPEAKER_02: Um show me emotion was a good one.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_02: Show me emotion was the next year.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_02: It's free today, though.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_02: I want to.
1:19:55
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no free.
1:19:58
SPEAKER_02: Again, a little discount.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_02: All right, good.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_02: I get a little discount, but you gotta start paying.
1:20:02
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:20:03
SPEAKER_02: Of course, of course.
1:20:03
Corie: Listen, just a couple more things before they put me out ahead.
1:20:06
Corie: You go put you out here in a hurry.
1:20:07
Corie: But I wonder, like, we're going back to being, as you say, that nine-time Chutney monarch taking that journey you take, in terms of the feeling, you know, you say you call it Sony and at heart.
1:20:17
Corie: How you feel about being that monarch that stands out so much in Chutney?
1:20:22
SPEAKER_02: Um well so back in that time, I want to be like Carl Lewis.
1:20:30
SPEAKER_02: I want to be I want to be a trailblazer, and the only way to do that is to is to win.
1:20:37
SPEAKER_02: And to start beating people and collecting trophies and awards and accolades and things, and that was an area that uh that I was able to do that.
1:20:48
SPEAKER_02: Um it it it was a mission.
1:20:53
SPEAKER_02: Um to you, I had I was I was the first person to get a hat trick, first person to win it five times.
1:21:02
SPEAKER_02: A lot of firsts for me.
1:21:04
SPEAKER_02: Um when I see one guy reach the six, I say nah, I had to reach I had to go to seven and then from there we'll uh move on and on.
1:21:12
SPEAKER_02: But after a while is is like okay, you need to do something else.
1:21:18
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's when I started switching momentum, I switched gears a little bit, but it's uh it's humbling to say, well, hey, you win this thing nine times.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_02: I d I didn't even know what I was doing really.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_02: I just blindly going after victories one after the other, one after the other, spending money, you know, throwing caution till you win.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_02: Um but when I look back on it now, it's like wow.
1:21:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it it kind of sometimes I can't even believe it that I I actually do that.
1:21:51
SPEAKER_02: You done done or you're going for 10.
1:21:52
Corie: 10 is a nice number, you know.
1:21:58
Corie: Wait, we'll see.
1:21:59
Corie: Alright, alright, alright.
1:22:01
Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:22:02
SPEAKER_01: You never know.
1:22:03
Corie: I feel I know, I feel I know, I feel I know.
1:22:05
Corie: When you do the 10, come back, right?
1:22:07
Corie: Yeah, you feel like you're not going to be able to do that.
1:22:07
Corie: You never know, you never know.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've said many times I ain't going back and I went back.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:22:12
SPEAKER_02: Um but listen, we are human beings and we can make decisions today, and we have a mind to change it tomorrow.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't think we should be set in making um statements that are unchangeable.
1:22:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't think we should set our lives to be so strict and stringent that we don't make changes.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_02: We must be um able to reflect.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_02: We must be able to ponder on the circumstances or the situations and adjust for what's best for us at that time, right?
1:22:48
SPEAKER_02: At that time or looking forward.
1:22:51
SPEAKER_02: So for me, I would I've said it that I ain't going back to Chutney Soka Monarch and I went back.
1:22:57
SPEAKER_02: And I say I ain't going back, and I went back.
1:23:01
SPEAKER_02: So for me now, it would all depend on the song.
1:23:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_02: If I have that song that I know when I go to Skinner's Park, I will rock the place like when I rock with Baamano.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
1:23:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I will I will go and cut some ass again.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_02: Alright.
1:23:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:23:17
Corie: As soon as he entered, just book it one time, right?
1:23:20
Corie: Last, last question.
1:23:21
Corie: Last, last question.
1:23:22
Corie: You said that going back with ambition and looking to put a certificate on that wall.
1:23:26
Corie: I wonder how it felt with that dream coming and get an honorary doctorate from UTT.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, that was like that was like one of the greatest I I I cried.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_02: I cried, I I it's like, why why they give me that?
1:23:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I didn't I was kind of like confused that um when the guy started explain why they're giving it to me.
1:23:55
SPEAKER_02: Um I was like, okay.
1:23:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't think any artist sets out thinking that they're gonna get an honorary doctorate or or or or anything, actually.
1:24:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, we start off doing something that we like, we love, we're passionate about, and that's just how it just keeps unfolding, unfolding, unfolding.
1:24:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, layers of of this musical life that we have.
1:24:22
SPEAKER_02: It just keeps unfolding, going, going, going, going, going.
1:24:26
SPEAKER_02: And when when they they call me and and say that, man, I I I put on the phone and I was just sitting there like, wow.
1:24:35
SPEAKER_02: And walking out into that stage there, um, in front of the president, there one of the greatest moments in my life.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:24:45
SPEAKER_02: It it brings everything together then.
1:24:48
SPEAKER_02: It's it's like, alright.
1:24:52
SPEAKER_02: This is it.
1:24:53
SPEAKER_02: It does weird leave any government work.
1:24:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:24:56
SPEAKER_02: Um that you know is like a recognition then, hey, it's like we see you.
1:25:03
SPEAKER_02: We see in you.
1:25:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_02: We see you and we recognize you.
1:25:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_02: It's it's like, you know, all the stuff that you do over the years, uh it would it didn't go to waste.
1:25:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all the ups and the downs, yeah.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, all them, all them trials and tribulations, the victories, the losses, it somebody sees it.
1:25:23
Corie: You know what I mean?
1:25:23
Corie: Yeah, I want to tell you all of us see it.
1:25:25
Corie: I want to congratulations on behalf of all of us and thanks a million.
1:25:28
Corie: I appreciate you taking the time to come and we've been making sure from the tiny sign up for my Johnson to go back in, we're booking it so that you can come back immediately.
1:25:37
Corie: I know, I I feel I know.
1:25:39
Corie: Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_02: I I I want to move from three to one and cut it to one.
1:25:45
SPEAKER_02: Well that's good.
1:25:47
SPEAKER_02: That's my that's my um that's the focus.
1:25:50
SPEAKER_02: We'll be speaking it into the game.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much as well.
1:25:52
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much.
1:25:54
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.