Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Kes on Taking Soca Global, Family & the Mission Behind the Roots, Rock, Soca Tour

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Kes on Taking Soca Global, Family & the Mission Behind the Roots, Rock, Soca Tour · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello is a demo.
• 0:01
  Corie: Hello is a demo.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hello?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is that demo?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: All the big songs in my life was like a hard moment.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Creativity go on and like time might be walking up the road and I don't know real toothback.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Little arrow is telling me to do that, but I'm thinking arrow telling me to free outside it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to pop, I can pop give me the two years.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: To do that.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_08: Then I'm not going to do that.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I started to read the pack talk a lot more.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because before I was kind of vexed with it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was like the most lovely dreams and things and then and then my my my my my my my end door spent on it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like up next.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the white boy on the tool.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I like it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can't like y'all.
• 1:38
  Corie: Welcome to the Cory Chapter Podcast.
• 1:40
  Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
• 1:41
  Corie: Thank you for all the new people who tune in in.
• 1:43
  Corie: Today we have a special edition that town.
• 1:45
  Corie: Let's just say it's sponsored.
• 1:48
  Corie: So they say Lucas It's pot ice kick or song like her.
• 1:51
  Corie: You song good?
• 1:52
  Corie: By Jude Bellingham.
• 1:53
  Corie: And we hear what a man today who are feeling neat about a case studies because he's been on tour for a long, long, long time.
• 1:58
  Corie: I want to welcome to the show, the great Kess Diffantal.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: Everything good, the great courage of the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, putting it bringing the pieces together, putting the pieces together, you know, home home for a few, and and definitely, you know, that tour was amazing.
• 2:16
  Corie: Yeah, when I watch the calendar, right?
• 2:18
  Corie: And they tell me, Kess here.
• 2:19
  Corie: I said, but Kess?
• 2:20
  Corie: No.
• 2:21
  Corie: I see no no come off.
• 2:22
  Corie: And I watched you know this selling out Canada just recently.
• 2:24
  Corie: Where was Toronto?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was in Toronto, and then we you know that was the end of the West Coast leg of the tour.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:31
  Corie: You know, definitely.
• 2:32
  Corie: I said, but this man coming off of that and coming here and sit on and talk, but I said, I wonder if you could be able to make it life happening in between.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, real life happening in between.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we really wanted to make it, you know.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember we scheduled from before and it couldn't happen.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So this timing I thought would have been great, you know.
• 2:49
  Corie: I appreciate that.
• 2:49
  Corie: I appreciate that.
• 2:50
  Corie: So roots rock soaker.
• 2:51
  Corie: So I want to get into that all right.
• 2:53
  Corie: But you ever see the video online where Michael Jackson was doing a video with him and he said, I hate touring, I really don't like it.
• 2:59
  Corie: And they say, No, you had a city right there.
• 3:01
  Corie: I love to tour.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_07: I love to tour.
• 3:04
  Corie: Yeah, where's your take on a disenjoint personally?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know what, man, it's it's it's hills and valleys, you know.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely comes with a cost on on because traveling as itself, you know, getting to the place is also uh a pressure, you know.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but the reward is so amazing, almost like you don't know what's around the corner or how you're gonna be inspired by everyday people, you know, or just experiences outside.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's it there is a there is a real beauty and joy, and something special happens.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a great team, you know, a gang, you know, and and when we're out there, we exploring, we're having fun, and we also just expanding the genre.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it's uh a mission that's coming to life, a dream come true, but it has cut your tail too.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_08: It is real cut your tail, man.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_08: What's that?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: When you see you come home, you know, you you're all over, you know.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: You almost like have to recenter, regroup in a serious way, you know.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Before you're young, you know, as we say, we could burn your wick and burn your candle on two ends and feel all right.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But now you have to really just, you know, pace yourself and because it's it's it's not not only that we get in, we're getting up there in age, but as well to, you know, you also it's bigger moves and it's it's more out of view now.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you just have to be very mindful of yourself.
• 4:25
  Corie: Yeah, just looking at it from the outside, looking, and it seems mission-driven.
• 4:29
  Corie: Like I want to listen to your music, I listen to the way you all play music, the places that you're going to.
• 4:33
  Corie: It feels like you're deliberately trying to push a boundary.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like now is our time as a genre to explore the lanes that are not being discovered, not being explored.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I feel like I woke up.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I think within all through my life, I've been trying to figure this out.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: But like I think I really woke up in 19 with Savannah Grass that year.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pops passing away.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Savannah Grass being as a big song as it was, that season being very difficult to do because of, you know, dealing with daddy dying and and trying to really push through really helped me focus on what was really important about what this is.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: More than any of the competition things and all of that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: It became more like, wow, this is a if people could hear this song and cry and don't even know why they're crying and don't know even what it's about, then there's something deeply spiritual about what this is, and it needs to get out.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what is getting out, you know?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And getting out to me means bringing the genre into new spaces, places, new platforms, you know, just new, new, new, new oxygen, new places where people could actually experience it for the first time.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: We love our things so much with real bees insular.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like as our people, I mean as our people, like we're protective about what we have, you know, and I understand that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you know, we also talk about well, when when it when we're gonna make it, you know what I mean?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that is.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, the reality is that there's a lot of work to be done.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have to sell out stadiums now, we have to bring soaker in spaces that people don't think we're gonna be, you know.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that people could now be familiar with the genre.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because they don't know what it is, they just know what it's making them feel, though.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to they have that work needs to be done as much as we feel we're big and you know, this and that, and everybody.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows, you know.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that is our mission, really, you know, it's just spreading that as far and wide as possible, you know.
• 6:32
  Corie: Yes, when I see the talk going to places like Eastern and Western Europe and then was the reception when you go into them places.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yo, those things are most amazing.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: What's how many countries you'll go to?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: We did um and obviously this is a sort of introduction tour because we're trying to expand the okay.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is an introduction.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's an introduction of what we want to do, you know what I mean?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is just work to be done, you know.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this time we did well in Europe, we did France, we did Belgium, we did Amsterdam twice.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We did um oh go on a car, I forgot.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we have a whole career.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about the gang.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't consider London is so crazy, but London, London feels part of the West in a kind of way.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think when you leave London, yeah, you know, you it's really a different sphere and forum, you know.
• 7:18
  Corie: So going to places like Belgium, when you go there, you see in diaspora or you're seeing people who it's all the crowds were half and half.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: All of them were half and half, which is an amazing thing.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like they would bring their friends because these are the venues that they would have seen other artists in.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it was easy to like say, hey, yo, somebody from my place is coming.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: I want y'all come check it out.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: They bring three or four or five of their friends, you know what I mean?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and if place for like Paris sold out, Amsterdam sold out twice to two times, you know, and it's the first times that we actually playing in these countries, you know.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Belgium was the one that we wasn't even sure what was, you know, what was gonna be.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we do the Antillian festival there, you know, during the year.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a Caribbean Latin festival that we've done a few times.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh amazing team.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then we went to the show, and those shows that were like the smoke, because it wasn't a big venue we chose for Belgium, because there's not a lot of Caribbean people there or anything.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we chose a smaller, more manageable, but the energy inside of there was amazing.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the bartenders knew us from the festival, and they knew that we were playing there, and they lost their minds.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: They were serving drinks and waving the towels, and and they came in the backstage, and they were like shouting whatever chance they were doing, and it was just, I was like, you know what?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: If I had looked on paper, I probably wouldn't have come here, you know.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been like, Oh, the dates are not showing well.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we we shouldn't try.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And here it is, it was one of the most golden moments of the entire tour.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: This place ended up being, you know.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So these things happened on tour and it really opened up again the mission again.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yo, we need to, people just need to feel this, but we need to just share this with everybody as far and wide.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gonna take some sacrifice, it's gonna take some detours that we don't normally take during the year, but this is what it takes, you know what I mean?
• 9:09
  Corie: I want to get to the name Roots Rock Soker, right?
• 9:11
  Corie: But before that, there's this thing where, and I hear many artists talk about it, right?
• 9:16
  Corie: And uh Bob Marley is one that comes to mind who said, I heard him in a documentary talking about being the biggest thing in Jamaica, but then having to go onto any states and open for like Lionel Richie and they who who who as far as he commodos, right?
• 9:30
  Corie: He spoke about it.
• 9:31
  Corie: You feel that sense because I mean top of the tail here in Trendal and Diaspora or people who know soccer, going into a space like Belgium, what's he feeling now?
• 9:39
  Corie: Because now is that different?
• 9:40
  Corie: I love that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was born to do them kind of things.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love swimming in the deep.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I like going in a place where nobody knows you, and we have to like teach them to soaker, you know, the verb, you know, and like we have to teach them from scratch.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really sort of helps me put my pieces back together, you know.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I was born to do that in a sense of play, like we played in a um a festival, Virginia Beach Festival, which is more of a Kali Roots kind of Kali reggae, surfer reggae kind of vibe.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sublime was on the on that clip.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But then here's Kesty Ban.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it was a kind of a strange, a lot of people were like surprised, the few Caribbean people, they're like the four people that I saw.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: They was like, bro, when I saw you ahead, I was kind of I didn't, I didn't know.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we performed and you know, we gained a whole heap of fans from that show.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: People loved it, and and they love the energy that it brought to the festival, you know.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And these things make these things mean a lot to me.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's where I work best, you know.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you look at the genre, everybody needs to have their lane now.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know my lane.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I trying to mine that lane and trying to like work that lane while this one works in this lane.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you are the whole up that and you are the whole up that.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if all of us do this together, yo, then we could say that we make it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then we'll start to see things, you know, and know, you know.
• 11:07
  Corie: So that name Roots Rock Soka.
• 11:09
  Corie: Because when I hear Roots Rock, Reggae comes to mind immediately.
• 11:11
  Corie: Yes.
• 11:12
  Corie: Because of the song, right?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, how come you all come up with the name Roots Rock Soak?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: It describes our sound, Cassidy Band.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because we grew up uh combining and fusing all of those things.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people know our soccer songs because there's a lot of vehicles for those things to be known.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's fets, there's radio, there's everything, there's carnival.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna hear a lot of our soccer stuff.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: But all this time we've been making all types of music, like whether it's rock rock, whether it's reggae, dancehole, you know, RP, some fusion thing, I can name.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then this soccer and our brand of soca, but kind of bringing in all those influences into the soccer, kind of has a sound now for us.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and um, and yeah, so so to me, this described our sound.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you know where you're coming to hear.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because in this concert, we also did like Tuesday on the rocks, we also did, you know, I did Crash Into Me, our Dave Matthews band cover, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, with the steel pan and stuff.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so you're not gonna, I don't want people to just think it's just one, it's a fit.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, gotcha.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know that this is gonna be a scope, it's gonna be a range, but it's the the bowl is soccer.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would say, I would say.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: The bowl is so that's gonna happen.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's the glue that's holding us together.
• 12:30
  Corie: Makes sense, makes sense, and it's a band band.
• 12:32
  Corie: A band band.
• 12:33
  Corie: You're playing music, music, yeah, anything rock.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we did come from rock, you know.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: We we kind of like designed like a rock band.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even now, as a soccer band, we're like a soccer rock band.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: In a way, so um, I wanted to celebrate us, who we are, you know, and that's who we are.
• 12:52
  Corie: I got you, I got you.
• 12:53
  Corie: And the reception to it, I wonder, because when I if I pay to see Kessana fit, I am a lineup, I come to here, you know.
• 12:59
  Corie: And I don't have people I watching before Kess come on, I don't mark two, three, you know what I mean?
• 13:02
  Corie: I say Kessana come and sing these things.
• 13:04
  Corie: So I wonder if on towards like those you're getting opportunities.
• 13:06
  Corie: Because I was listening to Man with No Door is the name of the album, and that album is it's something else, huh?
• 13:13
  Corie: In terms of the work.
• 13:14
  Corie: Like you listen to you know, we have favorite albums, right?
• 13:16
  Corie: Like I say Miss Education or Lauren Hill or Mr.
• 13:18
  Corie: Mention, like some of them come to mind.
• 13:20
  Corie: Yeah, and it felt very broad when I listened to the album.
• 13:24
  Corie: So it had two songs in particular that stood out, yeah.
• 13:26
  Corie: Yeah, you see, where is it?
• 13:28
  Corie: Talk to me or talk with me.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, Jesus Christ.
• 13:30
  Corie: It's like, oh my god.
• 13:31
  Corie: Talk to me like those things that will get emotional.
• 13:34
  Corie: We have plenty to but bad, bad, bad, bad song.
• 13:37
  Corie: But again, it might be a fat song.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're traveling, getting to do more of those types of things.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those things, yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: We will we will pick and choose some of those things, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you'll have other settings where I could do all of it because I can't do all my songs.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's six hours or something.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is I mentioned me.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll get for the five my own voice in my head after all.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: But but uh, but the reality is that, yeah, I mean, for me, it's music is uh a free space for me, you know, in this life.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've never I've never wanted my devices to trap me, you know, and not because I do soccer and people know me to wind on and think, think, think, and have song for that means that I have to always do that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I love putting out bodies at work where I know the song now gonna get picked up and you know, yeah, be the most played and stuff, but I want you to hear that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to hear and be open to different dimensions of who I am and who what Trinidad is can do.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: In a sense, you know, and there's a lot of people where I place these songs on man with no door like a conversation, you know, like a set listener.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if you listen to it from the beginning to the end, it will make musical sense, like a set.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I want you to press play and sort of listen to it down, and that that's how I want you to enjoy it now.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that can't be one plateau, you know.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, hills and valleys, and you have to carry the story, you know.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I love I love to keep my cool, like those songs which just really just laid back and just chill.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot, it's a lot of a lot of different emotions, a lot of timestamps for me was in that album, you know.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I understand, I understand.
• 15:14
  Corie: Even a song like Bless Me, just songs so different.
• 15:16
  Corie: Yeah, it's just like you know, but I appreciate it putting out the album as a body of work because again, we come from that time where that was the way to know our artists, like coincidentally, right?
• 15:24
  Corie: When I see Bujo on Torn or tour in an album, or when I say tour, a promo tour, he's doing a lot of interviews, you don't see him doing that a lot.
• 15:32
  Corie: I feel like if he set up a foundation for himself 20, 30 years ago, yeah, you feeling like you've done that and you're doing that?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think I we have a we have a great foundation in the making, I would say, you know.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: In the making.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I still think there's stuff to be done.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like um, I feel like the foundation is is is moving with us and these next levels of the things that we would like to do.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's more so where we place our art, you know, and and building the mechanisms around to make sure that it goes in the places that it needs to go, you know what I mean?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whether we have the right people to push it in the right platforms and and get it in the right spaces.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is the part of the conversation I feel needs to really open up within Trinidad space where we uh improve the way that the music is being distributed, the we the way that we, you know, all of these things make sense.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, yes, it's good to do a body of work for somebody to really get a grasp of what uh what an artist is.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: It could be an EP, it could be a smaller, you know, kind of half album, but at the same time, that's a piece of something to talk to.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you talk about that.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: You that's that's where I could tell my publicist I'm pushing an album and they'll be able to have make that connect to different media houses because there's something to talk about.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just become a single time, it's like hey, it's one by lady.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's how to be like, hey, I'm promoting an album, there's a lot of things attached around this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then you could attach a tour around that, you're attaching a merch around that, you're touching, you're attaching uh, you know, of course cool interviews here and there and everywhere, cool shows, pumping out a single video.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of things attached to that, and I feel like artists need to get back to what that is, bodies of work, you know, um, and and get into what that is.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: That that what that one thing, I did that for years because I was just like, I didn't have my albums, couldn't go anywhere.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the right mechanisms.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I understand.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm in a different place where I could actually play stuff and at least get it heard, you know?
• 17:37
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:37
  Corie: I started to learn and understand it myself because the more people you talk to in your space, you start to understand that.
• 17:42
  Corie: And I appreciate you saying things like EPs or well, I don't know what's the version of a soaker mixtape.
• 17:46
  Corie: But for artists who might be now coming on, it might be difficult to invest or put a budget behind a whole album or a body of wood.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, yes, it does take a lot to promote and all of that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: But let's just say I heard an album which I love by Annalie Prime, and that she did five years ago.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I listened to all of those songs, and I play her songs to all kinds of people.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, very weird.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she did that home by her in I think I believe in Chase Village, and is one of the most brilliant albums.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: For those who don't know, check out Annaly Prime.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, check out Moco if it's your first listen.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Moco is your introduction, and after that, go down the line.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's amazing, and I'm sure that our budget at five years ago in Chase Village was not the million-dollar budgets of a thing.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the artwork looked good.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is a call card.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could take that now and say, yo, this is this artist where you think, oh wow, I could do something, you know.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So 100% get a mindset more than thinking about man, this is gonna cost money.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: We we my brother, my big brother used to rebuild a drum kit when we didn't have one, you know.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Buckets and thing, you know, climpan.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hi hat, you know, make it work.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then you have to have that's one thing about growing up in the in your 80s.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, we we we have to make it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have to make it and and that sort of build-it yourself sort of mentality.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have to adopt that here.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have to build everything from scratch, you know.
• 19:18
  Corie: Yeah, she's a good example of that.
• 19:20
  Corie: She's her guitar on the camera, and now we have an opportunity.
• 19:22
  Corie: I think now with artists or any creator to go just direct to who you're talking to, your consumer.
• 19:28
  Corie: And if you like you know Annally Prime a little bit when you'll see, you didn't need the channels like long ago.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be one station, it used to be one, you know, Viacom or whoever it is.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And well, there's so many ways now, you know.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no excuse.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, they go for it.
• 19:43
  Corie: Hey, it's time for a hydration break.
• 19:45
  Corie: Brought to you by LucasIt Sport Ice Cake, inspired by Jude Bellingham.
• 19:49
  Corie: And you see Kess on these for the settle talk while you're thinking.
• 20:00
  Corie: Bang.
• 20:02
  Corie: I witch you.
• 20:03
  Corie: In the midst of that tour, we mako in your Instagram and thing, and we see um you see tiny desk.
• 20:08
  Corie: Tiny desk is a part of the tour, or that was separate or how that came about.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was just a dream come true, though.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was a thing in the making.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to be honest, when we did We Home for uh during COVID, I remember telling John O and um NH Productions, big up yourself.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted like a tiny desk, style like that, and stuff like that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because in my mind, I was like, this is my audition tape for tiny desk in a way, you know.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: At least if I if we go to them, at least I have something to show that hey yo, we can do something in this setting too.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: The only look for us in a fet.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Consider.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think over the years I've just always kind of wanted it to happen.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um my PR team uh made the the final link.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think we were linking them before, and you know, it was sort of touch and go.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: They have obviously a lot of people coming at them, and then um we made the final link and it just lined up, you know.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: When it's supposed to happen, it's supposed to happen, kind of thing.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm kind of thinking when you're not really looking fit in a way, and it just kind of came to play.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um has a dream come true.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: You enjoy it?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was like the dream?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a lot of work doing it, a lot more work than you think it is to really just hone into uh the time frame that they give you.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are like, why wasn't it longer?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, because gratis, they're giving you 18 minutes and they kind of gave us a little more dependent on, you know, just because we couldn't cut something in between, you know.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a lot of science to sort of get it correct timing wise, and then I really wanted to showcase the culture of Trinidad and Tobago while showcasing Kasti Ban, so uh Dane Del Gulston and the Pan, you know, Terry Lyons.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: She's Terry has done backgrounds for Nelly.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: All of my hits really like like she's from Falling, Jub Jub, Coco T, Tacpac, Terry Lyons is has always been there.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really, I was really happy to have her there with us and and to be a part of it too.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then Teddyson John, you know, Teddy, Teddy's a man really, and truly over the years we've reasoned on music, and and you know, he's toured with us, and um, he's just a good soldier and a good soul, you know.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and a musician.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: So we had to cut it off in a few days, you know.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: So these two they're just when you're gonna go, you have a lot of time to prepare.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, to be honest, we were touring in between, so it's sort of like trying to catch rehearsal time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yes.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we probably had a week to kind of put together.
• 22:43
  Corie: Because I think one of the things that we see as fans, you might see a different band, see Kessley band on the stage, they might just see in time scare some work to do.
• 22:50
  Corie: They're not on tour with you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: They came um for the Toronto show and the New York show.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we're bringing him on in different parts and different things.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because I love the pan, I love the steel pan.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to a lot of places again.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is a lot of new to the world, you know.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: You have a steel pan moving as a good thing, you know.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we where we can facilitate, we will, and then who knows, you know, anyway.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it feels good to see a St.
• 23:14
  Corie: Lucia flag anything.
• 23:15
  Corie: Yeah, I don't know.
• 23:16
  Corie: Maybe I buy us.
• 23:16
  Corie: I I I love Trinidad and Tobago, right?
• 23:18
  Corie: I have Trinidadian, but the Caribbean is a special place.
• 23:22
  Corie: So I feel like I wondered if how deliberate it was for you all or how comfortable y'all are, like, because it feels like a Trinidadian showcase, then tell you have a St.
• 23:29
  Corie: Lucia flag.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, but we are will ban, you know, at the end of the day, Castyban is Castyban.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: We are up in Trinidad, then the amount of flag at all and that and that's the whole different kind of symbol.
• 23:39
  Corie: I see articles written about Riyadh and strike squad.
• 23:42
  Corie: You see people saying the strike squad jersey.
• 23:44
  Corie: This rap dog.
• 23:45
  Corie: They say the strike squad is Jersey selling no more than the sofa warriors jersey where we qualify.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, but that was lovely.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to me, that's beautiful because we are one Caribbean, you know, it's only colonialism and all of those things really keeps us separate and kept us separate over the years.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: But us together is a power, we are a powerful combination, you know.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And growing up in the Caribbean, to me, the the one of the greatest parts is I the Caribbean raise me.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it is to eat, you know, nutmeg, ice cream, and grenade.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it is to be in Guyana, you know, like Kaicha Falls, Jamaica raised me, Janusha, all these places, you know.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they are part of me.
• 24:27
  Corie: I wish we would accept that more because it seems as though when people say things like that, the first thing you miss any point if you're not.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: I be there, you're missing all the fun, you're missing the point, you're missing the strength, you're missing what I is.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you're dwelling on, well, because to me, you know, divide and rule was always the plan.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if it is that you want to stay divided, then stay ruled in a way that you do that you do like.
• 24:49
  Corie: You know, all right.
• 24:50
  Corie: Enough said on that.
• 24:51
  Corie: All right, enough said on that.
• 24:53
  Corie: I and I like the fact that you say you could just enjoy all.
• 24:55
  Corie: I don't like the patty versus doubles.
• 24:57
  Corie: I like you could eat both.
• 24:58
  Corie: Like I eat in both, my Jeep, for sure.
• 25:01
  Corie: Just go with all.
• 25:02
  Corie: Not right now, though.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_08: Whatever.
• 25:05
  Corie: Are those symbolic things that we see in the tiny desk performance as well?
• 25:08
  Corie: I noticed that you took time to put different books, symbols.
• 25:12
  Corie: You had pictures, you had your father, you had your sister, rest and be celebrated.
• 25:16
  Corie: Who bet you are missing?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Ricky.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ricky, that's right.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are these are our angels, you know.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: We we we I call on them every every performance, every day.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Help me to see around corners, you know, be the eyes for me.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you know, and they move with us, you know, they move with us.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the normal thing in terms of your you know, in in my mind, I keep them within.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mention them on stage, but you know, all of it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just have them, you know, and just to protect us.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: But you go in.
• 25:46
  Corie: You know, in terms of the elements looking at it too, as a fatima man, I'm a biases or show, but Robbie, that quattro in the middle of the thing because I have Robbie Dong as a real, real bad quattro man.
• 25:57
  Corie: I see him play back in the day.
• 25:58
  Corie: Yes, and he's a bad, bad quattro man.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Robbie's a Robbie's a phenomenal, you know, like he's an amazing soul.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, to be honest, uh, I remember when he now joined the band, and um, and you know, we probably going at it for years, and I didn't I didn't understand how deep he was into the parang.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure until I think we saw him on TV or something.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, hey Robbie, but you're half low shit on TV.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's like I'm deadline now.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Are you right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then I was like, yo, that man has a real parang there also.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: So then one time, one Christmas, they would they do house-to-house parangs, you know.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: I went with him to hit a family hotel.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you should maybe buff.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you mean boy, that was action.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_06: I can imagine.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it was lovely, and I got to, you know, I got to see the side of him, you know what I mean?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um the and and really being in touch with the folk aspect of Trinidad is such a blessing to be so deeply entrenched and then take take that energy and then toe the world with it, you know.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I was real happy that um, you know, that he was a part of that, you know.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: It just gives us uh energy too, same way, you know.
• 27:08
  Corie: Yeah, it felt like a deliberate effort to show us, which we we appreciated.
• 27:11
  Corie: It was something.
• 27:16
  Corie: As soon as you're done, you just lick up and that's the only thing missing.
• 27:19
  Corie: That was the only thing missing.
• 27:22
  Corie: Yes, I want to talk about that folk part of it you bring up, right?
• 27:26
  Corie: Because that song Robby played our quattro, and I think it was um Raman Coca-Cola that he intro.
• 27:30
  Corie: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 27:32
  Corie: This feels like a deliberate effort in the music that you put out to keep that calypso history in it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's crazy?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were thinking the other day, there are a lot of um, you know, the generation now they they don't know a lot.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: How they gonna know?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: How they gonna know how they will know.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not blaming them for not knowing, but I'm just saying that we we grew up under the era of OneStation, you know, um TTT and this and that, and we actually seen all these videos, you know, stuff that if we had the choice in those days, we probably would not have 100%.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'd do something else, you know what I mean?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but we watching TV, we're watching everybody on TV, you know, brother resistance, this one coming on and all.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, in a sense, we grew up together looking at the same things and had a range because they did spend time trying to educate us on culture and stuff like that.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now they don't have any mediums to really be interested in it, and it's cool stuff, you know what I mean?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, it's like we realize that so moves, and I would say we, because I mean Tano, you know, we have a lot of work like that, you know.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I generally feel like that's that's like that's what I love, the classic aspect of what Calypso is and bringing that forward.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because we move on really fast.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: What's the next thing?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of like checking what worked and like you know, like getting into history, like you look at Haribelafonte, you look at Sparrow, you look at what was happening in the 90s with um Nicolas Bruncon, Crossfire, and all of them, you look at what was happening in the 80s with Charlie's Roots and their sound and what was behind that, and you realize we were we did some extensive work in the history, you know, uh about really peeling back and honing into what that sound is.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then because we're so creative in Trinidad, nah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: They do something before anybody catch up to it.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we it all to us, but to the world's new what is this, you know.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to bring back a lot of those elements that that feeling sweet and sweet.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: We na party, them kind of feeling sweet, you know.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then also that calypso melodies, you know, those calypso references.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because like so, Raman Coca-Cola was obviously the reference, Walters, of Lord Invader, who wrote the original song Raman Coca-Cola, you know, and a lot of people who don't know is that there was a big copyright, you know, um case on that where the uh they were shooting movies and stuff in Trinidad, and there was a movie director that heard the song in our in our rum shop, uh, right there in Carnage in Point Kumana.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Heard the song, loved it, but also took it to the Andrew Sisters, they re-recorded it, and massive hit.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: He had massive hits around the world, and he had to fight for his uh for his rights, you know what I mean?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: He got through in the end, but at the same time, you know, it really opened up uh uh uh a big can of wounds, you know.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in a good way.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I want people to know about that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so therefore we would put a video and it's it's like based, he's kind of in the background as well, too.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: We took one of his clue, like what he wears in one of his um album covers.
• 30:53
  Corie: Lord Invader.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Lord Invader.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: We we based it in the 1940s, you know.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: There are different things that are Easter eggs that I would want to put in there for people could see that we could be an athlete and drink Ram and Coca-Cola, but we could also have layers and dimensions to what this is.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just not a one-dimensional something, it's it's a scope now.
• 31:13
  Corie: Oh, wait, and I think all of this is ours.
• 31:15
  Corie: It's important to let youths know they can access it, you know.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's ours, you know.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, over over COVID, I did um Big Up to Raymond Mice UTT did our course online, you know, um every Friday, 9 a.m.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we wait for three hours, you know.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: But we talk in culture, and like, you know, he's amazing.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: So much, so much stories, so many stories.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I just realized that yo, we have so much cool history that Trinidad don't even know about, you know.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Our generation don't know about, the generation after us don't know about.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let me find ways to bring this forward again, you know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jolene actually came out of that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that song Jolene came out from that session.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, talking.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of influence our song.
• 32:02
  Corie: Yeah, the feel of it, the feel of it for sure.
• 32:04
  Corie: Yeah, sure.
• 32:05
  Corie: Oh wait, yeah, and there's a connection that I see it's it is if you listen to your music long enough or you listen to the band, yes, even in how you all transition, how you do things, it feels like if you're paying homage.
• 32:15
  Corie: Homage this year, right?
• 32:16
  Corie: The time stop saying homage, homage.
• 32:18
  Corie: It feels like you're paying homage to several people who come before.
• 32:21
  Corie: Yeah, definitely.
• 32:22
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:22
  Corie: The tour was another place where I saw a lot of that.
• 32:25
  Corie: You have a few people who you brought onto the tour I want to award, right?
• 32:27
  Corie: Edwin Yewood is what Yes, yeah.
• 32:29
  Corie: Did you say you sponsor Edwin Yeahwood in these?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing, and it was a dream too, because Edwin was one of the bigger influences in my life coming up, like as a teenager.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I sing RB in those days, you know, and I didn't know how to fit in soaker, and I wasn't sure now, but I loved it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then Edwin and them coming, you know, I'm in a party mood.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it was this real RB, this kind of, you know, bass lines was this, you know.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so for him to, for me to be able to honor him on that stage and then see the response.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, that was like a moment for me because it's like, yo, you know, you you you helped me get in this thing, you know.
• 33:12
  Corie: Yeah, so your intentions on stage to the thing genuine.
• 33:15
  Corie: I'm watching you, you looking like a fan, like we like you shocked.
• 33:18
  Corie: It's like I just gush in, I gush in, I exploded.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's how I ran, he's exploded.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this Edwin dog, you know, like like he on my stage, horse, and like the crowd loved him, you know what I mean?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the way the way we will place you in the set is a place where we wanna see uh an Edwin, you know, we wanna see an Edwin come out, yeah.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and plus we you know it was a surprise too, you know.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: So nobody knew.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, not telling people, just just no, it was just it was just a Casty Ban show, you know.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then we we would bring friends, you know, and it's because it's a celebration, our first stadium for soccer music selling out first stadium in the in history, you know, and for us too.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we wanted to bring people, man.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: We wanna bring it up.
• 34:03
  Corie: Yeah, man.
• 34:03
  Corie: Yeah, that connecting that generation is important because another reaction I was watching you was was Lady Lava.
• 34:09
  Corie: You and the whole band.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like hey Lava, girl, uh listen, she comes straight from the airport, of course, straight from the airport.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was supposed to be in one side part of the set, but she didn't reach in time because the immigration in in JFK.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: So then we had to try and see if we could get her later on.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we just go in any side, only going in the back.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yo, Jared, she got me at the and you like yo, she got on our way, on her way, 10 minutes, 10 minutes.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Cool, cool, cool.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: She just came straight, straight, ran.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: They come up on stage, and she's just like, I'ma see her like walking over wires and just come out and bust with the crowd.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't, there was no time to breathe or stop, or I swear she came straight from immigration and hit the stage.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And no, but that's how it felt.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she just live up, she just like ramsacked that place.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she ramsacked it and left.
• 35:10
  Corie: And I was just like, who is that?
• 35:13
  Corie: You know, like if you watch your post on Instagram, that's what the whole band looked like.
• 35:17
  Corie: Everybody was like, no, it was amazing.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: All them girl was singing.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like, just like it's their heart, then like they believe in everything that he said.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: What the fellas do all the boy?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: What them fellas do all there?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: Because it was coming from this, from the guts, and it was like, I couldn't believe it, boy.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was, it was, it was, that was, and I yeah, I get I'm happy that I could sing and enjoy celebrating the music with true fans, but I could also sit back as a fan and enjoy my favorite artist busting up the place.
• 35:53
  Corie: Yeah, or something else to see.
• 35:54
  Corie: So look for the, I mean, I I would imagine it's real difficult uh to that kind of decide on who you're gonna bring on as as guests as you can.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: The most difficult part is scheduling.
• 36:04
  Corie: Right.
• 36:05
  Corie: With men see with people.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I will say, hey, I could do this, and I can fit, I can fit anybody in our set.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's our that's one thing I love about our music is the fact that there are a lot of segues here and there and everywhere, because the music is sort of all over the place, you know, in some some instances.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's easy to sort of bring people within the set, but then it's the schedule, and everybody, everybody moving, which is a great thing.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the next thing that I'm really, really happy for that after carnival in Trinidad used to be real PY WA season.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's not hard for some people, but I'm saying there's a lot more opportunity now than ever before.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: People are moving, people are traveling, you've seen a lot more younger artists getting out there.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, before it was it was hard at some some some decades wasn't easy, you know.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: It had no internet, it had no in a real way.
• 36:55
  Corie: When you're gone, you're gone.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's just yeah, but now, yeah, man.
• 37:00
  Corie: Yeah, and you're talking about not just carnival to carnival.
• 37:02
  Corie: Like before, if you have a hit for Trinidad, you have every carnival, but you're all doing things way outside of the carnival.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Way outside of the carnival experience.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, yeah, that's happening across the board.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're finding people, you know, you we we do be BRT, you know, you see voice doing BRT, and BRT is you know, dance hall with soccer, with that, you know, all of it, man.
• 37:20
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 37:21
  Corie: But you look like you're genuinely enjoying it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_05: I enjoying it, yeah.
• 37:27
  Corie: People here ready to send it back and so immediately not here this weekend, and he won't be here next weekend, and he's that's the walk, but I think his favorite part, and I wonder, I want to ask you what your favorite part because of a part where I see you lighting on your back, but you're singing a young brother song, right?
• 37:47
  Corie: Take it easy, I go do the walk, man.
• 37:49
  Corie: You took two kind of jokes on a cocoa tea kind of thing.
• 37:52
  Corie: What was that?
• 37:52
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: Watch that in side stage, then like them waiting for the fallout, you know.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, but my spirit is catch me sometimes, but they love it, just go with it.
• 38:06
  Corie: Let's go with it.
• 38:06
  Corie: Selling VIP tickets.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Comments on Instagram is like you had to pay for VIP to go and get this kiss experience.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Something in the air, you know, I can't just do that just so I just be joking out of nowhere.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it just it was something in the air, it was something that lift me up and line me down.
• 38:25
  Corie: People enjoy the fans looking forward to model.
• 38:28
  Corie: All right, you get them acting on behalf of people, fans are getting them in, you know, I just sent with questions too.
• 38:34
  Corie: Oh god, they want to know if it's gonna be a normal party.
• 38:37
  Corie: I don't pack Babandin now like with shaving cream.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's all out, it's all out.
• 38:51
  Corie: It's funny, like the song you introduced when you're doing that.
• 38:54
  Corie: When I see your post, it is cocoa, right?
• 38:56
  Corie: Yeah, cocoa now going clear in terms of your catalogue.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, definitely.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it it's it's it's coming up to hello in a in a in a way.
• 39:04
  Corie: Um I watch YouTube and thinking like it's bypassing the numbers, bypassing the numbers.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely to sort of reach, you know, kind of halfway towards going towards hello.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is great.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, listen, some people, you know, you don't get all you don't get these songs in a lifetime.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: You may get two, you may get one.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I we have a few, you know, and and and to be honest, I give thanks for that.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I give thanks to still be inspired to bring forward.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not, it's not, it's not the easiest thing, you know.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's so strange, it's not a very elusive.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's um you have to trust your gut, your feelings, and sometimes you kind of figuring out you, you know.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So to do that and then create a body of work that you you know that you hope that people receive, you know.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: You really eventually had to kind of just do it for you now, in a way now.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're making them things, you know, you you don't feel here.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: What I've learned in my litmus tests, I've learned my own litmus test because I've tried and tested stuff, and by this point in time, I know when something ringing true for me.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: My vessel could carry this forward, like my vessel could take this where it needs to go because I feel in it, like I feel in wherever this is, like you know, like if I was to play you songs that I working on now, you would know yeah, that that's I have something in it.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it is, yeah.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Pulling it out, you know, but it has something there, yeah, and I just have to trust what that is, and then walk towards the final product.
• 40:39
  Corie: Yeah, with cocootie, even the first time I hear it, I felt like hello, and you know, I knew.
• 40:42
  Corie: When I hear hello, I was like, Jesus Christ.
• 40:44
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, these men going on a different level here without a song at a traditional chord structure for Calypso.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 40:50
  Corie: And I was like, But the way y'all play together is amazing.
• 40:53
  Corie: But when I hear cocooty, I say, boy, this has something.
• 40:56
  Corie: And I know case and the ban has something.
• 40:58
  Corie: And when them two songs come together, but the thing that stood out the most to me was um an Anselm Douglas said it when he was here, talking about his winning the Grammy for who led the dogs out.
• 41:07
  Corie: He was talking about carnaval music versus outside of carnaval music, and he examples uses cocoties.
• 41:12
  Corie: Like cocooties is not a carnaval song when you listen to it, and maybe that's why you're getting media, nothing to do with the festival.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it has to do with plenty things in the festival.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: They have real cocoa in the festival, I suppose cocoa sharing.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: They have cocoa in the sun.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's kind of coconut.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, cocoa in the sun.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'll say it is what is that to me?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: I like because right now, all are bleed.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: They have no on season off season.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like, like so for you, it's out of the door.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's done, it's done.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: They are carnival everywhere, any time of the year.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I refuse to think that certain things, yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, certain things made them fly.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: But look at that song, that cocoa cocoa would not have 15 years ago, it'd have been hard to sell a song like Cocoti.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because people were, I think, you know, it's supposed to sound this one way, Carnival music.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're doing anything else, why didn't they release that for summer, boy?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, because you're gonna put it as a song.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you're gonna you're gonna know.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is Carnival too.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is part of us too.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Carnival is sexy, carnival is nice, carnival is hug up thing, you know.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the reality is that for me, it felt like, yeah, this has a lane in effect.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this song has a lane in effect.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody just wants, you know, eventually I want to, I think we gotta leave now, baby.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like your one of them kind of tunes.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: You want them, yes.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, exactly.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: So let me bring that for you then.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: I will bring that for you.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_04: Give me jam, give me what, give me things.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Cool again, yes, hug up and love up.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, I feel like we used to do that easy in in uh in the 80s.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: We used to do that easy in the 90s.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why what change now?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, nothing.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know why?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because them sounds big.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people love it, people want to feel it.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so so to me, it was always like, yes, I knew it would have pushed the envelope even just a little bit more, which I love, but it was ready.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: People was ready for a song like that.
• 43:21
  Corie: When you're judging it, where you use, or using analytics, or you use where you see on the stage in terms of response.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Bad man.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, this just no, I don't know.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to be honest, it had it starts in the studio, it starts in the studio because it's be a party in the studio again and done, and you just feel, you know, God, this thing feeling good, boy.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, and you're listening over and over, demo it is, you know, and it just over and over.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you say, I know, I'm not mad, I know mad.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: This song ain't good.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: This song ain't good.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You might play it for a few more people.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: I might play for the band.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have a little listening party like on tour sometimes, and I'll play, and they'll like, yeah, I'm at.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or like they'll be like, I ain't no workers, but I ain't what I want.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but um but you know so it's like I guess from those levels it's sort of like when you're writing a movie, if the script is good and the actors are good, if the script is good, there's a good likelihood that the movie is gonna be good.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like in the lab, when it feels when certain peaks hitting and things, it's like, hey, this could work, bro.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: What does this need to fly?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we say, all right, you know what?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: This need it's gonna need a visual.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like we need a proper visual to paint the entire picture of what it is.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: What else does it need?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe how we perform it, maybe we could do certain things because the topic is this way, and maybe we could do that.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then you attach as much as you can before it's out there, and then when it's out there, it will start to do its own thing.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: It'll start to, it's like a it's like a child, you know, they will start to create their own focus and dreams and become other people's own.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they will send back things for you, and you'll be like, Oh, that's how you see in it.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a dance, and then you'll know how to grow it based on that dance, and then that is where the little wisdom and the little experience will come in of how of how to grow how to grow a song, but that row elements have to be there from the get.
• 45:14
  Corie: Yeah, you know, that's seed.
• 45:16
  Corie: Yeah, there's a place where he's fact-check things, Kes.
• 45:18
  Corie: And when you say demo it's you gotta fact-check some things.
• 45:21
  Corie: I have a gentleman here by the name of Jimmy October.
• 45:23
  Corie: Jimmy! He says the song was not ready.
• 45:26
  Corie: He said you listen to the song and you sing, and you tell Kes, well, tomorrow I'll come back, and now we go, we go, and you say, Nah, no.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes we think too much.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes your brain is getting away, sometimes you just have to get out of your own way.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Jimmy was nervous because he wanted to sound he's a perfectionist too.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that song had a vibe about it, and he had a kind of sway about it.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just nucley, right?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, magic.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Magic.
• 45:55
  Corie: He had a kind of rename all your songs in it.
• 45:57
  Corie: You're cool with us.
• 45:58
  Corie: I'm fine.
• 45:58
  Corie: Alright, good.
• 45:59
  Corie: Magic.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Magic.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, he had a swing about it that I could replace.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hello is a demo.
• 46:08
  Corie: Hello is a demo.
• 46:09
  Corie: Hello is a demo.
• 46:12
  Corie: Same old words about it.
• 46:14
  Corie: I'm confused.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, right?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I come home.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I didn't go inside the house.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: I it was 11 o'clock in the night.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: I say, kids.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're a family man.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you gotta wake up in the morning and and and make sandwiches and things and drop kids such cool.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: And but I have again ideas, again, little things.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to come in the studio tonight.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's 11 o'clock.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, come through now, man.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: I come through.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I was real exhausted from the day.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: School through a lot of that time too.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I just sit on a stool and I just record she had the thing.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we had another, we had another hook in it.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_07: All I need is your love and affection.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_07: Wow, wow.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_07: Get your sweet.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I just had to mention.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you hold me, darling.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm cool.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: We do everything.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: We put because we were kind of working on it before, but we went, we had reached a point time where I kind of got stuck.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I started to get the intro.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, hello.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, boom, boom.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: We put it down.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'll come back tomorrow or some other day and I'll put on the re-lead.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I ain't getting no performance there.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was just kind of sitting down.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: I went to sleep.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up like one o'clock that day.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I look listened to it.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_07: And I was like, this thing good.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_07: This thing good to go.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, kid, scrap that.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't taken out one of them hooks, though.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's too many hooks in there.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, cool.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Later.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that became hello.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to have the wisdom of when to overdraw and you overcolor till the whole page get black.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we do that as artists.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like damn with Licky Tiki.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I was in a um, it was in New York for something.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was media or something like that.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was writing Jay Perry's verse.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, Jay Perry had a lot of good mumbles.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like saying words in his mumbles, and I was like, nah, let me help him like flesh it out.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Put it together.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I put it together using his same melodies and stuff like that.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I sang my lead.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I was in this little apartment in um by Brooklyn in Brooklyn, close to the Brooklyn Bridge.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I must remember smelling boiled cabbage from making Dongstairs.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: And people arguing somewhere about so and we listen to this little thing, you know, piping and things really weird little zone, you know.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like a little mic, like a little um one of these mics, and and I just sang the demo to give Jay Perry for him to listen to and whatever.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then we was like, all right, cool, we're gonna go to Miami in two weeks, and then when I go there, I'm gonna rent a studio there, and I'm gonna record it there.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nice place.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Studio, trays of stuff.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Come, go on to record, do the demo.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like it.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like where it was sounding, I just didn't like how it wasn't connecting as the way it was.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_06: And I went back with our one with the cabbage, cabbage soup.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um lead and not being the lead.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, you have to now step back and sort of be like, Are you do I believe you?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Am I believing you?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you do that first take, is when the a more purest energy comes out, and then if you overthink it and you do it over and over and over, it becomes contrived.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's become too calculated, and you it don't translate.
• 49:46
  Corie: Yeah.
• 49:46
  Corie: How with you?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:47
  Corie: When you saw Cooker T and Hello, Likki Tiki, all of them, them are the topic catalog, but there's songs that that go on together.
• 49:52
  Corie: Here we go.
• 49:53
  Corie: Yeah, and it was just sort of you know, and now over, over insane.
• 49:59
  Corie: Yeah, I'll go back to Jimmy L with that grandy connection.
• 50:02
  Corie: Uh at Kutane, more things is a fact check.
• 50:04
  Corie: I heard him talk about that moment when he came on stage with you all with you, him, and Lord Nelson.
• 50:10
  Corie: Yeah, you know, when you when you're doing them things, you're curating that.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that's a nice young and the old, you know.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hey he was now coming up, and then and and Nello is the oldest soccer artist out there, you know.
• 50:21
  Corie: But yes, he's the oldest in the Indy.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 50:23
  Corie: Big up to her.
• 50:24
  Corie: Yeah, and the most energetic.
• 50:25
  Corie: You say the youngest.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Papa, blessed, you know.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 50:33
  Corie: A time for a hydration break brought to you by Lucasid Sport Ice Cake, inspired by Jude Bellino.
• 50:39
  Corie: We get some gas.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um, but yeah, you know, and those moments too.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I happy that I could be a part of Kutin's story in a way, you know.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Grandi, you know, Grandi itself has always been a sort of well of um talent, you know, just like Carnage, just like Sando.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, there's something about these places, I don't know what it is.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: They should be studied.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: They should be studied.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh repeatable.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're um, you know, from three sons, uh, straight up Galen, all of it.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, everybody was around that year.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, well you know.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then everything.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, there's just real talent coming out of there.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's the mix with the with the with the bush and the and the vibes and you know, whatever it is, you know.
• 51:36
  Corie: Yeah, they go to lazy soil.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Something, something, something definitely there is uh a big explosion happening.
• 51:43
  Corie: Yeah, it felt good to see moments like those because I think uh as people who let me say, when you say you're born in the 80s, I'm using your metric, right?
• 51:50
  Corie: You say 80s, we from that time, right?
• 51:52
  Corie: And I feel it's important for us now, and it takes some time, man.
• 51:55
  Corie: People might not realize that I I I was just young the other day, I played tennis the other day, and I give a young, young girl at 19 years old, she half killed me on the court.
• 52:04
  Corie: And then when I see who's her mother, mothers went to school with me.
• 52:06
  Corie: Yeah, you know, so we it's something but you feel like young, right?
• 52:09
  Corie: If you reach away 100%, all money hurt, every part of my hurt.
• 52:14
  Corie: That's like listen, send your mother to play with me next time now.
• 52:16
  Corie: You don't play.
• 52:17
  Corie: But sometimes when you reach this literally 80s now, we are the people who are in the transit mode because we know Nello, yeah, and we know Cootsie.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we also know analog and digital, because we were the last of the play in the yards.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we were the last of born before the internet, too.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, before the internet, after the internet.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important generation in a sense of not everything that is new is good, you know.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, there's a lot of more passageways and pathways now to do things, multiple things at the same time now, you know.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: But that does not negate the the the the importance of understanding where things come from, how it really works, um actually putting things in motion other than just seeing it online, you know, real physics of the world, you know, like like these are the things we you know we bust our heads for, you know, we mash up our knee for, we you know they're not willing to take that risk.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: We they was look at all the possibilities of how not to fail when they don't understand that failing is part of learning, you know.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what that's the balance that I think we need to find now.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: That like in music, you have to put your 10,000 hours in, my G.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: You could get the biggest song.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: The craziest thing to happen to somebody is being a world hit and you're not ready.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: When you get a world hit and then you're dealing with all that energy and you don't know what to do with it.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you survive, my G, you gotta let me know what you do.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you gotta write a book or something because it usually is not uh a good story.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, so, so, so yeah, there's nothing like going out and doing it for yourself, you know.
• 53:58
  Corie: All right, let's start with with our 10,000 hours start now.
• 54:01
  Corie: So your early life, you're a salt boy, but we have other things to fact check.
• 54:05
  Corie: A man come here and say you went and marries, and people nearly kill me in the comments.
• 54:08
  Corie: I did too.
• 54:09
  Corie: Okay as well.
• 54:10
  Corie: So let me start early life now.
• 54:11
  Corie: We're born and grew.
• 54:12
  Corie: Let me fact check something.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: So my first home where I lived was in Alice Street in Laramie.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was born in Port of Spain, actually, in Cascade.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: And became in case.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, don't do that.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: 100% Cascade Boy.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_08: Cascade Boy.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an import.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: I will always be, I will always be.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Tong was losing vibes, so they needed it.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: Come, come up a tongue.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: We appreciate it.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: You like that one, huh?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, but no, but like growing up South, um, and then we moved to Palmi's uh block two.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, South was South in the 80s was a real beautiful place, you know.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Gulf City was the was the spot, the place.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: Gulf City was actually one of the best malls, you know.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: It had you know, it had arcade, cinema, bowling.
• 55:10
  Corie: Remember the golden holiday days, yeah, for apes.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it had bars, it had and then and I'll go to Westmore, I'll go to Trinity and was not nothing went on there.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: All Tom had was gills, you know what I mean?
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: It was like Tom, new girls, you know, but that must was Westmall had a kind of a little arcade thing by the food caught there.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: You remember, bro?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: That was part of our life in South.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was like it was weird, it was like a movie, you know, and there were arcades, you know, and there was the man who was on street fights the whole day, you know, and like you know, but we look but we learned about life really growing up and all of those different places.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hands, my oldest brother was telling me a story how um there's this rock band in South called Touchdown, yeah.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: And Touchdown was sound checking in um the club.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um Johnny Soon had a club in the mall.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um they at 12 years old, they used to sneak in the club and sound check to watch them sound check, you know.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: So these were the little moments that was happening in South.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um my same brother and his friend, who we grew up in Alice Street with, um, love rock music.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Nicholas Alles, big up yourselves.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Hans and Nicholas were like, man, we need to get some girls and vibes, boy.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: We need to form a band.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, wait, wait.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: They say they love music.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they love music, but that's the way because true music we could do it.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: It wouldn't probably not be to the financial science, economic, economics.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: It might be it might be music for me.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because Nicholas was sort of a prodigy, like at 14, he was playing like you know, Eddie Van Helen.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was oh, he was playing, you know, like he like definitely was on a level, and Hans was picking up drumming and stuff like that from young.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, every summer they would want to do something.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: One was trying to build a half pipe to skateboard, because skateboarding was getting made half pipe never been.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_04: Next one was to build clubhouses, trying to build a clubhouse, real failure, but you know, we make do with it, you know.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: Spend a night in it, mosquito biting me, all kind of thing.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: However, this summer, however, we're forming a band.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're forming a band and they're trying to build a stage, too.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's real projects.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's two months.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, because they would sit by Nicholas and look at MTV, like he had he had cable.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we didn't have none of that, but he had like dish or something like that, and MTV showing, and they watching these rock bands, and they see Van Helen, which is kind of like German brothers and stuff like that.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, hey, I have little brothers too, you know.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're plotting for us one time.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, I'm catching birds, and you're eating fruits, and Hans plotting for us.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_04: You come here, you also and um Yon was playing bass at first, you know.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_04: And um, but Yon wanted to pick fruits more and play bass, you know.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you wouldn't come practice sometimes.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: And Hans was building his drum kit, and he built a drum kit.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: The house was sort of building still, and he had empty cartons of paint and stuff, and he built tune it, too, and he was he was going at it.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Then Pops was like, nah, boy, I'd help them on that feeling.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: They show any initiative.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he got a second hand jump for Hans, and we got a few little secondhand stuff.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Young got guitar was a nail as a pickup, like he had a nail like as a pickup.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just a youth man, I was just I was small.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was like, they had another lead singer.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was too young, I was like six or something, you know.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: But they had they had an original song, um, it was a punk rock song called Bullet in her head.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of dark, you know what I mean?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of dark.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: But listen, we don't know what punk music punk rock can't sing, huh?
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: We don't nothing about that, huh?
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_07: But that was a very bullet in her head.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_06: It was like I had me singing it.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: Busha, we make a tape.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: My big sister Danielle was studying in Ryerson and Kenya and all of her.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: She's taking that tape and playing it on her little radio program.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: These are my little brothers, you know.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Singing bullets in her head somewhere, you know.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we had our first concert, and um, yeah, I was I was again, I was six.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hansen was like like 11.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um Pop Scardy man on the office who's helped him out to help us build the stage because that man was trying to sow with hacksaw and thing, and you know, lad using cooking, and and he had to break in.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, what I really love is just the the yeah, what I really love is the determination, boy.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like innovation is meaningful.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, Pops really, my dad, bless you, you know, he really was observing us, you know.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so he got Pranker.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Pranker is our man, you know, he real fix it, man.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he wanted to do everything.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he built our stage for two weeks for us, you know, in two weeks.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: We can we get all his little garden lights and things, and we have lights and Christmas lights that mommy have.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: We pull them thing out, boy.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we invite friends and stuff, you know, school friends.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: Where the show is.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is in the backyard.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have a we had a whole empty lot in the backyard.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sand was kind of like prairie, you know, house and the prairie.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it had a kind of it had house and bush, and then bush and then house, you know.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we had an empty lot alone in the back, and we build the stage there, and people came for the little concert and stuff like that.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I have a picture with daddy, like I nervous, and daddy um trying to coach him with the lyrics and things plugged in the head.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: But meanwhile, that's going on, right?
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, that's happening, and this is a pattern in my life that has happened.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was in Calypso in school.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: So Pops.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's primary school or school.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Private school, right?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I had like a Santi Manite song.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: What school is this?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um Cedar Grove Private Primary School.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Palmy.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to walk to school and walk back home and say, I blocked too too.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was in Block Tree.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Cedar Grove is Block Tree?
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Block Tree, yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so yeah, so he would Pops again, Pops wrote a calp so for me, but it was about Yon.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_07: My brother, who liked to eat, like he's like, Listen, friends, yeah, this story about my brother they call Yanni.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_07: Listen, friends, here this story about my brother, they call Yanny.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_07: Well, that boy could really eat.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_07: If salt, sour, or sweet.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_07: I wanna tell you all a little bung to start the ball.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_07: Santa.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I sing that song.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna road.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_03: Indy Montama, he eat about 89 pumpsy tea.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, that's gonna be, I'm gonna road.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_03: I gone on the road.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I win the competition, boy.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, so here it is now the calypso vibes coming up, and the rock vibes and things coming up at the same time.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're small, six and thing.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what seal me in the calypso thing was I went to a um a Queen's Hall, a show in Queens Hall called I Wanna Fall.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: So they had um a reenactment of like spoiler and and like of those days.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um I remember it was full, but that night it sell out, and we were there, and I remember Ian R.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: Robinson, um, president.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: Prime Minister, sitting down, and I remember there were no seats, and I remember I walking around and I sit on next to them, like next next to the prime minister.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I like, yeah, you're like, yeah, I was like, okay, cool.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: And relator was having an ex tempo competition at the end of the show.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I went up and I sang this listening friend, and I won.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I won whatever the prize was, it was a record and something like that.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that always like kind of stuck with me.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the so the collips had remained kind of gun true, but never never into school per se, but more like we're in school.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: But you're talking about six years old is still that kind of age?
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: Six, right?
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where it kind of like sparked up.
• 1:03:21
  Corie: But you're going on Queenshold stage, where you've been feeling like there's a lot of them.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh no, I had a lot of I had I had spouts of bravery.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like I was shy, but then I then it'll have all of a sudden I'll just be super brave and do something.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know what I mean?
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so so happened during school.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like I didn't I was a part of choir, choir played a big role.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sandfest, music festival, classical training, that kind of thing.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: So mom singing classical music.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: So my mom, my mom um won music festival uh a few years, and and she's somebody I would be watching how she's how she's training to sing her arias.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: She would be telling me, hey, you know, supporting her singing, breathing.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: I watching her doing her thing, you know what I mean?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then secondary school hit.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when secondary school hit, it's new new talent, new vibes.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: I remember reaching in form one.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of those kids already were in 12 and under and thing, a few of the little singers there.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, I was like, I wanted to go on 12 and under, but I was too shy.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't wanna, yeah.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, there's something about me I still wanna do.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um and this is Praza design?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is Praz.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to Prez Form 1, and um, you know, choir, choir again.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: I started jumping the choir, and we were like an unstoppable boys choir.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_03: Remember that yeah, we win championship, we beat the be the big churn, we beat the small child, we beat everybody.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_03: We went tongue, we beat them too.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that group, you know, of people, two of them in that choir, I ended up singing with till I started soccer, you know.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all during school.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: We were part of our group, we made an RB group.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like at 14, 13.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I realized that um, you know, we could sing and do shows and stuff like that.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: And covers or you're writing?
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Covers on our own songs too.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you had some of the songs.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, you're starting to write at 14, you know.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: So at 14, I started to like try to write.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not good songs, but you write it.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying 10,000 hours, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:31
  Corie: It'll be good enough.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, I don't do that.
• 1:05:33
  Corie: Exactly.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: But what had happened was we were in choir, and I remember those times we were going through a lot, you know.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, I think at that time, you know, we lost the business and things were really hard, you know.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, lights getting cut, I was not sugar or something.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: What was he busy?
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Pops Pops had an electrical business called SEL in Marabella, and the parent company went through and then Okay, and then his company went, and then we were in some dread times, and he got an accident too.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was like in a wheelchair for like nine months.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think after that, that's things switched for us in a sense of you know suffering in a real way from being in the 80s, kind of being upper middle class, kind of, you know, middle class vibes, and then to losing everything.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: It changes something as a young teen, 12, 13, you know, you're like, I don't want to put no burden on my parents, I want to try and like be independent and make my own.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I didn't know how.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like fussling in school a little bit, and you know, little tricks and little things and little, you know, like selling things and all that kind of thing.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, nah, this can't work.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_07: And then um I had a brethren come into school, and I every day eating KFC and Pringles and drinking.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: I like bro.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: He living good.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, bro, your parents are teachers host.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: You mean you're funding all this money?
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: But he was doing, he's a pianist, Michael Zeffrin, and he would be playing, building tracks for people.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: He'll be doing stuff.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's hustling at 13, 14, making a decent picture.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: I like nah.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what's this?
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: So during choir, they had a teacher's appreciation, something, and they wanted us to sing.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because we were staying back after choir and learning other music, pop songs, and voice to men, and whatever was popular, you know.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we he's playing it on piano and we singing and harmonizing and thinking, we sing in choir, so we know how to do all other things.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and we ended up singing in the show.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, wait now, we could form a little group and singing, singing little tea party on a little by the wedding and thing.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we ended up doing that, and ended up, I ended up, you know, gigging from small with this group called Class, K L A.
• 1:07:41
  Corie: And at that point, you're you're doing what a backhand track or no band at that point?
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: Instruments.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a piano.
• 1:07:47
  unknown: I see.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Michael played the piano and sang.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: Mark played the guitar and sang.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: Faye Ali Bocas was in the group as well.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was Faye, myself, um, Michael and Mark.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we would we would be like a harmonizing.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: We would play with backhand tracks sometimes, but sometimes it was just live, you know, with those instruments.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: And class was the name of the band?
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: Carey S, you know.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um that taught us a lot of discipline from young, you know, what took practice.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember you'd be walking up the road with I know no real suit bag, a garbage bag, and a wire hanger going to somewhere, you know.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_04: Like mom was always laughing.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_04: I remember you're walking with your wire hanger, you know, in Palmes, I ain't in the middle of Palmice, you know.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I had to walk in, you know, uphill and all kind of things.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_03: And you're going dedication from small, you know.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_03: You want to talk long time.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I started to cover this song Um No Diggity, right?
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: By Black Street, and then like that song was like popular, so we were getting good traction.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: By the time we started to play it, everybody was like, Yeah, shout it again, damn, get loud.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, ooh.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, yo, I heard a rumor that that recorded in Trinidad.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, what?
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: That recorded in Trinidad?
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Where?
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Where that recorded in Trinidad?
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: Caribbean Soundbeaston.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Where's Caribbean Sound Beastin?
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one of the biggest studios in the Western Hemisphere right now.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, whoa, for real?
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, you know, real artists is kind of sneaking and go and record there.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think Biggie over there, da da da da da.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they record no diggity.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, nah.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta go.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that little money I play and stuff, my little kicks and stuff like that.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: I take some, I get my little$200,$100 or whatever it was.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: I figure it out how to reach to sound base.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: Reach the tongue, get the maravil car, go on, long circular car.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: Reach there.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I'm getting inside and nothing, yeah?
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: Reach by the guard.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_03: The guard is like, what you doing here?
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but you feel you can just walk in.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was like, I come from south, bro.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I come all the way from Sando, like we'll go all the man now.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's I come up the next week.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, he started feeling sorry for me.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_03: I ain't barriching love, he but I don't know what shall I see.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I ain't love, yeah.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but here the thing, the first thing I saw was Kess music, Kess publishing, K E S publishing.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's cool, bro.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, one day I'll have a publishing, my own publishing, and stuff like that.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was Kiskity Caravan, something, something.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody was like, I was like, my name.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I still in the lobby.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Studio A over there.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is where the real studio is, you know?
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody could go in there.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and then I see our next youth man walk in, looking my age.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: But he waste no time.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: He just dropped wherever he dropped and just started saying, Oh, and I was just like, wow, you were a brave boy.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was Zan.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Zan was there, 16.
• 1:10:56
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was trying to like, he, I guess he heard the rumor too.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he was there and he was there and jamming and I was like, yo, that's how you gotta do it, huh?
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So sit in the studio man watching him, and you know, kind of laughing with him and saying, All right, youth man, all right, youth man.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I realized there's a little hope here.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept on coming every week.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I tried to go, I tried to go, I tried to go, I tried to go.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I met Nadia there.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Nadia Batson was in a group called Silhouette, right?
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she was working with Christian, who was working with Shell Shock and Mr.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Vibe, and they were a part of a kind of arm, uh, uh RB hip hop group called uh I think it's black lyrics, no, not sure.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Blackmail.
• 1:11:36
  Corie: Is it blackmail?
• 1:11:37
  Corie: Blackmail.
• 1:11:39
  Corie: Blackmail me.
• 1:11:40
  Corie: Go check it, yeah.
• 1:11:40
  Corie: Vibe go kill me.
• 1:11:41
  Corie: He was here, yeah.
• 1:11:42
  Corie: Check it.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Blackmail.
• 1:11:44
  Corie: But they were blackmail, M A Yes.
• 1:11:46
  Corie: That's right.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But they were doing great.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were like a production, performing, yeah, singing, rapping.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So Christian and them working.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I meet Nadia and Nadia was fun.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: She was kicked.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_01: She was she she took me.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: She likes she almost been sorry for me a little bit too.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: She seemed like I lost puppy.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we sat, we write, and we wrote a song, like our first little song on some rhythm.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know where it is now.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's song called Wining Skills.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was the first time I had a little soccer song on the radio.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_01: They play on 105.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_01: They play on 105 sometime.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: We park up in front of the house.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, look at a song on the radio.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that kind of typical thing.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's me, right?
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_03: My friends and things.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: But anyhow, so Caribbean Swan Basin signed to build vibes, bro.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Nah, boy.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, class go, you know, I do know all those things too, huh?
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I said, nah, boy.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't find a way to think.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then I see this Rasta man always in this place, you know.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: He always thinks, big Rasta man always coming in this place.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then one day he asked me, man, what are you doing here, man?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know, I just want to meet people, I want to learn, I wanna think.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, come in.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he carried me upstairs.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_01: He has like little suites upstairs, right?
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Studio suites.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he carried me up there and he started to play.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the guy who did Toro Toro, and that's that's hack it.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: He did Toro Toro, he did uh feeling out my nanny and super blue, right?
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_01: He did um put your back in it.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, my brother.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, but those days was happening there, and I went by him and I would come there.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then I have a reason.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have a reason to travel up the road.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I actually know someone inside the guy that means friends.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, see him to video.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_03: You see him in the road, any road, any video.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a brethren.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we record a few little demos here and there, but that was like my first little little vibes in that world.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then um then me and my me and my brother, my brother had a different band.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's a long convoluted story.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_03: No, we had two hours.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we had time.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So my brother, my bro, was in a rock band, and they weren't they were trying to enter pop rock at Anchorage, had this cover band competition called Pop Rock.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they they had gone a year, and I wasn't really, I wasn't singing with them then.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: We had kind of done our own things in that time.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um they came and they had placed in the semis, I believe.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then they wanted to do the next year.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I was already in my group, and we were already doing like a few things.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um we said, well, hey what?
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do um let's do Bohemian Rhapsody because we could sing.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, we could sing that part, that classical part, and then y'all could hold on Iraq.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be our flagship song.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we as a group we learned Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, figure, oh my god.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, all that shit.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: We destroyed the festival, we came first, it was all that, and it was like we mash it up, you know what I mean?
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, in those days, now I threw a concert and salt and press auditorium.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I had I had bring everybody, we bring all the bands, we bring everybody, it was amazing.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of like our first Tuesday, you know, our first Izvy, like teenagers, you know.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And where you're playing then is mostly rock then.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was five different sections.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I was I had originals in each section, and it was like RB, same like RB, RB segment, a rock segment, a classical segment, and a rap soul segment.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, chuck.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we brought on everybody, we had brought on Jar Melody and Brothers with Voices.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh then, like he was with Brothers with Voices there.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was um Black Lyrics, which is a rap soul group, um, rock bands like Gregory's Dream and Hans and Ember, Limestone.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: My mom sang classical segment.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was a real kind of amazing show, you know.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so all these things are going on, and so we we joined pop rock, we won pop rock.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: At that point in time, everybody, real life started a setting.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Some members um had every day, wanted to just quit and do jobs, you know, do their normal jobs.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want to come off the train yet.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we said, Here what?
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna do?
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just form, let's keep on forming it, let's just keep this band together.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: We formed a band called Rhythm Oraye, which was kind of like a fusion rock band.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we would listen to a lot of Orange Sky and a lot of these Trinity rock bands, and where they would combine Rel Reggae and Calypso with soca, and we had loved that, you know.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we started to create songs like that, you know, and there was a one song called Runaway, which we had to throw a party in Michel Xavier's backyard to raise the money to go to Graham Wilson's studio on Bell Smite and record Runaway.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that was our first little song that we had on radio as Rhythm Mariah, right?
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: In a sense, I had to go to Hot 93, I had to go to 951 with my CD.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, push it yourself.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Please play me.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a man who went naps, right?
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Naps, man, bless up.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I saw people.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: A man who went naps was in '93, and he was like, I go fix it up, I go let it play.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it started to play a little bit.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we started to get a little traction for a song, and we were feeling good about ourselves.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then two of the core members wanted to go and study.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, I take in sat too.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I take in my sat.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you plan just to go and study.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was, yeah.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be a vet.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was gonna study to be a vet.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because it didn't help that I was good in school too, because I had options.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_01: To choose music was very hard at that age because it doesn't say, well, now me say nothing in school, man, and then just music I have, but yeah.
• 1:17:49
  Corie: No, especially against the backdropper.
• 1:17:50
  Corie: You say when you see your parents, you know, the times it might be good through.
• 1:17:53
  Corie: You want to be independent, and vet might be safer at least.
• 1:17:56
  Corie: Of course.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_01: My parents, I give them real props.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's three big sons who went into music.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, in the in the early days, PWA.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: PWA is selfish, you know, which is nice though.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is it?
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_07: It's nice, yeah.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, but um, yeah, it was just really uh um at that time I had moved from Perez and going to CIC because we were supposed to move to Port of Spain.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_01: As a family, as a family, but I didn't end up moving to Port of Spain until two years after CIC.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up traveling from South to Tong for A levels in CIC.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I I I live in home with the moon up and I come in home with the moon up, you know, three hour maths lessons, and you know, it was good.
• 1:18:40
  Corie: It's that South Man life.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Plenty of South people had a story, you know.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And man from the East, yeah, I guess.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Which I kind of was good friends with because they were dealing with the same things I was probably dealing with, yeah, you know.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but meanwhile, music was still so much a part of it, bro.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was just growing and growing and growing.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and um, so I was in CIC.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I remember 99 I left.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: 99.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was the yeah, okay, cool.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_01: What we're gonna do now, you know.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we started to be vagabonds and be have a little original band and playing Island Club Casino every week, you know, twice a twice a month.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: His grandpa's uh grandpa's uh, we got started to get those shows in Coconuts, we started to get those shows in Anchorage, so it's so those things started to sort of big up for us, you know.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we started to get on the scene a little bit and stuff like that.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um my two brethren left.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_01: One of them went one of them went to the music school of Manhattan and Juilliard, which was amazing, the pianist, Michael Zefferin, and Mark, the other guy who I used to write with, he is uh he owns his own editing companies into into production and stuff like that, doing really well now, you know?
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but they left and I stayed, and I was like, I gotta make this happen.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, little arrows telling me to do this, but a big arrow telling me to stay and try this thing.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, always had that.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I and I said, Pops, I said pops, give me two years.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Give me two years to do this, and then have me.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back since the two years went well.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I wouldn't even say I guess he they saw that we were growing.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So at that point in time, we say when they left, it was kind of like a core creative core left, you know, for us too.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So write with them a lot, you know, and arrange with them.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we say, all right, let me just form a band and go to Malaysia or something.
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Them days, you could go a cruise ship band, you could do Malaysian tour Asian tours.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the idea that was gonna happen.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Then we were gonna go on that.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: We had we had friends who were living there.
• 1:20:50
  Corie: Hey, it's time for a hydration break.
• 1:20:52
  Corie: Brought to you by Lucas8 Sport Ice Cake inspired by Jude Bellingham.
• 1:20:55
  Corie: And you see cats on these for the settle talk while you ever think I'm gonna say back to your regularly scheduled program.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_09: Bang.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see what this is about.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we found an agent in Trinidad and they would come and he would come and kind of visit us and try to manage us and stuff like that.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're still green, you know, and we have to learn other types of music and so on, so and it just didn't end up working out with this guy.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think for good reason, yeah, and um because I mean it was just us youths 1920, I go into an ex country to live.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um then we ended up doing a charity show in for I think it's George Gonzalez's dad in Pair One, but we were very nude and very like precise.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We just kind of beep beep beep beep and do that.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_05: Started from the top again.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, you know, so we were really tight and we went to the show and we played and we kick ass, like we just song like you sting, your song like everybody.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Joey was there, joining white.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice, and we knew Joey Ngwai from second image, and those days, second image was like, yo, that's a single like you know, they were real good.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Joey had the idea of wanting to form another image, right?
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he sees these youths, and at that time the two members were kind of ready to go, so we didn't know what we was gonna do.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so he approached us to saying, Hey, well, you all wanna kind of revamp what image was?
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, Well, these men gone.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know born in Malaysia.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why not?
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give it a shot, and we end up joining Image and Company, and then we grew up in Michelle because we knew Michelle could sing.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_01: She was part of another group called Gregory's Dream.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And they had yeah, and they had fall apart, Michelle's Abier.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we formed it, and then later on, probably a year or two later, Ghetto Flex came on board.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were Image and Company for a while, like five years, and we did really well as our group.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:02
  Corie: And um well, I guess at that point it understood back there for you.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_01: The thing go on, but you could understand how like all through my life, it was sort of like just being fed certain things and just the journeys, just sort of the path sort of opening up as things went, you know.
• 1:23:19
  Corie: I could see how it built to that.
• 1:23:20
  Corie: And Image was known for um Joey, really taking a lot of chances with the fusion that you you're kind of accustomed to at this point.
• 1:23:27
  Corie: That's where you want to do anything.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we were accustomed to that then, in a sense of Joey was our rock man, like we didn't have brass line, but we had distortion, so we would use distortion in place of brass sometimes because it carried the same frequency, you know.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, but we were that we were that soaker band that would have player uh because it was covers, player crossfire, and then player hotel California, like in the same set.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And not many people were doing that, and then we were covering it well, so we were doing it good, but then I really wanted to write, bro.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, I wanted to write.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you're doing all covers at that point in time, mostly, and I was like, Joey, please, I have these ideas, songs I write in school and things, yeah.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I see I see bioclass beating on the desk and before you move on from CIC.
• 1:24:11
  Corie: A man here, a man by the name of Jerome Priscilla say beating like that dog, and then you think, you know, you say every time he says try to sing, he said he said try best, but he did say come and back you.
• 1:24:23
  Corie: He said you come and back him up and I think I'll do okay.
• 1:24:26
  Corie: Good, all right.
• 1:24:27
  Corie: Definitely just fact check it.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_04: CIC was yeah, I see who's this, man.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's something special happening in CIC.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_04: Something special happened, C I see, man.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_04: Something special is okay.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_04: We're C I C.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_04: I don't talk about C I C a little bit.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I went C I C.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was so my name was South Man.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Southman.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Forget Kess.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was keys or Soapman.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Soapman, Soatman, think, ting, ting.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I tell myself, you know, in present stuff, I was I was known, I was gonna be head pre-fecanting, all kind of thing.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had to leave to come CIC.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was vexed.
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to sit on South.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was comfortable.
• 1:25:05
  SPEAKER_01: But God never put me where I was supposed to be comfortable.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I get too comfortable, he's yank it and put my deep.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's not where I have to settle.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_01: But anyhow, I digress.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I went to CIC saying I tell myself, I'm gonna keep a uh a low profile and then I'm just gonna do my work real hard, study real hard, so then I tell me nothing.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_01: I come in third, fourth, fifth, you know, seven busy last lowest time will come.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I that's what I can do.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_01: But then kind of come around and it's our calypso competition.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to enter, you know.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I had also prefects concert.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_01: I sing in no diggity long time and thing.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_04: I win the nuts, or I win that out.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we go to do, we go to do the we go to do the thing, the competition.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Calypso competition.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I won the Calypso competition, I wrote a kind of gospel, and I was also covering high mass by David Roder.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had loved what David did, and I really got into David after that deeper.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because David combined almost church music with calypso as almost as if being, you know, uplift putting the god part of it in so corner.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and I felt like it was such a spiritual experience that people were given carnival only this carnal kind of aspect when there's a lot of spirituality, a lot of connection happening, you know.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like David captured that with that song in such a real way, it just blew my mind, you know.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was covering it too and one.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was an inter-school competition.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Robbie actually was working in Heineken or Carib all the time, and he was one of the guest judges.
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_04: He saw me when I was at Utah.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know that he was there though, by the way.
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_01: He told me this after the fact he was judging me, but then um short pants um was also judging, and he felt that what I was singing was not calypso.
• 1:27:09
  Corie: Of course, yeah.
• 1:27:09
  Corie: The men was strict about the rules about that night.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't calypso to him, and he gave me zero.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_01: He gave me zero.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, I'm not supposed to settle in certain places, yeah.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Get uncomfortable.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm supposed to be like, yeah, you didn't win.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you didn't do nothing.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of disappointed because how you could say it's not a lip so da da da.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I bring musicians from South and thing to come and play with me, and you know.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Man give me zero, you know, but it was the best zero I get because at the same time, it kept me alive.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_01: That carnival ended up being kind of hard because I like I got some virus like the Friday or something, you know.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I fight in it.
• 1:27:59
  unknown: I up.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tongue in the streets right now.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know even in the I don't even have a ban.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can't have a photo being no ban.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember on a Tuesday.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_01: I had hats, right?
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I got hats.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_01: The hearts was looser.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_01: The security wasn't as tight now.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_01: It started up like the last truck in poison, you know.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was me.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm probably the captain of the last truck in poison.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because anyhow, sorry there.
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had an ombro, umbrella on a green ombro jazzion, you know, in the streets and just you know, one or two little girls, you know, from convents and things like, oh yeah, but ting, ting, ting.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Get pelt out, yes?
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Pelt.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I say, then I my belly started walking, boy.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh god, what I gonna do, boy?
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_01: All them, all them batches look like murder scenes.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I tell myself, it's time for me to go home.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's time to go home.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_03: Two o'clock in Tuesday.
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_03: I had to go home, bro.
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Home is south still.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, I would stay in the panel apartment, and I'm talking.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, dear, dear, dear.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, that's it, bro.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I uh and I walk in, I walk in to get a car to walk out of town, right?
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I walk in meanwhile, my eye griping, yeah.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm actually trying to make it to somewhere else to offload, but and then go home.
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, comic, yeah, right?
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm walking up Q past QRC and nobody on the streets, you know?
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And why is he walking down?
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_06: David Rudder, boy.
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_01: David Rudder walking down, it's me walking up and David Rudder walking down, and I cover in his song in school.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_01: I say my whole thing on turn around now.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I walk and I see David, boy.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_06: I say, David, it's so good to David at the time.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, I understand it now.
• 1:30:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was time was in his head, he was because he was talking to himself, he was trying to like figure out something on top of that.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know it is when I when I when I only grind, sometimes I'm not noticing some something that's going on, and I just kind of making my way, you know.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't deliberate, you know.
• 1:30:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I needed it, I needed you.
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it will come.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it taught me a viable lesson.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I personally, I try my best to really give people the attention and the time of day and understand.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that little bit of energy sometimes will get you past something, and that taught me that lesson then, so that now in my career too, I have that sort of mindset because I remember that fateful day.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_04: But um I just remember at the end of the day, I was just watching Mars on TV and some rare lame little TV we had there, and I was just like dreary and sad, yeah.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, yeah, but still hungry, man, still still still wanting to grow, willing to go for it.
• 1:31:05
  Corie: So, one more thing I had to cover with the marriage before we move on, right?
• 1:31:07
  Corie: You say they used to call it South Man or Keys.
• 1:31:10
  Corie: That's right.
• 1:31:11
  Corie: What is your name, really?
• 1:31:12
  Corie: Kessel.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is your name?
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_01: We should ask any beginning.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_01: So my actual the actual spelling is K-E-E-S.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's our Dutch name, it's Case.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my parents was trying to be fancy and then didn't follow through.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it ended up just being Kess.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up just knowing my name as Kess right through, even though it was named Key.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think they thought it was pronounced Kess.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's really Keis.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but that A, that case is not something very um, you know, uh secondary for us.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a lot to do.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so people either call you keys or call you Kess.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Don't call them keys.
• 1:31:49
  Corie: Don't call it K.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:31:50
  Corie: People are simplifying, so let's call Yon John too.
• 1:31:53
  Corie: Is that what happened when you grow up?
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, another fancy thing.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_01: G-O-N spells John.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_01: It works.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it called Young?
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_03: We gotta keep this thing simple.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_03: Why is it called young?
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Henry, I mean, this is we reach we reach so far.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, all right, when we get we here.
• 1:32:10
  Corie: So the days with Image and Tickers, as I say, Image is one of them bands that seem to be up your alley in terms of the success you'll have there.
• 1:32:17
  Corie: You'll tell me you wanted to start to write songs and you're going to Joey with that.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was going behind him, you know, trying to say, brother, you know, after rehearsals, let me, you know, let me hold our vibes, let me do something.
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually, by nagging in nagging him enough, he um we started to build songs like pushback, um One Day.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, One Day was actually written in St.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's while I was there.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, during the time I was learning high mass and all of those things.
• 1:32:42
  Corie: So by the time you tell me one to do songs, you have songs written, you have these.
• 1:32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've got ideas and I have things there, you know.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like I guess they got so accustomed to the cover business, like like, and that you know, that could be lucrative in a lot of ways.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_01: The the energy wasn't going into original, and I kind of still wanted to the the mission was to mix the covers with the originals and then eventually do your own originals, you know.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like it was not his mission, yeah.
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyhow, I started uh, but I'm a free spirit at the end of the day, and I started to push him to record a few songs, but I also started to work with other people, okay, and I don't think they wanted me to work with other people.
• 1:33:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was the kind of beginning of a little rift that was happening.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of what production in terms of they didn't want me to work with any other people, production-wise, okay, right?
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was just kind of through them, and I was like, nope, and I went um by link up, um, I met that's why I met Ricardo Rameshwa, Ricky, um, and um it was Ricky and Brian Morris, and we we did a song there.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what was this song again, boy?
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_01: I forget the name of this song.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's how I look back around there too, as well.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so we did a song there with him, cool, and then I started to again do stuff with other people, do stuff with other people, and um and it's time you have no banana, nothing you just no, no, um as in image.
• 1:34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Still an image, okay, working with other producers.
• 1:34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha, you know, plus image, plus joy.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, what we did was, you know, we we weren't we weren't allowed, excuse me, we weren't allowed to um we weren't getting airplay.
• 1:34:25
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't getting airplay at that time because second image had sort of in the 90s, late 90s, sort of fell out with the powers that be.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know that.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know any of that.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when we came into image, we realized that um that nothing is playing.
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you and them, you use image.
• 1:34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then now we there, and then we heard all the stories afterwards, and we were like, oh, they're kind of like blacklisted now.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, whoa, what?
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I youth man, I know come in this thing once again.
• 1:34:55
  Corie: Yeah, you can't afford that.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not easy, we're it's not that easy, right?
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Oh good, what I'm gonna do.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_01: So two things happen, right?
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we say, hey what, we're not getting any fets right now.
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_01: However, we could do the the corporate shows.
• 1:35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we started doing a lot of corporate shows, we started doing a lot of schools, we did a lot of the side doors to eventually be hired into Carnival.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, because we weren't getting any airplay.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, so I was like, nah, boy, this can't happen.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_01: So push back came, and I was like, nah, pushback is a nice song.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why that can't get played?
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Also, that wasn't getting played initially.
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I didn't this was the the the other songs before wasn't getting played at all.
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_01: This was this year, I think it was 2002, and I was like, so it's time to come.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this song could play.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_01: This song good.
• 1:35:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I'm not gonna put my CD in because you have to drop your CD.
• 1:35:47
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to make these spindles of CDs, cover them, then have two, one for the programmer director and one for the link, one for the library, or something like that.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_03: Whoever, you know, I just walk in, right?
• 1:36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Radio cart thing up with them, and I'm trying to go etch every station.
• 1:36:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't put image, I put KS.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I put Kiss.
• 1:36:13
  SPEAKER_01: That must have been fun.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just get them Kess.
• 1:36:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't get them as image.
• 1:36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I start to play, boy.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I say I catch them.
• 1:36:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the thing started to play, play for two weeks.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, song playing.
• 1:36:24
  SPEAKER_01: I say, yeah, boy, in the mix, this is my year.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, zeros.
• 1:36:32
  SPEAKER_01: So off.
• 1:36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something I will say, and it's a little controversial, but this is something that was happening.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was kind of wondering why I wasn't playing again.
• 1:36:45
  SPEAKER_01: So after playing so so good for two weeks, I was I remember I was in a party in St.
• 1:36:49
  SPEAKER_01: John's ambulance, and I was standing up in the world, it's feeling kind of semi-deflated.
• 1:36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then Maximus Dan comes next, and he's like, Boy.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What do you mean the Troya song in the bin?
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, they served been training sessions.
• 1:37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they will have a round table and they will say who's playing and who not playing.
• 1:37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And my song, who ain't in a pen.
• 1:37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was deflated and defeated and angry and all of it.
• 1:37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that carnival came and went.
• 1:37:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it played just enough to catch a little fire.
• 1:37:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, like Easter time came.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, after Carnival's done is P War season, so you're kind of figuring out well, where next?
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we might get a gig in Jamaica, we might go to Miami in October.
• 1:37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right, I don't know what's going on in summer.
• 1:37:50
  SPEAKER_01: There are a few little things here and locally.
• 1:37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Easter time, I got a call from New York.
• 1:37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Say, yo, they wheel your tune 15 times in a boat ride.
• 1:38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:38:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I didn't go to New York till 10 years after.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go to New York till 10 years after that.
• 1:38:09
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't actually make it to New York that year or the year after that, or whatever.
• 1:38:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just a grind?
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_01: A grind, bro.
• 1:38:18
  SPEAKER_01: We grind until we still grinding, but I think what less 2011.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you're talking about 10 years, bro.
• 1:38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I spent 10 years building, but in those 10 years, we did a lot.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_01: So as much as soccer, we didn't really have a front door access to the soccer world.
• 1:38:37
  SPEAKER_01: We were still trainer trying to make soccer every year, still.
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And our management at the time, too, was real willing to explore us too.
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, we got our song.
• 1:38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were one of the first artists to get a song on a video game, EA Sports, um, FIFA World Cup.
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_01: We got we got a song on that with Maximus Stan too.
• 1:38:57
  SPEAKER_01: He had one too.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I went to Germany for the World Cup and do my things there.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_01: We started to create little tours.
• 1:39:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I work with producers outside, like LA, LA based, New York based, creating pop, creating rock.
• 1:39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're generous, you create some way you want to create.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't um, no, I want to create soccer too.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I wasn't getting the right songs and the right, you know, I just wasn't there yet.
• 1:39:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I just didn't find a sound in soca yet, to be honest.
• 1:39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that those years were years of exploring different things, you know.
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's when I recorded Lion.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I worked with the I work with the producer, a producer called Derek Bramble, who um wrote uh who worked on David Bowie's Tonight album.
• 1:39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he recorded Lion, was what a group of songs that we did together.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everything we we did a lot of LA trips and a lot of I got to see the industry.
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 1:39:54
  SPEAKER_01: So those years I spent a lot of years exploring the other sides, the other world, you know.
• 1:39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, first trips to Nashville, I worked with Desmond Child, who are living on our prayer.
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like I really, I mean, it was an adventure, you know, like in C in the soccer, but you're looking for that success.
• 1:40:11
  Corie: You're feeling as an artist like you're getting the expression out like a lion, is that you're not feeling that.
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm doing that, but I also want I also want people to like me.
• 1:40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I also want something that the people love.
• 1:40:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, I had my niche market in in Trinidad, like they were viral fit for people who were there from the beginning, or you know, shows in Woodford Cafe and all the different things.
• 1:40:32
  SPEAKER_01: I did the song with Tess and Chin before Watless too.
• 1:40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of these things were.
• 1:40:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I came before Watless, yes, and as a reggae song, you know.
• 1:40:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like everything outside I had two wheels.
• 1:40:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like two wheels.
• 1:40:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like the non-soker stuff and the soca stuff.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was serving two masters in a lot of ways, and um, I started to become really despondent.
• 1:40:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um 2010 or nine.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_01: When did Palance win?
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Palance was 2010.
• 1:41:00
  SPEAKER_01: So 2010, right?
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So 29 into 10.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was fed up.
• 1:41:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was reaching a stage where I was like, Wait, boy, I got real working hard, and like, nope, like still not getting the respect, and I still have fight on, and it's like, if I'm not making money for you, you're not really studying me and like them kind of things, right?
• 1:41:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached there, and me and Johan and Ricky Mad Men Productions decided to sit and just do a pop album.
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we sat and we did a pop album called Stereotype.
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we did the pop album and stuff like that.
• 1:41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we were just ready to get our stuff out, you know, out of our system.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that year Palance happened, and um Marshall had taken a break that year.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So he was usually the headliner in those in those spaces.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we had to end up becoming filling that space in a lot of those fets.
• 1:41:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and Blaze and JW were with us, moving with us uh for that for that year a lot of the times.
• 1:42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um we the one hey, let me as well talk about claiming this dance thing, right?
• 1:42:05
  SPEAKER_04: Listen, JW and Blaze, right?
• 1:42:08
  SPEAKER_03: Remember when Ole comedy barn room, right?
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_03: And Ole was doing something like this, right?
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, nah, do something simpler, move to the left, move to the right.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we went Bishop's fet, which is one of the early parties, and we did it, and it didn't work, and it was on since.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So me and what destroy and all that.
• 1:42:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to feel that it's but I love you, girl.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_03: I love you, but it's that anyway.
• 1:42:33
  SPEAKER_03: We need them to clarify this.
• 1:42:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what blame it thought.
• 1:42:36
  SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden, we ban women to go matter, no play.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_01: But anyhow, that season was amazing.
• 1:42:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, yo, finally, I'll leave the season, getting the respect we deserve.
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you get no respect you feel as a band.
• 1:42:51
  SPEAKER_01: As a band, and the game number is getting better gigs, better, better, you know.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Better treatment.
• 1:42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 1:42:59
  SPEAKER_01: After the carnival, it was just like, yeah, cool, stop.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, bye.
• 1:43:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 1:43:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was nice having you.
• 1:43:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it was nice having you.
• 1:43:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, so I was like, I done.
• 1:43:11
  SPEAKER_01: So then I went in to do the pop album, and then that year it was grilled.
• 1:43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was like, I don't care, I don't care what I make, I just make anything.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um we started to work on the on that thing, and then out of that electrolyte rhythm came.
• 1:43:27
  SPEAKER_01: The electrolyte, because we were taking so and mixing with EDM and that electrolyte rhythm, just show me where you're from.
• 1:43:34
  SPEAKER_01: That rhythm came.
• 1:43:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I took a whole year to write that song because it was such a weird blend.
• 1:43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to, I wanted it to make it for carnival, but it was risky.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we said, hey what?
• 1:43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let me make it our rhythm.
• 1:43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, cool, we're gonna contact this artist, that artist, Marshall, and myself.
• 1:43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, yeah, we're gonna do this.
• 1:43:56
  SPEAKER_01: This artist and that artist just a two pop.
• 1:44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, right, two pop, I gotta get cussed for that.
• 1:44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Scene, no problem.
• 1:44:05
  SPEAKER_01: We already do a pop album, so we don't care.
• 1:44:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we're doing it, right?
• 1:44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Scene, right?
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_01: A whole thing, and then later on in the year, cool when the boy calls me and says, Boy, I listened to this clip on repeat.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_01: He gets some live recording of us in Normandy, and he's been repeating that little live clip, and he fell in love with it, and he's like, bro, we ought to work.
• 1:44:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what this is, but let's like kinda like he liked that.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I I flew to Toronto and Cole, I remember, just going by him every day.
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we wrote a thing and whatless.
• 1:44:38
  Corie: Who is it loopy here?
• 1:44:39
  Corie: And what was only loop?
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_01: You said it was something from some song we had.
• 1:44:43
  SPEAKER_01: Music, music, okay, gotcha.
• 1:44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like live, a live a live clip.
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_01: That he liked.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that didn't end up doing anything.
• 1:44:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was just more so we were kind of going through little ideas, little bits of ideas, and whatless was one of them, and we were like, like do, do, do, do, do.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_01: We just had a two, two, do.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this bad.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we'll come back to this one.
• 1:45:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going on the line, and we're going on, and it was like, go back to that one now.
• 1:45:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, we had done our thing.
• 1:45:07
  SPEAKER_01: I thought our thing was gonna be the thing with the young people, you know.
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_01: I thought what less was nice.
• 1:45:12
  SPEAKER_01: First, I was nuts.
• 1:45:14
  SPEAKER_01: First, I first I was lost in a sense of didn't learn anything yet.
• 1:45:18
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was nice.
• 1:45:19
  SPEAKER_01: The old people go like Watless, man.
• 1:45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Cool, nice groove us.
• 1:45:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, in Watless now, we downstairs in the studio, we playing the riff.
• 1:45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like Cohen had some ideas before, and then I had a little bit.
• 1:45:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then Cooman went upstairs and like he never come back long stairs.
• 1:45:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, two hours past there again.
• 1:45:44
  SPEAKER_01: I like this man leave me downstairs, and I done vexed about everything right now.
• 1:45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm more vexed now.
• 1:45:50
  SPEAKER_01: I like why here and I look going and I want to press stop, but I don't know what to press going upstairs, cooling in the garage, smoking assumes just in the garage, they're so vexed.
• 1:46:03
  SPEAKER_05: He vexed too.
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_01: I like what going on too.
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_01: He he going he's going through something with some kind of some situation happening, some legal thing.
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, let me go downstairs now.
• 1:46:15
  SPEAKER_01: We go downstairs, and you know what?
• 1:46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Out of that kind of what less, though, careless, that righty song horse.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_01: That song ended up finishing up.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like he come, Coen come like a machine after that.
• 1:46:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just he's a songwriter, yeah, like of the world.
• 1:46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's that good.
• 1:46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I work with songwriters around the world.
• 1:46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Cool is one of those, you know, and um machines.
• 1:46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, that song was that song was done.
• 1:46:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I was so like just so emotionally all over the place.
• 1:46:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know how big that song was.
• 1:46:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I thought I was gonna get fired on again.
• 1:46:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess that's just the experience.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, I say I gonna get an ex fight on.
• 1:46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 1:46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can come with whatever I can get fired on.
• 1:46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, songs had to play.
• 1:46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Song started playing more, songs how to play more and more.
• 1:47:01
  SPEAKER_01: It lasts more than two weeks this time.
• 1:47:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the switch, to be honest, um, of understanding the power of soca and and learning from the great teacher that is so.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Gigging, understanding people, people started treated different when you start a guy.
• 1:47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because before I was just a little red man, you know.
• 1:47:28
  SPEAKER_05: He could sing, you know, he could sing, boy, yeah, boy.
• 1:47:31
  SPEAKER_01: But now I take in your I take in your slot in your show.
• 1:47:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know what that energy was.
• 1:47:37
  SPEAKER_01: I thought everybody was my friend.
• 1:47:39
  SPEAKER_01: What was the energy?
• 1:47:42
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like a little animosity once in a while.
• 1:47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you get like, nah, nah, nah, you like I remember, I'm not calling names because I'm not into that back and show.
• 1:47:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I was gonna call these situations, you know.
• 1:47:54
  SPEAKER_01: We in a show, and this time I sing in grooves, and next man singing us, next person singing powers.
• 1:48:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, well, hey what?
• 1:48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let me do my little groovers.
• 1:48:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's Christmas time.
• 1:48:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the thing not big, big yet.
• 1:48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wine to the side, all them songs big, right?
• 1:48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Benji was kicking, kicking up too.
• 1:48:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I was like, Well, I had a groovers, let me let me let me sing second to last, and then you you finish a talk with the groovers, with the powers.
• 1:48:20
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, nah, nah, nah, nah, you had a big tune, you had a big tune, you go ahead now, you go ahead now.
• 1:48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Cool, cool.
• 1:48:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, no problem, yeah, yeah, cool.
• 1:48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now they performing before me, and they were like, eh.
• 1:48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Up next, welcome in the white boy Ahsoka.
• 1:48:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I like, yeah, I got you.
• 1:48:41
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 1:48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, bro.
• 1:48:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I come up on stage and I was like, yo, one eyes are red, man.
• 1:48:47
  SPEAKER_01: And two, what kind of shipping is that?
• 1:48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Put it up, let me go down the road.
• 1:48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Come on and the song ended up taking it.
• 1:48:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you started to feel people sort of like who's shooting your cool before all of a sudden.
• 1:49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And these are the things you have to understand when a hip comes, the energy just comes all how.
• 1:49:05
  SPEAKER_01: And not just great things will come too.
• 1:49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, and also on the current of things that will derail you.
• 1:49:11
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:49:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and yeah, man.
• 1:49:14
  Corie: So at that point, you're seeing what less picking up, you see any response to it and fed something, you know.
• 1:49:18
  Corie: I couldn't even understand it.
• 1:49:19
  Corie: Yeah, written down in Kaiso history.
• 1:49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Couldn't even I remember when I played for class, because them years, that year I had a thing, yeah, Watless.
• 1:49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Come, girl, I'd wine on it, and just show me where you're from.
• 1:49:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is one year.
• 1:49:30
  SPEAKER_01: One year, 2011.
• 1:49:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just boss with, you know, and so called it, you know, and a class and I was lying.
• 1:49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I played in thing for class, and class was like, Yeah, bad boy.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_01: But then when I play what less, he stopped me.
• 1:49:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he stuffed, you know, he's gonna play in the back seat.
• 1:49:50
  SPEAKER_03: I drive in the back.
• 1:49:51
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what you do in the back seat anyway.
• 1:49:53
  SPEAKER_03: We driving.
• 1:49:54
  SPEAKER_07: He like it.
• 1:49:58
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, that's real bad.
• 1:50:00
  SPEAKER_01: I guess a little jaded at this point, too.
• 1:50:03
  SPEAKER_07: Like, for real, I like it.
• 1:50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh cool, bro.
• 1:50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that'd be funny.
• 1:50:06
  SPEAKER_07: It's nice.
• 1:50:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, cool.
• 1:50:07
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:50:08
  SPEAKER_01: I hold on to nothing there, man.
• 1:50:11
  SPEAKER_01: But class knew what a hit was.
• 1:50:13
  SPEAKER_01: He knew what it felt like.
• 1:50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think from what less, I knew what a hit felt like in soaker.
• 1:50:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I started to respect Soka a lot more.
• 1:50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because before I was kind of vexed with it.
• 1:50:23
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, I singing about love and dreams and things, and then and then whing, whing whing whing wing whing whing whing whine whing whing whine getting endorsements and all kind of things.
• 1:50:34
  SPEAKER_06: I went mad.
• 1:50:35
  SPEAKER_06: I like why do I understand?
• 1:50:38
  SPEAKER_01: But but I didn't understand the power and the understanding of parameters and what works, what doesn't work.
• 1:50:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're making a chicky chung to fly.
• 1:50:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know how to how to make the thing and how to make it fly.
• 1:50:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be a simple idea, or it could be a very intricate idea.
• 1:50:58
  Corie: Hey, it's time for a hydration break.
• 1:51:00
  Corie: Brought to you by Lucas Insport Ice Cake, inspired by Jude Bellingham.
• 1:51:12
  SPEAKER_09: Back to your regularly scheduled program.
• 1:51:15
  Corie: Bang.
• 1:51:18
  Corie: And as fans, it's complicated first because we when you say that, we think you mean on stage.
• 1:51:22
  Corie: You're talking about in creation.
• 1:51:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like, like, like sometimes simple is best.
• 1:51:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, musicians tend to overthink again and over-calculate and be like, I'm gonna put a nice little D major, diminished ninth, you know, here, and nobody cares, bro.
• 1:51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like your artist is, does it feel good?
• 1:51:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vibe.
• 1:51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a good idea.
• 1:51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Who's listening to it?
• 1:51:41
  SPEAKER_01: So so Iowa George over the years has taught me a lot, even from just speaking to him, talking to him, um, and then understanding his lane.
• 1:51:49
  SPEAKER_01: He knows his lane, he understands his lane.
• 1:51:51
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Don't mind your lane, bro.
• 1:51:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:51:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, so, so, so Swatless taught me a lot.
• 1:51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Watless also opened the doors to Jamaica.
• 1:51:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's why so it was easy for me because they love the song, and it was like, Yeah, you started seeing the international success from from Watless.
• 1:52:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, started to play.
• 1:52:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember in an Apple store.
• 1:52:07
  SPEAKER_01: You never heard about those things in them days.
• 1:52:09
  Corie: So it was like, oh, like like things pumping, like yeah, that's what opened up a lot of doors for me.
• 1:52:15
  Corie: Yeah, people outside are getting nervous, so they want me to go back to when you start cast the band.
• 1:52:19
  Corie: Because you didn't tell me how the cast the band starts off at that point in time.
• 1:52:22
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because they leave.
• 1:52:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, I wasn't getting what I want out there.
• 1:52:30
  SPEAKER_01: You went back to a band, so so um, so we decided to um build a small band room and jam again.
• 1:52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Back to your roots because what was happening is that we were doing a lot of covers and we were becoming very mechanical, and it was a struggle to do originals there.
• 1:52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like we came from an original band, and then to go into a cover band and fighting to do originals, that just couldn't happen now.
• 1:52:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we built a little small band room.
• 1:52:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like this table, a little more, a little extra, like it's small, like yeah, yeah, and um, we would jam, we call it troublemakers.
• 1:53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um the room we call it troublemakers, because of trouble, you know?
• 1:53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we went we were practicing and doing our stuff, and um I always remember that boy, oh god, boy.
• 1:53:18
  SPEAKER_01: So so so so as good boys, we told them three months before that we leave in.
• 1:53:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they were like, uh-huh.
• 1:53:27
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, cool.
• 1:53:28
  SPEAKER_01: We got no work, they took no work for three months, and they were letting us know that this might this might how it will be when you leave.
• 1:53:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want us to be this?
• 1:53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Then kind of welcome.
• 1:53:41
  SPEAKER_01: We they they book us for every event it has rinse me out.
• 1:53:51
  SPEAKER_09: Right?
• 1:53:52
  SPEAKER_01: We left.
• 1:53:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, when we left, no, I always remember.
• 1:53:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, I tell you all the things, yeah.
• 1:53:58
  SPEAKER_01: He had the links in media, he was telling media that we were a rock band, who hire them there's a rock band.
• 1:54:05
  SPEAKER_01: Understand?
• 1:54:06
  SPEAKER_01: 2005 is when we leave.
• 1:54:09
  SPEAKER_01: That year, Image had big bottom girl.
• 1:54:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we really spar season for me, right?
• 1:54:18
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, we could have now start our originals, we could have now started, and and and the launch of Kestie Ban.
• 1:54:25
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the media was was kind of like making noise, and we had my face, my front, I was in front page that day in the papers, a Kesseless image next to Abu Waka.
• 1:54:39
  SPEAKER_01: Me.
• 1:54:40
  SPEAKER_06: I like yo, I leave our ban horse.
• 1:54:43
  SPEAKER_06: Like, what you front paging me right now for this?
• 1:54:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Reporters started to come to my garage, like door, like door, and I was like, nah, I had to leave.
• 1:54:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to New York for like two weeks, and we went to shop and we went to get new clothes and new look, and that was a whole adventure, in it.
• 1:55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just climb ahead and shit.
• 1:55:02
  SPEAKER_01: When we come back, and then our first gig was opening for sugary and beanie man in Zen.
• 1:55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:55:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we played our one and Kirsty Man went on the road.
• 1:55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Kissy Man went on the road again, you know.
• 1:55:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then again, of course, the hit came in 11.
• 1:55:19
  Corie: Yeah, there's a good that's real grind too still, you're talking about.
• 1:55:22
  Corie: Grind again for six years.
• 1:55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course, of course.
• 1:55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that's with the men who knew I was leaving image and wanted to manage me then.
• 1:55:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I was already working with foreign management and local management.
• 1:55:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, nah, already taken.
• 1:55:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, all right, five more years in the bush for you.
• 1:55:38
  SPEAKER_01: Deep waters they say five more years in the bush for you, and I ended up spending five more years in the bush.
• 1:55:44
  SPEAKER_01: And but we'd spend that time doing something else, other things, developing the band, developing the song, playing with this one, that one, no, no, no.
• 1:55:51
  Corie: Well, it kind of makes sense why the breakouts here's songs so different because as a soca artist, you can hear you talking about four songs there, I didn't realize all of them is in the same year, and it's real, real, real different songs.
• 1:56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and all spectrum songs, of course, of course.
• 1:56:03
  Corie: At that point in time, competition and all them things on your mind because it's it's bro, they had to beg me, boy.
• 1:56:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like the competition thing.
• 1:56:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I used to do track and feel, and the only thing I didn't like about track and feel is all of that kind of bravado at the front line, you know.
• 1:56:16
  SPEAKER_05: We should do that, red man, red man will do never, boy.
• 1:56:20
  SPEAKER_05: I lose, boy.
• 1:56:22
  SPEAKER_03: I lose.
• 1:56:23
  SPEAKER_05: Like that kind of thought.
• 1:56:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't take all of that, but I was like, bro, like we could be good together, you know.
• 1:56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you could be good, I could be good.
• 1:56:29
  SPEAKER_01: Music was that for me.
• 1:56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where you could be great, and I could be great, and we could be all great, and we could do things.
• 1:56:34
  SPEAKER_01: So when our competitions had really stepped in the freight when he stepped in with Watless.
• 1:56:38
  SPEAKER_01: When Watless happened, you're like, bro, you gotta defend this song, you gotta go enter so come on.
• 1:56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can enter nothing.
• 1:56:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then was like, bro, enter the song.
• 1:56:49
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to enter it.
• 1:56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is like a like a writer passage in our way.
• 1:56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like the people are the feel here, bro.
• 1:56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like at the end of the day, people loved the competition, and of course you'd love it.
• 1:56:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's entertaining, it's gladiators fighting to the death, you know, while the sponsors watch us fall apart, right?
• 1:57:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh it's like Roman days, like 100% stopped it, of course it's entertainment, yeah, but as well, too.
• 1:57:13
  SPEAKER_01: I needed some meet the people too.
• 1:57:15
  SPEAKER_01: So from lots of coaxing, because I could be a little stubborn, yeah, and they were like, Yeah, but I'll come to our senses, right?
• 1:57:28
  SPEAKER_03: You'll get there eventually.
• 1:57:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, all right, cool, cool, cool.
• 1:57:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go, I'll go, I'll go.
• 1:57:32
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like pushing, man, like I wasn't excited to do it, you know.
• 1:57:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then semis, we win semis, and then well, finals come in, and it's song big, I already fan it.
• 1:57:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I called Uncle Nelson and we present our presentation, and and well, we won, you know, and um that changed my life, man.
• 1:57:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have to say that competition and that that moment changed my life, yeah.
• 1:57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally, totally.
• 1:58:01
  Corie: Just in terms of where you take your ascendancy from where it took me.
• 1:58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um just passing through it, it was good, it was good to experience it.
• 1:58:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, competition has never been my thing.
• 1:58:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel like you know, we could spend our energy on a lot of other things.
• 1:58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:58:17
  SPEAKER_01: That'd probably be more impactful.
• 1:58:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not knocking men who answer our vibes, but um, you know, yeah, it it definitely changed the speed of the train.
• 1:58:28
  SPEAKER_01: The train started to move faster.
• 1:58:29
  Corie: I understand, yeah, I understand.
• 1:58:30
  Corie: It's something you say in the beginning to know about the history because something, whether you like competition or not, or you feel it's helpful or not, it really is just a part of the history, just a part of the fabric.
• 1:58:39
  Corie: It's come from the bois.
• 1:58:40
  Corie: It's come it's exactly where it's at, Calendar.
• 1:58:42
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:58:42
  Corie: So I remember that year in particular, you go that by that time they have Groovy and Powers separate, right?
• 1:58:48
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:58:49
  SPEAKER_01: Groovy was like the outside child.
• 1:58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and power was like prize son, you know.
• 1:58:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so groovy used to be treated like that.
• 1:58:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:58:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I even then I found that Groovy was carrying me further.
• 1:59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was carrying me in different circles, like other than just the Shrick soaker heads.
• 1:59:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was carrying me everywhere.
• 1:59:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because the next year I ended up doing Too Canyon Rocks.
• 1:59:10
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up doing My Love.
• 1:59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:59:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, My Love, yes, with TJ rhythms with Dance Hall.
• 1:59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 1:59:19
  SPEAKER_01: That rhythm was with Party Shot, thank you and Vibes Carter, um, pull party, you know what I mean?
• 1:59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that there only happened because of Watless.
• 1:59:31
  Corie: Really?
• 1:59:31
  Corie: Yeah, you know, in my mind that would have happened because of the test engine connection on all levels.
• 1:59:35
  Corie: That's a whole different world.
• 1:59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Serious.
• 1:59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I wouldn't lie.
• 1:59:38
  SPEAKER_01: TJ, TJ had liked Watless.
• 1:59:40
  SPEAKER_01: He had likely what I was doing, but he was kind of keeping tabs on me because I met TJ years before.
• 1:59:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like the years we were trying to create music in the before Watless, I went to Brownie's studio, who was producing T O K.
• 1:59:54
  SPEAKER_01: We arranged our trip to Jamaica to write.
• 1:59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Brownie couldn't understand what we were trying to do in a sense of we were trying to bring rock and sook.
• 2:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it was fouled, you know.
• 2:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: So sessions wasn't that it was hard.
• 2:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: But TJ was an understudy to Brownie.
• 2:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: And TJ, and me and TJ linked, because TJ was kind of getting what I was trying to do.
• 2:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, Don't worry, I'll link you in life later.
• 2:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: So happened, so done.
• 2:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: After after what less, he hears it, he said, Bro, have a rhythm for you, my G.
• 2:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I make sure and I nail it and I'd send that trajectory in a next direction, other than the soaker.
• 2:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: So once again, I have kind of like all wheels in one space.
• 2:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 2:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I can see the root sock soaker forming, you know.
• 2:00:39
  Corie: I start to see where it's forming there.
• 2:00:40
  Corie: I witch you, I wait till I ain't just trying to copy Bob, it's just how no, no, no, it's you, you could you could hear it.
• 2:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's everything, it's all of the things, yeah, you know, together.
• 2:00:50
  Corie: After Watless, you're suffering from because I had a lot of soaker artists come here and talk about producers too, where you have this hit this year, and nobody don't want to hear what you had to say last year.
• 2:00:58
  unknown: God damn.
• 2:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing that every artist had to be worried about.
• 2:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: You get our hit, we'll do it next.
• 2:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: You had to know your three, four, five moves after that.
• 2:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I remember that next year, it's like, we're worthless too.
• 2:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like Watless.
• 2:01:13
  Corie: I'm like Watless.
• 2:01:16
  Corie: You had to make it proper, not worthless.
• 2:01:17
  Corie: You should have it worthless, you know, make it proper, you know.
• 2:01:19
  Corie: How about how about the St.
• 2:01:20
  Corie: Mary's?
• 2:01:21
  SPEAKER_07: How about witless?
• 2:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like, I mean, big up to Chris Garcia, but it's sort of like Chutney Bakanal, Chutney Buffalo, in a sense of witnesses.
• 2:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's happened, it's happened.
• 2:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is the pressure of like creating that frenzy again was deep.
• 2:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and I didn't know what exactly to do.
• 2:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: But then I was like, you know what, these other worlds opening up.
• 2:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta explore that.
• 2:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I did other things.
• 2:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I kind of like used the Watless success platform to fuel the machine and create better structures with respect to us, and as well to seize opportunities outside.
• 2:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to jump into Jamaican rhythms, um I had stress away that year, and stress away, and then I gotta collab with Snoop Dogg on stress away.
• 2:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I was trying to just build.
• 2:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't I get you're not gonna get a watless again.
• 2:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, you're not gonna get a water again.
• 2:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's just it's a stamp in time.
• 2:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a stamp in time.
• 2:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of really changed how the molecules different now, you know, of course.
• 2:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I built from it.
• 2:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so like by the you know, the third year, I remember 2013, each year we would have a little something, a little something.
• 2:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right for wine, then falling came out in 14, which really didn't get like the traction in Trinidad.
• 2:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of had to come back around and get and then uh you know, million, back and all on a million girl, 15, you know.
• 2:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we started to like swell up.
• 2:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of swelling up, swelling up, swelling up until hello and 18.
• 2:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think hello was like transition.
• 2:02:58
  Corie: Between like 11 and 18, right?
• 2:03:00
  Corie: We fetten, we transition a little bit.
• 2:03:02
  Corie: Some of us in this room, you know.
• 2:03:03
  Corie: I mean, we once win pain, transition from PSA and Spectrum and them things to see O2 Park and them things being the big venues.
• 2:03:10
  Corie: Yes, and I think the feta the feta went on.
• 2:03:13
  Corie: Yeah, we we had this reputation of being the white boy.
• 2:03:16
  Corie: So well, no, it's president of the Red Man Association, right?
• 2:03:18
  Corie: We can say it differently, but then it was the white boys to come out.
• 2:03:21
  Corie: Yeah, where is really what is happening from Cascade?
• 2:03:30
  Corie: But people used to say that.
• 2:03:31
  Corie: People used to say, you know what I mean?
• 2:03:32
  Corie: Them is them as a rock band, them is the white boy calypso, yeah.
• 2:03:35
  Corie: You know, it changed the thing.
• 2:03:37
  Corie: It's very similar to what you're hearing people say about Denis Plummer and them singing Calypso back then.
• 2:03:41
  Corie: She went through.
• 2:03:41
  Corie: She went through that.
• 2:03:42
  Corie: Of course, she went through it.
• 2:03:43
  Corie: And uh, I wonder sometimes where we see insomnia and them kind of events kicking.
• 2:03:48
  Corie: If you was feel you used to feel that, or you all as a band was feeling that feedback because we played everywhere.
• 2:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: That was the thing.
• 2:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people will look at us.
• 2:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of colours, I'm interested in that, right?
• 2:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you will watch your complexion and feel like you didn't play colours, you didn't play PSA for Braft Festival.
• 2:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 2:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: I did all of that.
• 2:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: I did all of those things.
• 2:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: We did everything.
• 2:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: We did we were in Queen Am.
• 2:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, playing for Chutney Fest.
• 2:04:16
  Corie: Okay, good.
• 2:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Deep Beast out, nice Maruga side.
• 2:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were playing in the Chutney world, we were playing in the rock world, we were playing don't tong, Tobago jazz.
• 2:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: Tobago gel.
• 2:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 2:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, we were actually everywhere, but then people would still look at us and be like, well, nah, but yes, all I get through.
• 2:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but bro, it's actually you gotta prove yourself harder.
• 2:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean my man come to me backstage and he early is an image and say, Why you doing wee thing?
• 2:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't understand what I mean.
• 2:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I am first peoples as well.
• 2:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I might be more wee than you.
• 2:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you coming at me and telling me about we thing, right?
• 2:04:57
  SPEAKER_03: But cool.
• 2:04:59
  SPEAKER_03: The stone I rejected will be the color stone.
• 2:05:02
  Corie: Yeah, no, that's not that you you cool with the um you cool with the deep waters.
• 2:05:06
  Corie: You don't it don't bother you.
• 2:05:08
  Corie: That's where you belong.
• 2:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: I take plenty things, and a lot of people don't know that this band really had to band together and really put our heads together and really huddle and really withstand a lot of storms and criticism and and risk to really make leaps up to now.
• 2:05:26
  Corie: It's plenty of risk because if if people don't want to brand you as the white boy and soaker kind of thing, every risk you take to go and do another genre somewhere or go and work with producers outside, it solidifies that and all.
• 2:05:37
  Corie: And then is the problem I have in here, right?
• 2:05:39
  Corie: Everybody feels kicky key and laugh with too much guests.
• 2:05:42
  Corie: Feel I agree with everybody who comes here.
• 2:05:44
  Corie: But you have a disposition, at least publicly, where you're smiling and laughing, and you know, so it feels like if you're not going through nothing.
• 2:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I mean at the end of the day, we is real that's one thing Chinese have.
• 2:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: We could laugh at ourselves, we could laugh at ourselves.
• 2:05:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's one thing Chinese could do.
• 2:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a but head out.
• 2:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 2:06:06
  SPEAKER_03: Stop crying.
• 2:06:07
  SPEAKER_03: What?
• 2:06:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like, why?
• 2:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody knew really better than we are there.
• 2:06:11
  SPEAKER_01: We just do that, and that honestly is our pressure reliever.
• 2:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell it, boy, people is inspire me, boy.
• 2:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I am really weird.
• 2:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am an introvert and an extrovert.
• 2:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: I like my alone time.
• 2:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: I go be in the bush, you might see me pop out somewhere in some jungle or something.
• 2:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get frightened.
• 2:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just me looking for a little men.
• 2:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or paranging you, no, no, no.
• 2:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: I look in for the roots.
• 2:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: I try to hold on to the semblance of normalcy.
• 2:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I and I can in Trinidad.
• 2:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like Trinidadians, we have a way where we don't sensationalize people too much.
• 2:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we sensationalize bacanal though.
• 2:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: But however, everybody here, everything else, we sensationalize our good fat and bacchanal.
• 2:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else is secondary.
• 2:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like any grocery buying toilet paper, who cares?
• 2:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 2:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I could win that, I just be like, Yeah, cool.
• 2:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't move here long.
• 2:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not that people wouldn't come and greet and you know, we have conversations and stuff like that, but it's not overwhelming.
• 2:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I saw real, I saw real paparazzi.
• 2:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like in my days in LA.
• 2:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I it's just a room around Hollywood.
• 2:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I remember I just went first time I seen Hollywood, so I was like, nah, taking that taxi and I grew in our tongue and I trying to figure out where's this place.
• 2:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember trying to get into little clubs and thing, and I outside a club, and I see um um Jake Gillen Hall and all the men walk into this club because Wednesday nights, people, you know, it's stars partying and on the weekend.
• 2:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, that paparazzi, they were so bad, they were so stinked, like they was just they didn't care, boy.
• 2:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were just and like I was I'm with them too, so I hear in the conversations and showing each other, yeah.
• 2:07:45
  SPEAKER_05: I got this for 50,000, man.
• 2:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: And like, yeah, no, they go in on the running.
• 2:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, it's about nations that we don't have here.
• 2:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta deal with none of that.
• 2:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: I come home, I might flip-flops, and I go and buy doubles and things.
• 2:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 2:07:59
  Corie: That's important after five minutes.
• 2:08:01
  SPEAKER_04: You're over me.
• 2:08:02
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, go buy too much of doubles neither in there.
• 2:08:06
  Corie: Come there with big or skiss the ban, and we want your whole people saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:08:09
  SPEAKER_04: No, I'm you've moved alone.
• 2:08:10
  SPEAKER_04: So you're moving alone.
• 2:08:11
  SPEAKER_04: So it's yeah, me and one of the bridge, you know, so you know.
• 2:08:15
  Corie: So we're so what happened in 2018?
• 2:08:16
  Corie: What was he tuned and retired there again?
• 2:08:18
  Corie: What was the song?
• 2:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yo, 2018.
• 2:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: I ain't gonna lie, boy.
• 2:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all the all the all the all the big songs in my life was like uh hard moments.
• 2:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like 11 was me wanting to give up.
• 2:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: 18, to be honest, was my separation and I went to time.
• 2:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that I don't know, it's something about going through real text Savannah Grass was my dad passing, you know.
• 2:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um something about being like like like like hurt and pain and creativity go hand in hand.
• 2:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like somehow when you get so hurt sometimes, but you're creating still, uh, still going on your road, you just get out of your own way, it almost gets so weak and thing, it's just kind of you let it flow.
• 2:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever, just come, and then some new comes.
• 2:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: So then I realized wow, it's about emptying yourself.
• 2:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about um it's not about always having ideas, it's actually doing the opposite, it's about wiping yourself clean from your last hit.
• 2:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like yesterday we may have written a hit and a hit song, but today is today.
• 2:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're writing today, right?
• 2:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not holding on to it, oh it's a song so good.
• 2:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, remember those years and da da da.
• 2:09:27
  Corie: Yeah, try to repeat it.
• 2:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, you Lego that.
• 2:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: So 2018, hello was like that.
• 2:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was driving, I was driving home before the studio session.
• 2:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was in, I was in the most like it was a most horrible day.
• 2:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: I dry tears on my on my face, yeah.
• 2:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that song come.
• 2:09:43
  SPEAKER_07: I pull in and hello, hello, hello, hello.
• 2:09:50
  SPEAKER_03: Dai, why you don't know how to do that?
• 2:09:51
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to go back inside.
• 2:09:52
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't want to go inside.
• 2:09:54
  SPEAKER_03: I say, I ain't going home, I ain't not going home.
• 2:09:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going inside.
• 2:09:57
  SPEAKER_03: I go in the studio, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:09:59
  SPEAKER_01: But when I took that energy and I went studio, here we go.
• 2:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It came out.
• 2:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hello was another song that that up to this day is an evergreen.
• 2:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like somebody knew hearing it today.
• 2:10:10
  Corie: Right now, somebody hearing hello for the first time would be like to connect with anyway.
• 2:10:16
  Corie: Anybody who knows from your car connected to that festival or country or things like that.
• 2:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot, a lot of the time it's the first soccer song people hear in their life now.
• 2:10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like it's actually the introduction to the genre sometimes for some people.
• 2:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people tell me that.
• 2:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, wow.
• 2:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, all right.
• 2:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: You see, and that's all I'm saying is keep you humble because you realize you could have you figure you up all figured out.
• 2:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it's always it's always the space between that you get the the realest ideas, yeah.
• 2:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: The space between.
• 2:10:46
  Corie: When you say that song introducing people to dig on number one, it's true.
• 2:10:49
  Corie: You hear people talk mode hello.
• 2:10:50
  Corie: I wonder just the juxtaposition between that and the David Rudd moment, like looking up to him.
• 2:10:54
  Corie: He had so many songs that people say in that era.
• 2:10:57
  Corie: Tell them what is Calypso, tell them what it is.
• 2:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, boy.
• 2:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, David, I got deeper into David as the years went by, and like he's really somebody who I um who two moved the needle for me.
• 2:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he he showed me the many dimensions that that Calypso and Soker can be expressed in, you know.
• 2:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's somebody who they were pitching him to be opening for Paul Simon and all these people, and and um, you know, and to see that it's possible, I think.
• 2:11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I kind of grew up very religious in my teenage years, you know.
• 2:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of the church and all of it.
• 2:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was you know, I I fairly lost my religion over the years simply because I kind of had a bigger understanding of like what but I still held a lot of the principles and all of it, you know, and and I kind of wanted to find a world where I could bring that kind of praise, but within muse, within so cartooner, not like have it as the bad child somewhere.
• 2:11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I can come back.
• 2:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And David did that.
• 2:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Did that in many ways, you know.
• 2:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: One of my most favorite songs was Haiti, you know, Haiti, I'm sorry.
• 2:12:04
  Corie: Like, like oh, like you hear him say he's singing like fetzes, like you know, when you hear it, no, you think it's a home song or fetzy people bobbing or that.
• 2:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Haiti, I'm sorry, we misunderstood you.
• 2:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: One day we'll turn our heads and look inside you.
• 2:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wow! You know, so as the layers go on, and I learned deeper about Charlie's Roots.
• 2:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lovely documentary out there about Charlie's Roots, the documentary.
• 2:12:25
  SPEAKER_01: I suggest everybody to have a look see.
• 2:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it just gave you the routing and what Charlie did.
• 2:12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 2:12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And trying to create the sound of Calypso in the 80s.
• 2:12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I always wanted to know why was that 80s so superior?
• 2:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why all those songs sounded so superior?
• 2:12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because he was mixing it in real big studios with and doing the work that needed to be done.
• 2:12:47
  Corie: It's the same thing you saying now, no kiss, because that song of the 80s coming in the 70s, they didn't work for the 10 years.
• 2:12:52
  Corie: It's just 10,000 hours, you know.
• 2:12:55
  Corie: So again, you have that the the the reputation for us as outsiders looking at the red man in Calypso.
• 2:13:01
  Corie: So you break it pretty much every year from 2011 because the songs that you're talking about that you say ain't really connect here or but they're still part of your catalogue.
• 2:13:10
  Corie: Now people love the songs.
• 2:13:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's it, because some things will have a slow burn.
• 2:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: You see, mama, we always got accustomed to this concentrated sort of yeah.
• 2:13:17
  Corie: So even back then, you had that out of your mind since then.
• 2:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I realized that certain songs grew slower and certain songs grew bigger.
• 2:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: There were times like falling.
• 2:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this song is really nice.
• 2:13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love the song.
• 2:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: We play it lukewarm, and um then Toronto, big up to Toronto, they started to play it and really support it.
• 2:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn the second verse properly and sing it properly.
• 2:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So this song I don't make it very second verse, you know.
• 2:13:48
  SPEAKER_01: But as I had to learn bridge and thing, I say, Wait, yeah, and then the next year in Trinidad, the song was big.
• 2:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's not a fault of ours, you know.
• 2:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: You have to realize it's thousands of songs.
• 2:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: We had if we had the tip of this, you know, you open my standpipe, we had the top here, everywhere else, kind of on the bottom here, where do you think settling though?
• 2:14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everything coming up songs, don't grow at the same time.
• 2:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 2:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I always remember black songs, red your hands on there, go, look warm in the season.
• 2:14:19
  Corie: Yeah, boy, but then it's just built and on the road.
• 2:14:21
  Corie: I said that with Hulk too.
• 2:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Hulk on the road, but I see a whole band doing this on the ground.
• 2:14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that song is the biggest song in the world right now.
• 2:14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but but I also saw that certain songs hit instantly and certain songs take their time.
• 2:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: They might take two years to actually come in.
• 2:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So there's your child, patience.
• 2:14:41
  Corie: I with you, I with you.
• 2:14:42
  Corie: People used to say cast on the music groovy men too.
• 2:14:44
  Corie: On the fast forward yeah, where all of a sudden I hear Iowa, who I have as one of Iwa to me is one of the greatest soccer artists of all time, right?
• 2:14:51
  Corie: Because of things like wine, wine, wine.
• 2:14:53
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:14:53
  Corie: He's very efficient, he's the most efficient Calustonian and that.
• 2:14:57
  Corie: He don't use too much pen.
• 2:15:00
  SPEAKER_07: Work in your ones.
• 2:15:04
  Corie: But I see y'all doing um at that point in time, it was stage gone bad.
• 2:15:07
  Corie: And at that same point in time, because now I understand a little bit more about the investment it takes with songs like that and and the marketing.
• 2:15:13
  Corie: Yeah, and then you're popping up.
• 2:15:15
  Corie: Apparently, with the the story we hear in the background is that you find out when we find out that he has a next moat roadmatch song pushing his interest.
• 2:15:28
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody gets a bad 2020, right?
• 2:15:32
  SPEAKER_03: 2020.
• 2:15:33
  Corie: Yeah, but that caused COVID, that caused the presentation.
• 2:15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, when I tell you, bro, first off, that song when that demo came, right?
• 2:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was didn't know that they sent the demo to me.
• 2:15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this was um Phillips, Kyle, Kyle Phillips, uh, and um team.
• 2:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, big up to big up to my brethren.
• 2:15:55
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember them.
• 2:15:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um go over the management team.
• 2:15:58
  SPEAKER_04: Oh gosh, I remember.
• 2:15:59
  SPEAKER_04: Kyle, no?
• 2:15:59
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, that kind of Jeffers, Jefferson along with Perception.
• 2:16:06
  SPEAKER_04: Jeffers, I don't think bro.
• 2:16:07
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sorry, bro.
• 2:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Jeffers, we win the trenches.
• 2:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Elon, Elon too, Elon was moving with Ivan and raised to that he will come in later.
• 2:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: But they came with a song, and I was, but first they told me beforehand, yo, there's a song for you and I wanna.
• 2:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, what?
• 2:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm interested to hear what y'all think this is, you know.
• 2:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they played a song, and I was like, yo, I could see it.
• 2:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is a rock song, but it's like I could see the wildness.
• 2:16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I see an IWA.
• 2:16:38
  SPEAKER_01: I said, nah.
• 2:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll for it.
• 2:16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I never hear anything like this before.
• 2:16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead.
• 2:16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let me do it.
• 2:16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Go on, I'm I'll sing and all my liver string and so there, boy.
• 2:16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Cause it's they want me because I'm high notes too.
• 2:16:53
  SPEAKER_05: I don't want me to sing that.
• 2:16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Cool.
• 2:16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sing it cool, cool, cool.
• 2:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do the demo.
• 2:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: All this time I would I wouldn't know I sing any demo and I own it and say until I see I went Miami.
• 2:17:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is October.
• 2:17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, I will hear it.
• 2:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, What?
• 2:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to play the demo for him, and he was like, Yeah, right.
• 2:17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, boy.
• 2:17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so then you come and we're going down south whatever.
• 2:17:23
  SPEAKER_01: He comes, we come down, we do the song cool.
• 2:17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Disney song we go in it now.
• 2:17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Iowa last year.
• 2:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had relics with the you know, mash up and thing, of course, you know, Dr.
• 2:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Mash Up and Mash Him Up and Thing.
• 2:17:35
  SPEAKER_03: So he was he was in that state.
• 2:17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: He wants a bounce back.
• 2:17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you look at that.
• 2:17:41
  SPEAKER_01: But but he come, he they come good, and I the team came good.
• 2:17:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, perception was managed with him, and like they came solid, and his song was great, and I was willing to work on it.
• 2:17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I brought brought Ricky and Johan as well to kind of iron it out, and you know, we took it over.
• 2:17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we I'm and we think so.
• 2:18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Kyle, everybody mix it.
• 2:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 2:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I lined up trying to do like you know what the video might look like and all these things, and these things.
• 2:18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm setting up the shoot within the next three days.
• 2:18:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna start shooting.
• 2:18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Got a whole concept of one kind of thing.
• 2:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I realized in two days in the day after that, I can't find I want no, we can't find our perception, I can't find our I can't find I want no way finding I want I will busy.
• 2:18:26
  SPEAKER_03: We're looking to release this song, probably like you know, a day, a particular day.
• 2:18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we can't find him, we can't find him, and then eventually we all sit in and meeting, and then all of a sudden we look around our phone and we see you know come shell, yeah, yeah.
• 2:18:46
  SPEAKER_06: I like alright, bro.
• 2:18:51
  SPEAKER_06: So and then I gotta tell you, I was like, bro, I come and I put my head out for you to do this thing, think, think, thing, and you you doing all this thing, you come and take it to my heads up, yeah.
• 2:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, nah, but I was a kind of in a kind of weird position, you know.
• 2:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: They come to me and they ask me to be a part of the thing, and you know, and I didn't want to say no, and I was like, you know, it was wild.
• 2:19:13
  SPEAKER_06: It was wild.
• 2:19:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's no problem, but you disappear too, and like you're like, you know how to do all of that, and then and then he was like chill, like young, young lion, young man, easy chill out.
• 2:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: That one thing what's here, think of me good on like this is the thing.
• 2:19:39
  SPEAKER_06: I couldn't know.
• 2:19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right, all right, all right, Kyra wrapped up, you know, wrapped up in this thing.
• 2:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, all right, I alright, I would and then once we said so done, you know.
• 2:19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the two songs went up against each other on stage one bad win, and yeah, I'm so set so done.
• 2:19:58
  Corie: You don't like the competition thing, yeah.
• 2:20:00
  Corie: Extra competitive fire because it is.
• 2:20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I always have a obviously we will always have a little bit ahead, but I like to put a good thing.
• 2:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: If I have a you know, I have something I want I could defend, I'm putting it out there, man.
• 2:20:11
  SPEAKER_01: If it wins and do win, don't matter, you know, it win.
• 2:20:13
  Corie: Yeah, of course, of course.
• 2:20:14
  Corie: And congrats on the two because I guess when you're looking at them early years in the early 2000s or even up to 2010, nobody didn't have you don't necessarily are saying uh Kesper's soaking on a by road match.
• 2:20:25
  Corie: I don't know if people could see it.
• 2:20:27
  Corie: That's it, that's it.
• 2:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that because that's also a part of the thing, you know.
• 2:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in a sense, nobody would expect I would George and Kest to have a song.
• 2:20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, and I like that aspect of it as well, and it was a good song, so you know, so stage not good up COVID imagine winning that last road match before the opening.
• 2:20:49
  Corie: Listen, words have meanings, right?
• 2:20:52
  Corie: Stage not good again.
• 2:20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It means something.
• 2:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you the day before my birthday.
• 2:20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted a break because I 2019, Pops die, Savannah Grass, 20, we win.
• 2:21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I know my next few years are gonna be nuts.
• 2:21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I needed a break.
• 2:21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my birthday is like I wish we could press pause.
• 2:21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could press pause on the world for a little bit on my birthday, right?
• 2:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could press pause on the world for a little bit, and just have a time for myself, you know, and then press play again, and then I'll I'll be ready.
• 2:21:29
  SPEAKER_01: The next day, trying to add borders lock.
• 2:21:31
  SPEAKER_01: The next day, the 13th of March.
• 2:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, go and look at it.
• 2:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: My bird is March the 12th.
• 2:21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Next day, it shut down, and I was like, yes.
• 2:21:42
  SPEAKER_04: But two months in, I was going mad.
• 2:21:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's going mad.
• 2:21:49
  Corie: I just started like, but I like that you say I hear you say in other interviews to the COVID did provide a reset for your creativity and all them things.
• 2:21:59
  Corie: Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything.
• 2:22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was like needed.
• 2:22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I needed to, I needed to just not like refocus what I wanted to be in this.
• 2:22:08
  Corie: Well, it makes sense.
• 2:22:09
  Corie: It makes sense.
• 2:22:09
  Corie: Now, before the Popey out of here, I've at least our hundred songs we can get to it.
• 2:22:12
  Corie: But before the Popey out of here, I know that in terms of well, I guess you land in a place where you have a catalogue.
• 2:22:17
  Corie: And I don't want to say land as if it wasn't deliberate, no, because it sounds like it your steps not by chance.
• 2:22:24
  Corie: Let me put it like that.
• 2:22:25
  Corie: So you're doing the work and you're spending the time, as you say, in the deep waters.
• 2:22:29
  Corie: You're in a space now where the roots rock soakers make so much sense in terms of what the tour is, the types of music uh music that you're performing.
• 2:22:36
  Corie: And um, they were telling me that on your team that you have DC Music Festival, Jazz Festival coming up.
• 2:22:40
  Corie: So the jazz festival itself.
• 2:22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so a lot of that jazz world is opening up.
• 2:22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we did Lincoln Jazz Festival as well, too, earlier to say in January.
• 2:22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, the Tiny Desk.
• 2:22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so those jazz worlds are kind of opening up.
• 2:22:54
  SPEAKER_01: DC Jazz is a real cool one.
• 2:22:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few festivals that's amazing, like Montreal, Jazz Fest, New Orleans Jazz.
• 2:23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So these are real cool avenues because you have a lot of range of artists, you know what I mean?
• 2:23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you just bring in your country along.
• 2:23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, of course.
• 2:23:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just again, it's just lovely to see people learning the energy.
• 2:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to see them, you know, just casting it.
• 2:23:20
  Corie: But you know, it feels like just as a listener, it feels like if it's full circle for you because when you talk about the way I was approaching music before, sort of boundaryless, boundaryless in terms of genre, in terms of time, and when you release it and so on.
• 2:23:31
  Corie: It feels that way for you with the types of festivals you do.
• 2:23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 2:23:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, I think there's a lot more order and a lot more understanding of how to really put things out, and you know, all of that has come along the way.
• 2:23:41
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I am um very free.
• 2:23:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I kind of create in what I want to create now, right?
• 2:23:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 2:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like totally, like I'm you know super, super free, man.
• 2:23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like super, super free.
• 2:23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Happiness, happiness when it comes to that.
• 2:23:55
  Corie: Yeah, last question on that.
• 2:23:56
  Corie: The man without grounded no door.
• 2:23:58
  Corie: We're seeing more albums from from guests.
• 2:23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, actually, we're kind of one right now.
• 2:24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 2:24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so I'm in the process of kind of putting some stuff together, you know, it's already on the way, you know.
• 2:24:07
  Corie: So who's two here to make sure you come back when you do the album?
• 2:24:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we'll come back.
• 2:24:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, look already, look at it.
• 2:24:13
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, we'll be doing our media too.
• 2:24:18
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna have a CM party or something.
• 2:24:20
  SPEAKER_03: Good, good, good, good.
• 2:24:21
  Corie: Maybe you can do that.
• 2:24:22
  Corie: Somewhere along the line, in terms of your forming the band, doing the performances, making a name, finding what your purpose is.
• 2:24:29
  Corie: We started here the Tuesday on New Roxy saying that that origin started your backyard somewhere in Laramie.
• 2:24:34
  Corie: Is it same as the same concept we're gonna say?
• 2:24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or the band itself, yeah.
• 2:24:37
  Corie: Because when it's the show, the show itself.
• 2:24:39
  SPEAKER_01: D the concept of the show was really to find a space within Carnival, um, that we could have done all our sides and not just the soccer stuff.
• 2:24:47
  SPEAKER_01: We could actually create a show.
• 2:24:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it started off in Normandy at first, um, as a carnival band.
• 2:24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, yes, I did do it in press in school with multiple genres, and like I tried it out then, let's just say, and then that first time.
• 2:25:02
  SPEAKER_01: But the next time it kind of came around in my life was Normandy.
• 2:25:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we did that on a Thursday, and then during that timing, Tuesday Rocks came, song came, and we said, nobody's knew nothing in the midweek.
• 2:25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let's choose a weird day, like Tuesday.
• 2:25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Tuesday Rocks ended up being that Tuesday show.
• 2:25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that first year we moved to O2 from Normandy because Normandy um sold out.
• 2:25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just I remember not on not knowing that people are gonna come.
• 2:25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and we had brought Tessan.
• 2:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tessana just won the voice too.
• 2:25:40
  SPEAKER_01: So she gave us a bit of our strength as well.
• 2:25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think from that first show, you know, it really kind of it bigged up, you know, and then and and and we that to me became a focus of mine.
• 2:25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's transformed to Iswe.
• 2:25:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it's sort of like creating that space for me to express myself locally in carnival across dimensions, not just one dimension.
• 2:26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even if I can't do it, they have acts who will be bringing in those elements.
• 2:26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, like now in Iswee, we have two stages we have a we have a uh a band stage and a main stage.
• 2:26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So on the band stage, I'll feature acts that's not necessarily carnival acts, it will be other musicians, other styles, other vibes, right?
• 2:26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, on stage, I'll try to like make that set as much as we can.
• 2:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know.
• 2:26:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't do that in every fet, I can't do that in an army fet, I can't do that in a you know, so my own fate.
• 2:26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, creative on stage.
• 2:26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the real main reason is to really create our space to build a world for people to enter into and experience us fully.
• 2:26:41
  Corie: Yeah, people doing it, the people entering is not one of the biggest shows in Canada.
• 2:26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, and I give thanks for that every year, you know.
• 2:26:47
  Corie: What was it to change from Tuesday on your rocks to Iswee?
• 2:26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is just branding or branding in a lot of ways, um, different team.
• 2:26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I wanted, didn't want to be locked into a day.
• 2:26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I felt like Tuesday was limited in respect to if I wanted to carry it abroad, I had to look for a Tuesday everywhere, you know.
• 2:27:05
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually I kind of said, Hey, what?
• 2:27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just escape from the name and it's Is We feels like it's us.
• 2:27:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's all of us.
• 2:27:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's you, is me, is we.
• 2:27:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like, it's like the multiple things in my head, is we, you gotta get everything.
• 2:27:19
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
• 2:27:20
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, with you.
• 2:27:20
  Corie: Sorry.
• 2:27:21
  Corie: Last, last, last, last all them collaborations that you would have done, like even, even, and you know, I forget to mention on the album the collaboration of Queen Omega.
• 2:27:29
  Corie: Yeah, it's the most tension I ever feel in a song before.
• 2:27:32
  Corie: Like you listen and you listen, and and it's almost like you know what Queen Omega goes and come with and you just keep listening fire.
• 2:27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'd say big up to Queen Omega.
• 2:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is one of our that is the Queen of Reggae right now, a Trin Begonian.
• 2:27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to let all you know.
• 2:27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Big up to Queen Omega, Trin Begonian, you all need to tune in to Queen Omega, tune in to what she's doing and understand that she's one of the greats.
• 2:27:52
  Corie: Yeah, people need to pay more attention to it for 100% for a hundred percent.
• 2:27:56
  Corie: But you had busy as on that album as well as Shaggy.
• 2:28:00
  Corie: Yeah, and it's just this is the last thing for sure.
• 2:28:02
  Corie: I remember Shaggy in an interview on a podcast saying um the band versus the DJ thing, he's like band thing and them kind of things, and the scene where Cartel and Movado recently do a show is DJ only.
• 2:28:12
  Corie: Yeah, I wondered with you as uh somebody coming out of not just the band you rent and that's a bag, but from a band perspective in terms of the music there.
• 2:28:19
  Corie: How you feel about that in terms of band and tour and other bands still versus the DJ?
• 2:28:23
  Corie: Keep in mind that the band here watching, yeah.
• 2:28:25
  SPEAKER_01: I love touring my band.
• 2:28:26
  SPEAKER_01: One is like a gang, one of his brothers together, brothers in arms.
• 2:28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then two, the way that I we present our music, a band is the best way to present the music.
• 2:28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if if somebody's in the crowd and they know rock music, they know RB, they know, they know the drummer, they know the bass, they know the all these instruments are the same instruments.
• 2:28:45
  SPEAKER_01: But when they could see a band playing a different genre using the same instruments that they use, they're like, oh wow, this is cool.
• 2:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a sort of like there are people who connect with Robbie and connect with Riyadh and connect with Yon and not even watch me.
• 2:28:58
  SPEAKER_06: I have people going and giving me messages to tell people I think like I like telling yourself.
• 2:29:10
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't do that, I don't know.
• 2:29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I say, hey, watch that but but but in a band, in that way you connect with each player and then you you sell calypso better.
• 2:29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I could break it down in the middle is and go get to get doom and go into all kinds of I can do that with tracks.
• 2:29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:29:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, I have found a way to make tracks a little more flexible by using Ableton.
• 2:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I could go down low and I could do things and not set, but still pale in comparison to what a band could do.
• 2:29:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always defended moving with my band.
• 2:29:41
  Corie: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 2:29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, Caste Fonzalo.
• 2:29:45
  Corie: Thank you very much.
• 2:29:55
  Corie: Hey, time for hydration break.
• 2:29:56
  Corie: What do you want?
• 2:29:58
  Corie: What ice click inspired by D.