Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Destra: “I Love My Soca. I Love My God.” | The Corie Sheppard Podcast

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Destra: “I Love My Soca. I Love My God.” | The Corie Sheppard Podcast · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did grow up as a real good girl.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Always home, don't go nowhere.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was a past the cat.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as I was introduced to carnival, they say I lose become a mother.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Say, Yeah, big no, yeah, because the way I was.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: When the crowd screamed for me, I say, I like this.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was ten.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I got immediately elected to the applause, to the being on stage and people standing up, clapping and bowing.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy that.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I say, how are you doing this again?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: While we walk in through the crowd, going to set up the band, the play the DJ playing Tremblet and Razor Tap.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I see a girl going slow.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: I say, Oh, that's what we gotta do.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I went on stage and I do it, and the crowd mash up and I keep doing doing it still.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Come here and check Marshall.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I say, Marshall, who?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Montano.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I say, he ain't going to sing no song with me.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's Marshall Montano.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up hearing these people.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's a legend.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know community.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing happens before it's time, huh?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a strong believer in God's guidance.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And things go left sometimes when you plan right.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I got sign, but Stony, Epic, and a few other people were interested, but they wanted to meet me in person because they couldn't believe that a Caribbean girl was singing like this.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah, I gave Rihanna my dream and she ran with it.
• 1:08
  Corie: You are no line with us on Corey Shepard.
• 1:12
  Corie: Corey Shepard Corey.
• 1:13
  Corie: Shepard Corey Shepard Podcast.
• 1:16
  Corie: Mommy, look on for me and get through.
• 1:18
  Corie: Don't miss this one.
• 1:19
  Corie: It's gonna be sexy.
• 1:25
  Corie: Hi, before we get started, we wanted to take a moment to ask you to support the channel for free by liking, sharing, and subscribing.
• 1:33
  Corie: Those are the three things that we realize you're not doing as much as you all say you're enjoying the conversation.
• 1:38
  Corie: So please, we appreciate your support.
• 1:40
  Corie: Let's get into today's conversation.
• 1:41
  Corie: Welcome to the Corey Shepard Podcast.
• 1:43
  Corie: My name is Corey Shepard, and I am nervous.
• 1:45
  Corie: I am nervous.
• 1:46
  Corie: I am nervous.
• 1:46
  Corie: Today I have with me one of the greatest voices I've ever heard, one of the best performers I've ever seen.
• 1:52
  Corie: Goat territory, right?
• 1:54
  Corie: Greatest of all time in my books.
• 1:55
  Corie: One of the greatest artists I've ever seen, Destro Garcia.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hi.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Lama Karakya, the greatest of all time.
• 2:06
  Corie: You see, we have to put who come here next weekend.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Suppose it will land tomorrow.
• 2:15
  Corie: A hundred possibilities.
• 2:17
  Corie: We could go instead of doing this record.
• 2:20
  Corie: How are you?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am good at this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 2:24
  Corie: What's the reflection show?
• 2:25
  Corie: We're supposed to be there, but me and David decided that if both of us did together spontaneous combustion, so we can same place of gospel.
• 2:31
  Corie: I know.
• 2:32
  Corie: That's okay, that's okay.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: It had auntie Jesus, all it would have been fine.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was good.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, second year running.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm really scared of doing shows in Trinidad.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, doing so and stuff.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's been like good in terms of the performance, in terms of the people enjoying it and stuff, but I just felt wary of doing another show and then coming to do reflections, it really was not what I wanted to do.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just aimed to do a gospel album because it was weighing heavy on my spirit.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to finish that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I started gospel on my first album, Red, White, and Black, where I had its carnival and all those sounds.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell people all the time, I'm not new to this, it's just that I haven't focused on it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I zoned in for the reflections period.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess in the year before doing reflections, I went through a lot of different emotional turmoil.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to feel like, what is wrong with me?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, like how people like to say, like, bullet shit on me or what I know you can say anything on the shock because all they go beep it out.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, will we?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, but but yes, you're well.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I felt I felt like listen, something is wrong, something is wrong.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not aligned correctly.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in church, my father's a reverent, something is wrong.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then I remembered, I said, you know, you made a promise to God and history.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, looking back at the Bible, they say, well, when you make a promise, you have to honor it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to finish the album, and in transit of that happening, someone said, Why you don't do a concert?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where are you going and sing these songs?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: They went and put them to stream, and nobody go and hear you sing it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole idea of the reflections concert off of the reflections album came about, and I was so frightened, so scared.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: But people came out.
• 4:11
  Corie: But scared why?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't think people would want to come and hear me sing, just sing.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different thing when you're on stage, you have on a nice costume, and you know, you're whining, you're jumping, you're waving, people enjoying themselves, they're drinking alcohol, they don't really care who on stage they appreciate the extra talent, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, they come for not just you, but other people too, especially in Trinidad.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just felt like you know what a themed concert with just people sitting down listening to Dashra saying, I don't think they're gonna fly.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: But other people believed in me and we did it, and I was like, Oh yeah, oh my gosh, people come out all right, nice, and then we did it again the second year, and it was just as beautiful.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: People say it was better.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do I top that?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Am I just am I say, well, well, boy, I know.
• 4:56
  Corie: This is thing with Trine's because we go there and it it was good.
• 4:59
  Corie: Everybody report was 2025 was great.
• 5:01
  Corie: Yes, I'm sure the first question here gets us when next year.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:04
  Corie: So again, that question now, too.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people people already saying they comment.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: So whether or not I have a concert with a comment too, I don't understand people and I doesn't understand people.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I come in the next one, it didn't even plan yet.
• 5:15
  Corie: Well, that means I haven't won.
• 5:16
  Corie: That means I haven't one.
• 5:17
  Corie: I have no choice.
• 5:18
  Corie: The pressure is there now.
• 5:20
  Corie: It was interesting.
• 5:20
  Corie: I saw you in an interview with JD and Nisso, yeah, and talking about the first reflections, and it was interesting to see you and Nisa on stage.
• 5:27
  Corie: Yes, one of the questions you answered then, which I found strange, right?
• 5:31
  Corie: And maybe this is with the rockers on them.
• 5:33
  Corie: You said they asked you if you're gonna bring other people on stage.
• 5:36
  Corie: This is for the first reflections, and you say, Well, I don't have the authority yet to bring people on stage and that kind of thing, which is a real strange thing for me to hear you say.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's the genre, it's a different genre for me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that was like a uh a new thing.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like a baby artist.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was now starting out, you know, because people start to call it a gospel concert, which this year I changed it into a spiritual concert because gospel is territorial, they feel as if you do fit a certain criteria.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot be a gospel artist, you shouldn't be doing a gospel album.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, God is eternal, everlasting, and he belongs to everyone.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So for me and other people like me, it's just a spiritual space, a place without judgment where everyone can just reflect.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hence the name, you know.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I when I said I didn't have the authority, I meant that I'm not this big Kirk Frank, you know, whoever to bring out nobody on no stage.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I am now finding myself as well.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm still searching, just like the song that I did says, and nobody ever has all the answers.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, we talk in here, and we don't even know how this interview is going to end up.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you're going to ask, man.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm going and freeze up.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:42
  Corie: Well, I guess, I guess, I guess so.
• 6:43
  Corie: And but it was great seeing you all perform together.
• 6:45
  Corie: I know you all have a great relationship as well.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have been friends for a bit, JD and I, and meeting Nisa, you know, we just click like that.
• 6:52
  Corie: Yeah.
• 6:52
  Corie: I saw Zaya on stage through.
• 6:54
  Corie: Gosh, miserable Zaya.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Zaya, I don't know what is wrong with that child, you know.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: That child is super talented, you know, and I'm super proud of her in all aspects.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: She could sing, she could act, she could, she's done it all already in her 16 years of life.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: She went to Hollywood, do a sitcom.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's been on stage playing piano, singing, she's in the choir, she's bright, and yet still her self-esteem is not where I would like it to be.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think she I think I made her a little bit too humble.
• 7:23
  Corie: Oh.
• 7:24
  Corie: And never carry for sit.
• 7:26
  Corie: Well, they say, don't make apples that fall far from trees.
• 7:29
  Corie: Something like that.
• 7:30
  Corie: They say, no, because if you're saying, you can't bring people on stage as best.
• 7:33
  Corie: But all right, all right, all right, all right.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:37
  Corie: Zaya, we up one nil.
• 7:41
  Corie: But it was nice to see the crowd reaction to it was a little bit.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I feel they like her more than me.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's true.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I do a video with Zaya and I put it on social media, the amount of views, likes, that's but I had to do all kinds of things.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it's my money, but I can put up a picture for my first 16 with it.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just pictures and all nothing exciting.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: One million views.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know how hard I have to try to get a million views.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had a Benova, I had a I had a girl like a monkey.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I'm a little bit, and everybody like, oh my good science of course so much.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have the formula now, you have not to worry about the cup up a try totable.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's a good idea.
• 8:30
  Corie: We make them use them to benefit, they had to use them on the biggest.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: She could be holding her glass or something.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: 100% fast.
• 8:36
  Corie: Is she gonna?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I will try that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: No your words.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 8:40
  Corie: You know, and you're talking about being new to gospel.
• 8:43
  Corie: It's so interesting to hear you say that, and it's a humility with that statement, too.
• 8:46
  Corie: Because I remember that it was it red, white, and black.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that was my first album.
• 8:50
  Corie: You're not expecting to hear to God be the glory of the soap.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: But talk the truth and just keep over the tune.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 8:57
  Corie: No, but tell everybody.
• 8:58
  Corie: No, no, no.
• 8:59
  Corie: I didn't know.
• 9:00
  Corie: Let me talk the truth.
• 9:00
  Corie: I did not.
• 9:01
  Corie: Because you think about it, it's the interlude you're you're just talking.
• 9:04
  Corie: Yeah.
• 9:05
  Corie: And you're talking about Jesus in the way that you did in the beginning and then.
• 9:08
  Corie: But I think you have to listen.
• 9:09
  Corie: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Corie: It's like, what going on here?
• 9:10
  Corie: This destroyer.
• 9:11
  Corie: Because we don't know you.
• 9:12
  Corie: Yeah.
• 9:12
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 9:13
  Corie: We don't all we know is what we see and see.
• 9:14
  Corie: We don't be not a soccer artist.
• 9:16
  Corie: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Corie: And I don't know that they have any other soccer artists that would have taken that charts, especially.
• 9:20
  Corie: It's a chance.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's really a chance when you think about it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, it's not a chance, it's who I am.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And growing up in church, I mean, I only learned this term two years ago.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, I'm a PK, a pastor kid.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that term before.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: But while while talking to other friends of mine that also have reverends or bishops or pastors, as fathers or mothers or whoever, they say, Yeah, you're a PK.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I say, What is that?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're a pastor kid, or say, Oh, so I started use it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I have identified now.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, but even though I was in choirs in church or singing at the church or even singing gospel or singing at funerals, it's always been a part of me that I could switch on and off.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like me speaking in French.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I could switch to French on, switch it off.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's not a big deal.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: But to other people looking at it, it's like, oh my gosh, you speak three languages.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, you could sing.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, but to me it's normal.
• 10:11
  Corie: So with these three languages, what is the three languages?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I speak Spanish too and French.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 10:18
  Corie: Oh, you learn to speak at school.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: However, Trinidad is learning.
• 10:23
  Corie: Don't say that enough.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy that Trini's, you know, we have it available and accessible to us.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I would tell all parents let your children learn the next language because you never know what you could find out.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: The world is big.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I learned French and Spanish up to A levels.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did French literature and Spanish literature at E-levels.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of good, but I'm better in French.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 10:45
  Corie: I see, I see, I see.
• 10:46
  Corie: My son will be happy to hear that in French and he does he does well in languages.
• 10:49
  Corie: Nice, nice.
• 10:50
  Corie: People who learn languages and maths could learn anything, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, that worked for you.
• 10:56
  Corie: I didn't learn much.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I learned languages and maths, and that didn't work for me.
• 11:00
  Corie: Clearly it worked.
• 11:01
  Corie: Clearly it worked.
• 11:02
  Corie: Clearly it worked.
• 11:02
  Corie: So what was your people reacted to when you opened the album like that?
• 11:06
  Corie: Because I know that most of your albums, you have gospel songs on the album.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I did for my first eight albums.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have a total of 17 albums now.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: One being the gospel album.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And my first first album was actually an RB album that I did at 16.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the rest are so.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when Red, White, and Black came out, that was my second album.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: People were like, okay, this is different.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did put one of the songs I did from my first album there when I was 16.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they were like, oh, this is nice.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: For me, an album is always an expression of where you're at in your career, your musical career.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I was at then.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to show people who I was.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm destroyed so artists, you know me for singing.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's carnival, you know, um, up in the air, you know, this song, that song.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm also very godly and very spiritual too.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So check this out.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: But some people grasped it, you know, gravitated, some people didn't.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had to do it about seven more times for them to realize that wait now, she could sing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And she, you know, she believed in God.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I realized, wait, no, this ain't making no sense.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're skipping over the album.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe one day I should stop and just designate a body of work to my faith and my God.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't take these things lightly, which is why I miss Carnival.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to focus and I wanted to totally, you know, sim engulf myself in the whole feeling, emotion of putting out an album like that.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: When you listen to these songs being played, people say, Oh my gosh, it sounds so sincere.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it was.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was sincere.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was watching everybody else do Carnival, but I wasn't a part of it.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the studio, laying down vocals, praying, asking God for guidance, and doing it the right way.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 12:45
  Corie: Yeah, a couple of things on that.
• 12:46
  Corie: So salute to Nigel Tell us for that.
• 12:48
  Corie: Yeah.
• 12:49
  Corie: We were all shot.
• 12:50
  Corie: I can tell you, as fans, you just see all of a sudden you want to interview Telly saying, well, outside for carnival, this yeah, not doing it on you in gospel.
• 12:56
  Corie: How difficult a decision it is to make then.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was hard making that decision through the years.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But at the moment that I made the decision, it wasn't hard at all.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's when I knew it was what it was right.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and nothing happens before it's time, huh?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a strong believer in God's guidance, and things go left sometimes when you plan right.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: But my dad always says, man does plan, but God is guide.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I truly believe that no matter what you plan to do, a lot of times it's not what God wants for you.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you just have to pivot and go.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say, Lord, take the wheel, you know, people like to say that, and then when God takes the wheel, you say, No, I change my mind, I change my mind.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, but but I truly allow God to guide my every step, you know, like always.
• 13:38
  Corie: Yeah, it was interesting to hear you say as well that you had made that commitment to God to do this album, yeah, and how much Roy keeps passing perfectly done.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was the last, you know, what is it?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: The last straw that breaks the camera back, but that's not a good um thing to say at this point.
• 13:54
  Corie: That is the last straw.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I know what I know that, you know, I a lot of things were pointing me in that direction, but I kept pulling myself off path, off path.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But then when that happened, the the mortality is something that we take for granted.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: We say, like, you know, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next week, you know, maybe next year.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But none of us are here forever.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And no matter how much I premeditated, Roy Cape's passing, how I would deal with it, because I have premeditated it for years because we're really close, and people didn't realise that even though I left the band, we were still great friends and he was still a mentor to me, still a father figure to me.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And with his passing, what hurt the most is his daughter called me and said, if you want to say goodbye to Dad, because we had just come back from um Caribana and I'd spoken to him the Sunday before and I said, When I come back, I'll come in to see him.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, alright.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: But we came back and she said, If you want to see Dad, you have to go now.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I dropped everything and I headed up to the hospital.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And in getting there, I was right outside the door, and then they didn't let us go in because apparently they were resuscitating them for the third time.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I had no idea of any of this.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was just waiting, and then they let us outside, and then they um his daughter called me back and said, Go pick up mommy.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: They asked her to come back to the hospital, and I was like, Oh my god, what is happening?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So everything started to become really surreal, and it hurts a lot knowing that I was right there and I did not get to for one last time tell him thank you for everything he did, or to let him know that I loved him.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Although he knew already, but you know, that finality is like that really pushed me over the edge in that moment.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I felt like this is I have to do anything that I need to do that is outstanding.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna linger on it anymore.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: If I have something to say, I'm gonna say it.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: If I have something to do, I'm gonna do it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care what time it is, no right time to do anything.
• 15:39
  Corie: I with you, I with you.
• 15:40
  Corie: Nothing can prepare for them kind of moments.
• 15:42
  Corie: And I wonder sometimes for you, because it's so meaningful to you.
• 15:45
  Corie: I hear you're talking about fasting for Lent every year, what Roy Cape means to you, and having to put out this body of work.
• 15:52
  Corie: The balance and the duality, because Trinidad is not an easy audience.
• 15:55
  Corie: Oh god, it's the worst one.
• 15:56
  Corie: Let me just talk about your fans for a minute, right?
• 15:58
  Corie: Since we're here already, because I've never seen fans like yours.
• 16:02
  Corie: I'm accosted in your road several times in several territories.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: On behalf of my fans, I am sorry.
• 16:07
  Corie: I have that's why I'm frightening.
• 16:09
  Corie: I just hope this goes well because it was crucifying again.
• 16:12
  Corie: You know, people usually say, you know, you should guess so and so, you should bring this person on you.
• 16:16
  Corie: No, you shouldn't.
• 16:16
  Corie: Your fans will say, when you're getting destroyed.
• 16:19
  Corie: Yeah, why haven't you gotten destroyed?
• 16:21
  Corie: Yeah, I guess.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I am sorry.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think my fans are an expression of myself and the self that I am on stage.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's a lot of different personas happening in this one body.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's destroy the mother, you know, the the gentler side, you know.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I do tend to be a little, I'm looking at this, we probably say, what part are you gentle?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, and then there's destroy on stage, you know.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm the queen of Bacchanal, I do see I see red.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I see.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Red.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I get on stage after being timid and shy off the stage because trust me, I get butterflies still.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, still.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I still get butterflies before I go on stage.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have to peep at the crowd, see if, you know, how much people, if they if they react into the soaker, if they like it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times I'm in uh an event where you have a dance hall artist or you have a pop artist.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always uh soaker headliner in a space where there's other music.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how much fans come out to see Destro.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I would look and see if the DJ playing or people like it or whatever.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I say, alright, I'm gonna do this, or I might do that, or I might inside with a song, you know.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: And my fans, they are the queen of back and I'll creep.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Back a nation.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't have to be able to do that.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Back a nation.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Aggressive, they will beat you.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they will be.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I sorry.
• 17:35
  Corie: But wonder with fans like those and with Trinidadian fans, and your fans span the globe, really.
• 17:40
  Corie: Yeah, there's this duality where people feel so music, cursing gospel and gospel, people shouldn't sing so how is that balancing that for you?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take a deep breath.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because you see that question, I don't know how to answer that question.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if to answer it, how I would answer it without the the the cameras on, or if to answer it in a politically correct way.
• 17:59
  Corie: So don't have the cameras live.
• 18:00
  Corie: Nah, nah, nah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Leave it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: My my true view is this, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: God, a lot of people who serve God are Christians.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of them.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have Muslims though, who, you know, I'm talking about the Christians.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: The people, the people that I would get flack from, or the people that you're talking about that may have these questions are Christians.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder before when when Christ was on earth, right, he wasn't a Christian, he was a Jew.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he came and he said, Okay, I am here for everybody, the Jews, the Gentiles, everybody go preach the word and let everybody hear the word of God.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if Christians now remember that they were once the outsiders, they were once the outsiders.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have people like Destra or other people that are searching and looking for God, not that not that I'm looking for God, I grew up in church and no, I I found God, I I know him, we have a relationship, but you can't accept somebody like me because I still sing and so and I love my culture.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't I don't get it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had people like all every single disciple, every single disciple was not straightforward.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to King Solomon.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: King Solomon had a thousand wives.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: How is that possible?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: But yet we emulate these people.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Moses killed a man, you know.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when we when we look at the people of the Bible that that tell stories of how to live about faith, they're not perfect.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so do kill the messenger, just listen to the message.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, Jesus himself came and talked about love.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that is all it doesn't know.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Serving God is about love, loving one another as I have loved you.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is what the man said.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is what the man saying, put no other God before God himself.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like if that is how I live, if that is how I am, I don't think anybody has a right to judge me except God Himself.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, if you don't like how I serve in my God, fire upon you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hard luck.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: You deal with you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't tell you how to live, don't tell me how to live.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love my soccer, I love my culture, I love my country.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an ambassador for this thing.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: If I stop doing this, who go do it?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has a place and everybody has a space and everybody has a function.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a function, who else go be the queen of back canal?
• 20:21
  Corie: There's nothing.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, subtly as you get older, you would change, you would do different things, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get older, I feel more uncomfortable in certain things that I might wear.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but that has nothing to do with the pressure of society.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's just me and my God and my alignment.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if God says, All right, you know, you shouldn't be putting on them tongues to perform again.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Put on clothes, you're big now.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will listen.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: God speaks to all of us, he speaks to all of us, it's just how you hear.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And some people do listen, and then you would find bad things happening.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I know the difference.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: When I do listen, bad things have happened.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I just listen, partner.
• 20:53
  Corie: If you're a business organization or brand looking to reach an engaged and growing audience, the Cory Shepherd Podcast offers opportunities to sponsor, partner, and advertise.
• 21:03
  Corie: You can check out the email address in our YouTube description or via the link in our bio on Instagram.
• 21:09
  Corie: We need the money.
• 21:11
  Corie: Like uh Max Ten House, you remember from 10 years old on stage.
• 21:16
  Corie: How would it start off?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, let me see.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: My teacher in primary school, um, well, even before that, my grandfather, who was a saxophonist, his saxophone was the first one Roy Keep ever played.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: He liked to tell that story.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, as a little girl, my grandfather would always have musicians over.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he would say, My granddaughter could rail sing, sing for them, sing for them.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a little monkey.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like Bubbles in the Michael Jackson movie.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Every minute somebody wanted to sing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and I singing whatever hearing, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody at home had them.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you laughing?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't get jokes home.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get jokes home, but you don't get laughing home.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I was singing all kinds of things.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So like mommy used.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to a lot of RB and um gospel stuff.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I get exposed to that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Dad would listen to a lot of Bob Marley because he had the long dread, he was Rasaferian before he became a reverend.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then my granny and they would listen to a lot of old songs: Kitchener, Spa, Road, this, that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I was exposed to everything.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when he says, sing for them, whatever, just sing, and I like the fact that it would applaud and whatever.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I like the attention since then.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's from three years old to maybe nine or whatever.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then at 10, my teacher said, You have a nice voice.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, I'm a teacher.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I write in a song for you going and enter this competition.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the first calypso competition that I entered.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: She taught me how to use the stage, which is why I'm so I speak with my hands so much.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is this calypso here.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my first competition, I just did everything that she said, and I won.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: The judges were carrier mandala, brother resistance, and a few other people, which I do remember because I'd probably never met them again.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I won.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when the crowd screamed for me, I see I like this.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was 10.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I got immediately addicted to the applause, to the being on stage and people standing up, clapping and bowing.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy that.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I said, How are you doing this again?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next day we did common entrance, and I still ended up write.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I started to write.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote my own Calypso, I went into the NCC junior calypso monarch, different things.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I won Burke Junior Monarch, I won Burke um senior monarch too.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was always a finalist with Cohen Dubois, showing Winchester.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew these guys from young.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: We come up in this thing, you know?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how it started.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, I told you I was already singing in church in the choir, I was singing in school, choir was just always around the arts.
• 23:44
  Corie: Right.
• 23:44
  Corie: So you learn just home and in church, you know.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was never formally trained.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I never did formal vocal training, no.
• 23:50
  unknown: Oh.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Never did.
• 23:51
  Corie: Writing so is just you start doing it on your own?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have plenty of paper crease up and show away.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I write in a song, is and Brian has got vexed with me with that all the time.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for watching.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: When I write in a song, I write the melody comes first.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would say, Alright, you know, how my melody I write the lyrics.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I do like lyrics, I crease up the paper trade away.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: By the time you're done, you swear the book of writing, you among the paper, I'll crumble up and show away.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: But then I started to write them in books and just write lines through them because you know.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you have that meaning.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I still have them, I still have those things.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: But after I had my daughter, I kind of take a step back from the writing.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I started to focus more on motherhood and I wanted to be excellent at both jobs, I wanted to be excellent at mothering and also my career.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And shh, it's been a constant battle to balance because there's no balance, it's one or the other.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know balance, I know balance.
• 24:40
  Corie: Well, balance is swing and swing back, yeah?
• 24:42
  Corie: That's that's a six-so, yeah.
• 24:44
  Corie: Six-sources balance.
• 24:46
  Corie: So, 10, what primary school are you in then?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, this was St.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Crispin's Anglican School.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to everybody from St.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Crispin's Anglican guy.
• 24:53
  Corie: So it's kind of St.
• 24:53
  Corie: James adjacent to know we can't.
• 24:54
  Corie: That's Woodbrook where you know your country.
• 24:56
  Corie: Close to St.
• 24:57
  Corie: James.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know your country.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: After that, I went to St.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: James's secondary.
• 25:01
  Corie: All right, we're taking these.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: That one is so I know I know St.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: James Woodbrook and things.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't tell me St.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: James's Woodbrook and I repeat that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I know you want to claim it.
• 25:08
  Corie: I'm not we want to claim it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's alright.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's alright.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: After that, I went to Polly.
• 25:13
  Corie: Right.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I got to stop going to school because my mother was serious about going to school and I wanted to just sing.
• 25:20
  Corie: Right.
• 25:21
  Corie: So at the time.
• 25:22
  Corie: So even through secondary school and thing, that is what your focus was in your career.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was, no, my focus was on school because mommy says if I don't get good grades, I can't sing.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they had junior roof intent, and she stopped me in form 5 and she said, You have CXC, you can't sing.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that year I wasn't in Carnival.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did A-levels, and the last year of A levels, I couldn't sing again.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I said, Mommy, you have no money to send me to UE because them days it had no gate.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a poor girl from Lavantil.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I could sing now.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, you're big now, the way you want, they could go UE anytime.
• 25:54
  Corie: And I never look back.
• 25:56
  Corie: I never look back.
• 25:56
  Corie: So you never do the nine to five work thing of course.
• 25:59
  Corie: What you was doing?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was a salesperson at um, well, a marketing representative at Mark and any business machine.
• 26:07
  Corie: You feel like you just get yourself a promotion.
• 26:09
  Corie: No, that's what they used to call it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they used to call it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, my sales territory was the the the West East the West Corridor.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So from Oxford Street all the way back to Chagaramas, that was my sales territory, and I don't know everybody already.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time I start my career, I don't have fans anywhere, so no.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because everybody was like, hey, there's a girl who used to sell the copier, that is a girl who sell me the printer, hey the destroy.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was done famous before I became famous.
• 26:38
  Corie: But even with the name Destro, you never had no, you never had to do no mightiness and no you never had to do anything.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't get a name.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna ask my father.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Daddy, where you get his name from?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Um I make it up.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, you can't make up people's name.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: You had to have a meaning name.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: It means beautiful.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'll take that.
• 26:57
  Corie: Yeah, right.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: He makes up Destro.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: What the name you want?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: The mighty singer.
• 27:02
  Corie: I won't be pretty everybody was Lord, this mighty that Calypso this way.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you wanna call me though?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where you would have if you had to think of a phrase your fans, you know, me and go come up with that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: You study them, they go laugh, they go laugh, they go laugh.
• 27:14
  Corie: They don't laugh, they're very serious about life.
• 27:16
  Corie: So you're doing the junior calypso circuit in school.
• 27:19
  Corie: When did it become professional?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: When you leave MBM or well, so I was doing the the circuit in school, and that's when I stopped to do my um after A levels.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I did the first album.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was signed to Renegade Entertainment out of Washington from they had an AR day.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't leave Trinidad to go and meet Sony and Epic and all these people that were interested.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was singing a Caribbean sound basin in the times with um General Grant, and they while they were doing Kiskity Caravan, they were also working on side projects.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we were doing like you know, Americanized type music.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: I had a girl group called Psych, and then it became a solo group with just me.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Then and that's when I did the album.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they That's the RB album.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: The RB album.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then they called in the ARs and I got signed.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: But Sony, Epic, and a few other people were interested, but they wanted to meet me in person because they couldn't believe that a Caribbean girl was singing like this.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I gave Rihanna my dream and she ran with it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, because I find so was better.
• 28:23
  Corie: So the deliberate choice for real at that point in time?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, of course not.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't leave Trinidad.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: So my dad was a laborer, my mother was a housewife.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: My father ended up finding Jesus at that point, and you know it, trusting God, everything will be okay.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: He, you know, we weren't worrying about nothing.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So nobody wants to give me no visa to go anywhere.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: We apply for work, but I can't leave Trinidad.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So then, you know, I was like in um Link Up Studios one day, just you know, hanging out with one of the producers that worked on the album with me.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I saw Tooth Base, and he said, You want to sing a soccer boy?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, No, I don't want to sing no soccer.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a gos I am a gospel slash RB artist.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's when I sang with Tooth Beast.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I'd tell you that I have a man already, but it was just fun.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was just supposed to be fun and a one-off thing.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the producer that I was working with, can hold all the time.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I don't get stuck in this soccer thing.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: He said, We people's coming through just now, and we're gonna go and we're gonna do this.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and I just get hooked.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I get hooked on the soccer, and because it was easy, you know, I go on on stage and I'm like, what should I do?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I turn around and I started shake up and the crowd started screaming.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this real easy boy.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: People screaming for the data and even singing the screaming.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: RB, you need to you need to, you know, make sure you cover your throat and you have to goggle with salt water and you have to think.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And with soccer, anybody could sing soccer.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not this and nobody else.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just say it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I talk any truth.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody could sing soccer.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it's a vibe.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vibe, you know.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I get stuck here.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say stuck because it was a good stuck.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy my career.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: I still enjoy it, and I love my fans.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: By the time I did, um, well, I met Brian, my now husband, at the same studio.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was a sound engineer there.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You wanna join a band?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was another red flag because Ken was like, Don't join no band.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Cementing yourself in this thing.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was just supposed to be a one-off.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Then I joined Roy Cape, but Roy Cape said, You don't want a woman any band?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because, yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Because when woman and band die back can now, do the mats.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Alright?
• 30:31
  Corie: Maths done.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when he heard my voice though, and then he realized who I was, because remember, my grandfather sax was the first one.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: He blew straight out of the orphanage, going in the clubs and stuff.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: He had a different love and admiration for my talent, and he took me under his wing.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, take me under your wing, yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was like a real father, yeah.
• 30:50
  Corie: A real father, I can't do nothing.
• 30:52
  Corie: Well, remember you trying to avoid it back at all.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, correct, correct, correct, correct.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um, those were some good times with Roy Cape and well, Brian was always there.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Brian done see where you want long time.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Brian Sharp, Brian Sharp, yeah.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a trick.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: You ain't wanna join a band, yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Boy, a band might be nice.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Going in the band, brother figure, boyfriend figure.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, wait, wait, no.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I reach you.
• 31:16
  Corie: Well, well, let me tell link up to you.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:21
  Corie: Come on.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: You have jokes too.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 31:24
  Corie: So tell me is that first song radio uh because that was a big song for people, if I can remember.
• 31:30
  Corie: What feeling like hearing that song and playing?
• 31:32
  Corie: Why?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was blown away hearing my voice on the radio.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of the ads for 96.1 in the earlies, I did them, but um, with the group and stuff, and other people.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I heard my voice on the radio in that capacity, but hearing your voice as a song, you want to hear this thing over and over.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you're listening to the radio whole day to see when they'll play a song to hear it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's surreal, you know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the same as listening to it on a record or listen.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're hearing your song on a radio back then was amazing.
• 32:01
  Corie: Yeah, and cars playing it on a show.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, boy, that was amazing.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: What is even more amazing than that is seeing people dance to your music in a party.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: That in itself was amazing.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: That happened to me with Tremblet because I didn't know how to perform Tremblet.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Up to today, I'm like performing it the same way.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: And how I learned to perform Tremblet by watching somebody perform, dance to the song.
• 32:22
  Corie: Oh, in the crowd.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: In the crowd.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: While we walk in through the crowd, going to set up the band, the play the DJ playing Tremblet and raise it up.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I see a girl going, so I say, Oh, that's what I had to do.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I went on stage and I do it, and the crowd mash up and I keep doing doing it still.
• 32:35
  Corie: Well, you know what?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if it had no, if you're not getting no forward, you're going and you put must work.
• 32:44
  Corie: Must work.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the things.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Must, must, must work.
• 32:47
  Corie: So, and your mommy said, Go ahead and do what you want to do.
• 32:50
  Corie: Daddy's a reference, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:51
  Corie: So in daddy, you have a man already in trouble.
• 32:54
  Corie: What do you say?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, at that time I was already an adult.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And in my home, well, dad was one of the people taking me to the Calypso competitions when I was little.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Used, you know, make sure I'm okay.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Mom used to make my costumes and stuff.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, off of school, they would support harder.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: They would support 100%.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that I have what I need and you know I'm happy.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: But they never judge me and they taught me to be an individual and love myself, love my God, and always be true to that first.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And all other things could add on after.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: They don't condone the vulgarity, obviously.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: They don't condone certain things, but they're super fans.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: They are super fans.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: They they know every single song.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Dad and mom, especially when they see me do interviews, or if I'm singing, like using my real voice, they can't, they're blown away.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: They tell everybody all the time.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I keep telling them, please stop telling people you're my parents.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Mummy's like, that works for me.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere I go, I'm not gonna stop.
• 33:51
  Corie: You mean she just tells them?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she'll be like, You know who's my daughter?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 33:57
  Corie: She in the right.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she's in her right.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it is like now to be a parent.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:04
  Corie: We're proud to be able to say that.
• 34:05
  Corie: Yes.
• 34:06
  Corie: So you're moving on, you're getting hits at that point in time from from from the collaboration with uh with Tood Base.
• 34:11
  Corie: You did more songs before you got to Roy Cape or so Tood Base was before Roy Cape.
• 34:18
  Corie: Right.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: When I joined Roy Cape, we started to record and Tremblet was the first song that I did in Roy Cape.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: Gotcha with them.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was on their first album as well, because they put out an album with me, Derek Steels, and Blacks, and that was on uh um after that I decided that I wanted to go solo.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent about three years.
• 34:36
  Corie: So you talk about Roy Cape for a little while before you go solo.
• 34:38
  Corie: You spent how much years in Roy Cape?
• 34:40
  Corie: Three years?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was only three years, and it feels like a lifetime, right?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I check it, I'm like, really?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is impossible.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was from 1999.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god, oh yeah, I'm feeling like a dinosaur.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, from '99 to two thousand and three.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: 2002 carnival and tour year, and then 2003 I was out with my solo album.
• 35:01
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 35:02
  Corie: You enjoyed that on a band Lin Singham?
• 35:04
  Corie: Because them times the bands were still like now when people have a band, they singing their own song right through.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Corie: But you came in at a time where there's plenty covers.
• 35:11
  Corie: Yeah.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I enjoyed it, but um not for long.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was singing Soci Wow songs, I was singing Allison Hines songs, um, and anybody else in the era that was female, um, and I do find I had enough time in the front.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because all the songs were men's songs, and the guys were in the front, and females would usually be at the back.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I kind of break that mold.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I used to go in front and whine.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I can't sing, I had to do something, and then the crowd, I started to get complaints.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Black Sam Derek used to say, When you're not singing, go in the back.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm not a back person.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I like the front, you know.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So because I in the front, they singing songs, and I go and sing.
• 35:51
  Corie: Nobody didn't study them again.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody studying them again, and people waving at me, and If you're c if you ain't gaining my songs, the same thing.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's when they realized that okay, she needs her own song.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would sing that song probably twice in the set, plus other people's songs, which was okay until we went anti-guard time and I sang all Alice nine songs before she came on stage.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a problem.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know, and Roy Cape didn't know, and then Ali said, Um, Papi, when um when a female on the show, you know, it's a process.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So then I knew, then we found out, and then and then I started to build my own catalogue.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: So now I don't really sing anybody's songs again now.
• 36:30
  Corie: Yeah, I don't really have to.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have too much songs.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you have enough problems trying to pick your own songs.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:36
  Corie: So Tremblet, the reaction to that because now this is a different level.
• 36:39
  Corie: I hear Tremblet is forever music.
• 36:41
  Corie: Right.
• 36:42
  Corie: How are you feeling then when you sing it?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am shocked that Tremblett, well, if Tremblet came out in 2001, Tremblet is about uh 16 years, 26 years old.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the reaction for Tremblet is still the same.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: People still sing along, people still scream when I do the Trimble and I turn around.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I think that's what you would call an iconic song.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of those, you know.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm grateful.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm grateful that I do because a lot of people have hits, and after five years, you they can't sing them again.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but songs like It's Carnival, Bunny and Clyde, Tremblet, as we say, max it up, uh, Fly, I Dare You.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: We could go on and on and on, Lucy.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: It have plenty, it have plenty, and some of the songs I can't say, and some of the songs, depending on where I go, I have to sing certain songs I wouldn't sing in other places because they want to hear those songs.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like um, proper people want to hear, get there, tell me proper.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't sing that song again.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'd have to learn it how to go and learn the lyrics.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not bad with lyrics, you know.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I real bad.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: What I real bad with lyrics, you know.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I never see you with lyrics.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: You never see me do so?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's lyrics I read in my mind.
• 37:53
  Corie: You know, I see Snoop say at times, Snoop say um, he learnt a dance.
• 37:58
  Corie: He said, because people, same thing you say.
• 37:59
  Corie: He said hits from so long ago, people want to hear when he goes different places.
• 38:02
  Corie: So he said he learnt a dance.
• 38:03
  Corie: Well, he's doing a full spin around on his stage.
• 38:05
  Corie: And he said, When I spin on my back turns to the audience, you have something of political place.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: It had plenty tricks.
• 38:10
  Corie: And he said he go into teleprompter now.
• 38:11
  Corie: He needs my attempting to try that.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I never tried that one, but so go too fast for that one.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I tried, I tried putting lyrics on the speaker box.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Deep the monitor, so that when plenty times, how you think that come about with Bunny and Clyde with the kneeling down thing?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was kneeling down with the lyrics, but people know that I need you, sweet darling.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Brand new other side.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's real tricks.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Listener, you feel you can't get here, just room wasn't built in a day, and it's trial and error.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: I glad everybody liked the song, right?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I glad everybody enjoy the performances.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's plenty tricks you have to use, right?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to sell out.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: The other day I do a performance for a Christmas show.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't, well, everybody knows the show.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I I couldn't learn the lyrics for God help me.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't learn the lyrics.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times you're singing Christmas songs and they're going, la la.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know the you don't know the words.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they had to come up with a genius way for me to see the lyrics.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: The lyrics was on Mary back.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I am the only one who gets that privilege.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because nobody could understand for the life of me.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: How you can't remember the words to Mary did you know.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, I couldn't get it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't get it.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to do a kind of move where I went behind Mary with the baby, and you know, I'm looking like the angel and I'm reading it, and I come back.
• 39:37
  Corie: We make it work, please.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, yeah, man, it works.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could have been actress, you know.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I could have been actress.
• 39:42
  Corie: Evidently, I know if it's good or not, you are.
• 39:46
  Corie: If you want to support the show and ensure that we gain the best guests here telling the best stories and we gain a little bit of back and all out of all of them, you could support for free by liking, sharing, and subscribing on YouTube.
• 39:57
  Corie: But you could also join our Patreon and just file us to ensure that we could continue to get stories that inspire, educate, empower, inform, and all the other in things that these people behind the scenes tell me to say.
• 40:08
  Corie: So go and do it now, and then we could jump back into the episode.
• 40:12
  Corie: Bang.
• 40:13
  Corie: So we went solo for a little bit.
• 40:15
  Corie: Yeah.
• 40:15
  Corie: What went on?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Brian and I decided that we were gonna take my career seriously.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, he said I had a lot of potential, and if I'm not going to go and do that R thing, and by then I was still waiting for work women to come through that didn't come through.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we said, you know what?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Charity begins at home.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make Trinidad work.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Alright, I'm gonna do my first local soccer album.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we did, and that was the plan to do the album, put really good songs on it, go out there as a solo artist because in the band, though there's a family vibe, there's also a situation where the band members start to feel slighted when you're doing solo shows and whatnot.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a solo artist, you don't really have anybody to answer to, you could kind of start working your own brand.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always been a solo type person and wanting my own thing.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hence the reason why I started to do the album or whatever.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's in that moment that Ricardo Rameshaw and um Ronnie Macintosh.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Ricardo Rameshwa is the old keyboardist who died from um cast the band.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: He used to be in my band first.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: You said Rameshua?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Ricky Ricky Bobby or Lady Let's call him, but that's not your real name.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ricardo Rameshaw.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: God rest his soul.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: He did a lot of my early gospel tracks with me because he was also a PK.
• 41:30
  Corie: Okay.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 41:30
  Corie: Um we know.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um he was like, girl, you had to join this band.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Mind you, on in my A on the next side, Marshall Montana was like, Don't join no band, be solo, sing.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, I guess Marshall was thinking, we sang that song together on my first album.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm in a band, it would be a lot harder to sing It's Carnival together if I'm in a band.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that would not have worked out for him.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then Ronnie and they were like, Come, we would sing or whatever.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't know, I don't know.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then Brian is like, well, whatever.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: You think it's best because it's your career, the end of the day.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and I didn't know, and I was I wasn't sure I could do it either.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's desire and me coming out.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure if I could do it, if I'm good enough, or whatever.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to hold on to an umbrella and I joined Atlantic and continued my training on stage.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: My first set of training was from Black Sand Derek and Roy K.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Pandey.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then my second set of training was from Ronnie McIntosh on stage showing me how to, even though it had a feta time, I called you wrong band name.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was in Barbarous, and I bought in Legends.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he bought, I say, Barbarossa passe! He said, he comes in the back of my jumping.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now he doesn't say, wrong band, wrong band, wrong band.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I say, my bad, I drink too much wine.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it had a couple times that people come on stage to perform too, and then he wrong key.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he was that kind of guy.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: He is that kind of guy.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Come behind me and say, wrong key, partner, wrong key.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Change your keyboard.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fix it.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I learned a lot of how to be brave on stage and kind of I always looked at the men.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really perform like a female pussy.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I try to, I look at I looked at people like Alison, I looked at Dinny's spellphone to see how women should perform.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Cinaldems also, to see how they were dressing, how they were acting, how they were moving.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in as much as I admired them, I want to be different.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was a marketing student.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had just finished my marketing and whatever.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew about niche markets, and I knew that if I have to position myself properly to be outside of the box, I have to be different.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I looked at them, but then I said, why are the men more successful than the women?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then you realize the men don't care how they look.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: They come in on stage in our old shoe and our short pants and our t shirt, and they just they they're looking like they're home.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's only now I see, you know, as time went by, they started to pay attention to how they look.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: But back then they come to mash up the place.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the mentality of what men do and a little bit of the style of what women do, I try to merge it together.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I said, you know what?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I go into entertain the fit, I come in out in my short pants and my and my sneakers and my short top and I just come in.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: I come in to Masha B place.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the mentality that I took.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started to work with designers.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then they started telling me, you know, you have to dress.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: There was Peter Elias, there was Mealing, there was so many people that pass through that Destro, you know, you should wear this.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Poor niece.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I go on stage and something uncomfortable, I pelting it.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you go back to old tapes at Destro, if it's a bracelet, it's gone.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care how expensive it is.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a shoe, I'm pulling it off.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a top, it's button, I'm pulling it off.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have to be comfortable.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that stems from me just wanting to mash up the place.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And be comfortable.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want nothing squeezing me.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want listen now.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Time for me to perform was when I was wearing a waistclencher for the whole year after I make my daughter.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can't go over there looking bad.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: A waist clencher every night I'm digging into my soul.
• 44:55
  Corie: You want to pent it to me.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can't pent it with my waist clencher.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to me.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: I want to I want a dead.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want a dad because I can't take it off.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know it had the hooked, and then it can't be.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: It has a hook, you had a hook at first, and then you had a zip, and then you put on your clothes over it, and then listen to me.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: The thing bothering me.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: It chucking me, I can't take it off.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or if I go be naked over there.
• 45:24
  Corie: That was the worst.
• 45:25
  Corie: That was the worst.
• 45:26
  Corie: So even you're talking about going Atlantic with Ronnie, your first album was before that?
• 45:30
  Corie: Yeah.
• 45:30
  Corie: So when was your first album?
• 45:31
  Corie: Before I give you a few years.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: The first album was right in between.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so right.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I left, I left the band to pursue my solo career.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, I had a plan.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I had the album planned to release for that carnival.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Carnival 2003, I was a solo artist.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: But when no, was I?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I was solo per se, but they were in talks with me to be in the band.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, you know, when you do projects for the year, you start in December, January.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um all in the ending of the year.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: So all that time I was solo.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: After summer, I was solo coming down the road, and then they wanted me for the carnival.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess in 2003 I already had the album planned to release as a solo album, but I ended up performing on stage with Ronnie Andy.
• 46:20
  Corie: Understood, understood.
• 46:21
  Corie: So at that time you have albums in mind from then?
• 46:24
  Corie: Because not many people do a lot of albums now.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when it's an RB star, and that's what they do.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: They make albums.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I just try to incorporate the mentality of what the international market was doing into our thing in soccer.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because people, yeah, they win people doing palating, they jump in on a rhythm, they're doing that, and they're going.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I wanted my body of work to always be somewhere that you could find it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: When you're going, and now look at it.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: You have artists with albums streaming and whatever.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: It works now because you can go back and find my whole catalogue of work from since 2003.
• 46:58
  Corie: Yeah, and It's Carnival was on the album.
• 47:00
  Corie: Yes.
• 47:00
  Corie: So what came about?
• 47:01
  Corie: What was the genesis of the song?
• 47:02
  Corie: What was the idea?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so it's Carnival was originally um, well, it was written by Kunell Roberts, and Kunell said, I have a song for you because he had written Trimblet.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we will not talk about between Trimblet and It's Carnival because that was a blue year.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: One set of nonsense I think.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to think about that.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: That was a blew yeah.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um that year he said, I have a song here for you, but it's a collab.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's alright, okay, who we gonna collab with?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you say, well, Bungie Garland now coming out and stuff, because Bungie and I started our career at the same time.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: I believe this is my 26th year in the industry, and so it's it's his 26th as well.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we send the song for Garland, he likes it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: But at that time we were really close, we were really like brother, sister energy.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he just keeps being busy because you know when it's now coming out, you're here, they're there, you're everywhere.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's when he sang Send them Rhythm Mad or whatever.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was a bumper year for him.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: So he never reached the studio, and then we just have the song sitting down there.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: So then the producer of the song, which is Terence James, he said, Um, well, how come you and check Marshall?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: I say, Marshall, who?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Montano.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: I say, he ain't going to sing no song with me.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's Marshall Montano.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up hearing these people.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's a legend, you know.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know come anything.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, all right, I'll give him a call.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I used to see Marshall passing, you know, backstage while I was with Roy Keep and stuff, and we've had words, but you know, nothing substantial.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: So him asking him, he said, but I just see that stra.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, he said like this, but I just see that stra.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know see she didn't in the Fed we was in army, and she never say that.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Marshall, I said, I can't help it.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: You are the easiest person to imitate, okay?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I think I do the best marshal condition.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um, so so he said, but adjusted the girl, she didn't tell me nothing about it.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, alright.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, Tell she do call me.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I call him.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: He said, well, alright.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I like it, I'll do it.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't like it, and I just tell people that now so I know how that is good.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Backup yourself in case, you know, this sounds crap.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta back up yourself.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Up front.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Up front.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: So he went in his studio.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know when he went.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then Terrence called and said, Marshall, you vocals and thing, eh?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Done, huh?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: I said, true.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: He does it, he I guess he liked it, right?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then that was that.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was starstruck because I mean, you're growing up here in Marshall, just like catching a sparrow, all these people, he's a legend already as a young boy.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the song finished, but Brian was the engineer on that um track.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Brian used to sound engineer most of my stuff in the studio back then.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the song came out real good.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was super excited.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I wasn't thinking no road match thing, but Kunell, because he comes from that road match energy, he was thinking road match already.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then that year, I think um everybody was, I think um the song that everybody was pushing was display.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Display.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: And even Marshall was pushing display, and I was like, You have a song with me, and you ain't pushing my song.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: You pushing my song, and I was a little heartbroken.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think we were in um what fight we were in, boy, Glue, Carnival Week.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he sang that song, and he didn't sing our song.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going on next with Roy Kate, well, Atlantic, and I was like, Wow, I said that, I said, so he doesn't believe in me song over.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's only for Soka Monarch night.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: He came and he performed with me that night.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: He had on the Midnight Rubber Heart, and it was a surprise or whatever.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And before he came on stage, the energy of the song had the place rocking.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then by the time they saw him, it took it to a whole nother level.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's after that night, everywhere we could have performed, I just see Marshall showing up.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: He believes he believed in the song.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then he and they sell my dream.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: He and Kunel.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we went in road match for sure.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I ain't hear nobody else.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dikeon, by the way, that couldn't help.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't me, Marshall.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: I said, listen, I said I don't know about this road match thing.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know much about it, but great.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: If it happened, yeah, tonight we popping champagne.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: Tonight, well, make my hopes go up high.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Skyrocket my hopes up in the air.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then to hear the results, I was like, we I said, wow.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then everybody besides, the thief, the thief, this, this, this.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: And for a while I started to believe the thief.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, the the consciousness of being now in this moment, nothing happens the way it's not supposed to happen.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: That road match was never mine.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: It never belonged to me.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: What belonged to me is the notoriety of the song.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: The song being what it is, the song survived decades.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: And now I want to believe it's probably the biggest soccer song in the world.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even though it never charted, it never went on the billboard charts for obvious reasons because you know, Cindy Lopa might sue us.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you can be part of a part.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I'm just saying, it did what it was supposed to do.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: The song did what it was supposed to do.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is a song that you have to play in a party, no matter when, who, where, what country, it is either opener or ender.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I thank God for this song more than anything else.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I thank God for Kunell, I thank God for Marshall being part of the project.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: I thank God for Brian and Terry for producing such an amazing song.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and that song today, I could still sing that brand new, fresh.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: People want to hear it.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: I could never leave a stage without singing that.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: I tried it already.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they call me back.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Singing the song.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: The only other song that I feel is on par with it, and Trinidadians wouldn't understand this because it's not the same in Trinidad as Lucy.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Lucy is that song that I have to sing.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lucy is that song that as soon as I start it, I don't need to sing the rest of it.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: Lucy is that song that is iconic already.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's 10, 11 years old, and it's it's one of the songs that I have to sing in the catalogue.
• 53:05
  Corie: Yeah.
• 53:06
  Corie: I was in um when Hoppy did his one-on-one list of songs, David and I they arguing, right?
• 53:11
  Corie: And it's a very interesting thing for me to see young people now who they have the artists and they have the people who they follow, the people who I admire, they're only pushing off the list.
• 53:18
  Corie: So I said, But what is this?
• 53:20
  Corie: I feel if you invite me there, you bring me to argue for shorty and rather than these people.
• 53:24
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 53:24
  Corie: That way you bring me there for.
• 53:25
  Corie: So that's what we do.
• 53:27
  Corie: But I saw in that room when they talk about it's carnival, there's a unanimity to it.
• 53:32
  Corie: Nobody in young, old, whatever it is.
• 53:34
  Corie: There was nowhere around when that song came out.
• 53:36
  Corie: Correct.
• 53:36
  Corie: And you see it playing in places like um I saw Hot 97 have their annual show.
• 53:42
  Corie: So any anybody that introduced the carnival, yeah, it's it is that signature song.
• 53:46
  Corie: Yeah, any idea that it can land there when only doing these things?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, you never know what could happen because you would like a song in a studio and then people don't like it.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, but why?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you would try to shove it down the truth and they still don't like it.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what you do, they're not gonna like the song.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Forget it.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but then there are songs that people just like from the minute they hear it.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they love it every minute, every time they hear it, they love it more and more and more.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I don't know what it is about this song, if it's just because it's boot Marshall and I sang it, or if it's because it talks about Trinity Carnival, or if it's the feeling people got when the song came out that year because everybody was crossing the streets singing that song.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is, but all I know is that it's embedded in the bloodstream of soaker music and in Trinidad and Tobago and the world.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even just say Trinidad is the world, the world of that song.
• 54:34
  Corie: Of course, France Forever music, forever and ever.
• 54:36
  Corie: Interesting to hear you talk about Marshall like that.
• 54:39
  Corie: Yeah, suppose now that you look at the year you come out, Marshall, it'll be out long.
• 54:42
  Corie: Because in my mind, I don't have you looking up to Marshall the way you do.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because Marshall, all like the road.
• 54:51
  Corie: I wonder if he knows I don't think he knows.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he knows.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he knows no, but um, yeah, um, you see, because he started his career so early, a lot of younger people would have looked up to him.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: But not because of age, but because of his experience and because he's been out long.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like me, a lot of people like to associate me with veteranship.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I take that name because of how long I've been doing it and how successfully I've been doing it.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I started this thing really young, just the same.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of people close to my age, and they're saying, Destroy I look up to you and I'm like, what do you So you feel it now when they say of course or if somebody comes and says, I listening to you since I some more I'm like, what do you what?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: What are you trying to tell me?
• 55:35
  Corie: But you have that because I see the way you interact with David Roddow.
• 55:39
  Corie: Or you know, you have that respect and that reverence for them.
• 55:41
  Corie: But I did see you with young brother while he bungs up in the airport today, and I see how he the reverence he showed when he saw you.
• 55:50
  Corie: I had Keegan Taylor here and he was talking about y'all being in studio together.
• 55:53
  Corie: Rosie was his son, right?
• 55:55
  Corie: Yes, yes.
• 55:55
  Corie: And he said that he said, boy, brother, like you're frightened to say certain things in front of the desk.
• 56:00
  Corie: It's real.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's true, it's true, it's true.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: I guess some people put Marshall and I in a parallel, um, which it's not really like that because he was out before me.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess in terms of male, female, Trinidad Tobago, you know, they they place us next to each other.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: And for that reason, a lot of the artists coming up, it's like, oh, that's true and Marshall, and then the song and make it easier.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Either the song and make it easier.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess meeting people like Young Brother, um, and a lot of the younger artists, you know, like Nyla.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nyla is one of my faves, actually.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: That coming up, you know.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of myself in Nyla.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the things I stopped wearing Nyla wear now.
• 56:45
  unknown: Good work.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's good to see.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's good to see, you know, the younger generation coming up and you know, looking at the example set and chatting their own course, you know.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Teja was somebody recording a lot of songs to me before Tasha actually Tasha's first song, I sang it.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was 13 years old.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I feel until I then carry on.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: Tasha wrote that song.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so since then we've been good.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, until the last song you make me sing that song, that bad song, Tasha, you make me sing that very bad song.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Tell you, I didn't want to sing that song.
• 57:18
  Corie: So you're cool with them looking at you as veteran now.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't like it.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like it.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't like it.
• 57:24
  Corie: So much people you veteran, you veteran.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, you know.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: When people hear it's a it's just the play on words.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you hear veteran, you're thinking about some kind of old person.
• 57:35
  Corie: No chance, no chance.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Dog, I am not no old person now.
• 57:38
  Corie: I don't feel as that's all you do and that.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, okay, for the notoriety, I will take that, right?
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the good thing, you know, greatest of all the time, I'm taking that.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, best thing, I'm taking that, I'm taking all that performance like a boss, I take all of that.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you see, when it comes to the who we go on this rhythm, yeah.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, well, you know, we keep a veteran, a veteran, dog, and a veteran partner.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Calm down.
• 58:06
  Corie: But listen, even this year, right?
• 58:08
  Corie: This song, when you say no sound, I remember hearing it, right?
• 58:11
  Corie: And I say, that's true, you know what I mean?
• 58:12
  Corie: Because I know the mine is tamboo now.
• 58:14
  Corie: So when I hear no sound, it's I say, right, she's back here.
• 58:17
  Corie: And I hear the song build and build and build and build until now it's playing everywhere, you know.
• 58:22
  Corie: So they will look at that.
• 58:24
  Corie: Even when I talk about the seasons, I mean thing, everybody working towards being able to have the music cut out and be able to sing 20-something song while everybody singing, you know, they're working on it.
• 58:34
  Corie: I know, yeah, but you know, you can leave on the cut out in a veteran part, right?
• 58:40
  Corie: So, Lucy, let me go back to that now because again, it's huge in terms of what it is in your in your catalogue.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:45
  Corie: How that one came about.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Lucy is Jason Bishop.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Both Kernal and Jason Bishop have written a lot of songs for me in my career.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with Lucy, because Shaf and I are friends, he's known my story.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about how I grew up, how you know what I went through, how my parents were, because we talk about some of that in the earlies, and this song is a very real song.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people think I wrote this song because it's real.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did grow up as a real good girl.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: Always home, don't go nowhere, because I was a past that.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as I was introduced to Carnival, they say, I lose, become a mother, say, You're big now, you got the way I want.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's what happened.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's true, you know, and I think a lot of women relate to Lucy though because of the liberation in the song.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: The song is a liberating song.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think Shaf wanted it that way where he gave you an anthem, a female anthem, you know, sung by somebody that women look at and say, Yeah, that's true.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do it first, you know.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I brought it to life in the way I sang it, in the way I performed it.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but Lucy, for me and a lot of other women, it's like this song for this one song.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: If I do dance or sick for this one song, I'm going to be free.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to just do it.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: And when the song is done, I'll go back to being prim and proper.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because the kind of behaviors as we see now there when this song starts.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh there.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh dear.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, whoa.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, whoo, okay.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: I try not to highlight them, but wow, there's one to be highlighted.
• 1:00:18
  Corie: Yeah, one of them songs that just fly from the gate as soon as it comes out of those things.
• 1:00:23
  Corie: I just want to let you know that if you watch or you listen to this episode to this point and you didn't subscribe yet, you're wicked in real life.
• 1:00:30
  Corie: You have a wicked spirit.
• 1:00:31
  Corie: Do it now.
• 1:00:32
  Corie: And here now, only wicked to tell people the episode and them ain't long enough, you know.
• 1:00:36
  Corie: Only saying the episodes are long enough, and then when I check it, you're not subscribed to the channel.
• 1:00:40
  Corie: How it could get longer.
• 1:00:41
  Corie: Oh, you're gonna get part two.
• 1:00:43
  Corie: These people are not cheap to bring out here.
• 1:00:45
  Corie: And all these people behind the cameras, they're expensive.
• 1:00:48
  Corie: If not in cash, on my psyche, they're very, very expensive.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think all these songs have something about it that makes people hold on to it.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's Carnival was about with culture.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Carnival and TNT is so special to all of us.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: It says it all in the first line.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Lucy, you know, as soon as I was introduced to Carnival, they say alose.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the lines that people hold on to to feel liberated at Carnival, to feel like they are part of this network.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: To feel Carnival, like I tell everybody, is something you cannot understand unless you experience it.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people look at it from the outside and say, all kinds of stuff.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's vulgarity.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there's vulgarity, but not everybody is doing it because of the vulgarity.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: Some people do it because it's a freedom.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: People duck work and go to fets, it's a freedom.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: You just want to be free.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: We live in a world where people kill people, people kill themselves.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a crazy place, and that is pressure.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: When pressure builds up like that, you have to have a release.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have some kind of release.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: I prefer somebody releasing carnival than go and kill somebody.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, right?
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you see this energy that we have in our music, it's happy music, which brings me back to happy people.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to sing soccer still and do my gospel, but I wanted to sing cleaner music.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can't change the fact that I done sing Lucy done out there already.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: I find Lucy clean.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's cleanish.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: She cleans me.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: But what about hold on the ground?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: What can look in my dragon?
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm dragging.
• 1:02:13
  Corie: Well, you're clean again if I ain't drag.
• 1:02:14
  Corie: Yeah, but I'm not a drag or no ground.
• 1:02:18
  Corie: I ain't sure I could come back up, you know.
• 1:02:20
  Corie: But yeah, you know, the happy people think was such an interesting message.
• 1:02:22
  Corie: Like when I look at just before we start here, we were talking about some of the headlines now, and when I hear it, no, I was wondering if it's really happy.
• 1:02:28
  Corie: People still know.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, some of it the happiness day, you know.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to find it.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some people get too caught up in life and have to understand that problems will always be there.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when you think you're suffering, somebody's suffering more than you, you know.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you think you're getting fight on, somebody getting fight on more than you.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: When you think you ain't had nothing to eat, and I've I've been through it all.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've been through not having food when we were little, seeing my dad going out there and pong and pavement, trying to make sure we eat, you know, seeing people lose family members.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've been around crime.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm from a place where people are, you know, condemn and talk about crime all the time.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been around it.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in situations where I feel lost.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in situations where I feel cheated or robbed or hurt or treated badly, or you love people and they don't love you back, or you do kindness and they don't get back.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: But what you have to realize is that everybody's on their own journey.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: See, we come right back around to where we started.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody is on their own journey, and people react in a way that makes sense to them.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot expect people or situations to curb to your situation.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have life is what you make it, and that is a serious thing.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be stressed, be stressed.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it makes no sense.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: It makes no sense.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: Look, we come in here and we're late, and Brian starts, yeah, 10 o'clock we're supposed to reach.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Brian, even if we if we talk about that now, you're not gonna change the fact that we're done late already.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why worry about it?
• 1:03:53
  Corie: Yeah, as far as I can tell, they're showing ever late in my job.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't late because strip that part with Brian.
• 1:03:57
  Corie: Put that person in right from my face.
• 1:04:00
  Corie: Because I need you, I need the fans to know if this ends up short, right?
• 1:04:04
  Corie: That's what's me.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: It will not end up short.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just in case.
• 1:04:09
  Corie: Just in case.
• 1:04:10
  Corie: I'd ask you about that in current day now.
• 1:04:12
  Corie: I mean, St.
• 1:04:12
  Corie: James is where you're from, right?
• 1:04:13
  Corie: After this interview, I'm not from St.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: James.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: But Lavantil.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from St.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: James, okay.
• 1:04:18
  Corie: I wonder how you feel about it now when you hear the way people talk about laventil and all this thing now, or somebody you grew up there.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not strange and it's not new.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: They've been talking about laventil like that ever since I was a little girl.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, sending out resumes and putting laventil as my address stopped me from getting a lot of jobs.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a stigma attached to the area, but at the end of the day, not everybody in an area is a product of what people see on the news.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember some of my best Christmases were in Laventill, with my whole family being there and be feeling safe.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: I never felt unsafe until it started to, I started to see it in real time.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, I'm gonna give this Brian a telling them the show.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: You all can take it out after if you all want.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when Brian dropped me home for the first time and he was home, and we hear some shots ringing out.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: Brian ended up on the ground.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: And my whole family watching Brian, like, Brian, where are you here from?
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, he from Trinity.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, why are you on the floor?
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: Calm down.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, but you know, sometimes when you're in it, you don't see the dangers or feel prejudiced until you go out there, and then people judge you based on where you're from.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because even like liking somebody, Brandon, I know people from Lavin Till you know, you know, but it's like, but you don't act like a girl from Lavendel.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: What does a girl from Lavantel act like?
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, really, it's a stigma that people attach to different areas, but that does not mean that every single person is the same.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not every single person owns a gun, not every single person would have a good upbringing or a bad upbringing.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's different, and we It's time we started to treat people as individuals and not where you're from or who's your mother or who you know it come on.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's be real.
• 1:06:08
  Corie: Yeah, something that has bothered me too, you know, growing up in areas where, for instance, they may just use you as an example, you know, if their struggle could do it, people could do it as if there's a like as a monolith.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not like it's like a whole responsibility on my shoulders.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was very hard to do it.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me.
• 1:06:22
  Corie: Of course, of course.
• 1:06:25
  Corie: Very hard.
• 1:06:25
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:26
  Corie: So going back to some of that veteran shit, not you this time, right?
• 1:06:28
  Corie: Not me this time.
• 1:06:29
  Corie: Not you this time.
• 1:06:30
  Corie: But Ruddell had chosen to he always used to perform Hammer and do that Laventy chant before.
• 1:06:36
  Corie: That's why you ended up on that.
• 1:06:37
  Corie: How you ended up with that song?
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I did that song on my album.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: My second album was called Love Until.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I did Hammer, I did a remake of it with David.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we did it as a collaboration.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: But growing up, hearing that song was always a source of pride for me.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the Love Until album was more about my childhood and my upbringing, and it was just a continuation of the Red, White, and Black.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: Red, White, and Black was about Trinidad and Tobago, and the things that molded me as a Trinee, a proud Trinee, you know, it's carnival, you know, what we do with raven flags.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: That album was about that.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Love Until was more about that pride and the things that made me proud to be from Loventil, by extension, Trinidad and Tobago, you know what I mean?
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's how that happened.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when he had his show, and I came and I think I always wanted to do for Back and Al Lady with with uh with David.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we'll see how that goes.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then he came to my show, he came and did reflections to me.
• 1:07:33
  Corie: So oh, nice, nice, nice, nice.
• 1:07:34
  Corie: That must be special.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was, it was.
• 1:07:36
  Corie: But I bring her back and all, some back and all things here as well, right?
• 1:07:39
  Corie: Because um songs, songs, songs, double double songs.
• 1:07:43
  Corie: I can't bring it here and I ain't talking about my favorite Destro song of all time.
• 1:07:46
  Corie: What is your favorite song?
• 1:07:48
  Corie: Is that your favorite song of all time?
• 1:07:50
  Corie: That is a perfect song.
• 1:07:51
  Corie: Not that you don't have plenty of perfect song about that.
• 1:07:53
  Corie: Is it because you're uh a bacchanal man?
• 1:07:55
  Corie: No, I just live vicariously through people who like back and all.
• 1:07:58
  Corie: I don't really like back and all.
• 1:08:03
  Corie: Who's writing?
• 1:08:04
  Corie: Who writing on that?
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that one was written by myself and Neil Bernard.
• 1:08:08
  Corie: Oh, Neil Bernard, of course, of course.
• 1:08:10
  Corie: You have a way of embodying them songs in a way where people could doubt anybody else help write them.
• 1:08:15
  Corie: So you don't like that song?
• 1:08:15
  Corie: That's not one of your favorites?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: The thing with all my songs is that when it comes to me, I do fine-tune it to suit myself.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I go behind the mic, I would take out words, I would put things in to make it sound more like myself and you know, touch the top.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: The only song I never touched, um, I feel it was Bunny and Clyde.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was perfect the way it came, from start to end.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: I never touched that song.
• 1:08:39
  Corie: Right.
• 1:08:39
  Corie: Yeah, other than that, you're well as paletting in it.
• 1:08:44
  Corie: I'm sure.
• 1:08:45
  Corie: I asked David Rodder this when he was here about his list of favorite songs.
• 1:08:49
  Corie: You could bring it down to some songs.
• 1:08:50
  Corie: I know that's all a favorite question.
• 1:08:53
  Corie: Because every fan you talk to people about Destro music and you ask people, all right, where's Destro top five?
• 1:08:58
  Corie: I never hear the same four or five songs.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that I can't I can't say a favorite.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite is wherever your favorite is at that time.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the the energy that you bring, I will double it and threat at you, and you will double it and send it back at me.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I perform.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so when I if I and fortunately or unfortunately, it's always ended up being it's Carnival, Bunny and Clyde, Um, Fly, Lucy.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is a is a top ten playlist that people want to hear all the time.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the rest.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, I love um Ula La Lee that's one of my favorite songs to perform.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Brian would be like, Please don't sing that song.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or other songs that I might sing, and the band might be like, Why do you want to sing that?
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, so for me, songs that I really love singing for different reasons.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some people might like it.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, but but the ones that people like, I enjoy that on stage and the movement.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd have to stick to that.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say on a personal level what songs are my favorite.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever people like, I like that because that is what creating the energy.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what I like more than anything is the energy, the vibes.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I like to make people go crazy.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I like to see them do whatever I say.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell them, put hand in the air, put all the damn hand in the air.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we get vexed.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, full.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I go walk out of here.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they understand that about me now.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: It comes across in my voice.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: A vocal, for me, you all get you all love the fact that I could sing.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, I like the fact that my vocals could do whatever I want.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when I get on stage and I start up here, hi everybody, we start off nice, and then I banned in the yeah, come long day.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my voice does a lot of different things, you know.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're aggressive first.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get frightened.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can get right.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So by telling a man tell me that he was from where he was Amsterdam.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I didn't meet you, I didn't know you, but I was in the Hook Straton Festival, and you said, put your hand in there, and I just had to do it.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you're gonna shoot me or something.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's aggressive.
• 1:10:55
  Corie: Well, if it's body energy, then nine in bacchanal is your favorite song for today.
• 1:10:59
  Corie: Well, for today, yeah, for today.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because the energy of that song, I really had to embody that back and all.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had to become back and all.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know how to become back on.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I just let the song take over.
• 1:11:09
  Corie: Yeah, my mother tell me to make you shake.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: You see why you said chill on myself on that street?
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I bust up my knee every night.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Every night I go in home with with um Where's it thing, Savlon and cleaning my knee?
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Every night and poor na plaster and hope fate to hear.
• 1:11:23
  Corie: Don't say that again.
• 1:11:23
  Corie: Don't say Salvana thing, they're gonna say it's a veteran.
• 1:11:25
  Corie: You can't bring up them together.
• 1:11:28
  Corie: Where is the now?
• 1:11:29
  Corie: Nobody has everybody has veterans.
• 1:11:31
  Corie: It's a room full of veterans, rubbing alcohol, stop them knees.
• 1:11:37
  Corie: Maybe it's that.
• 1:11:38
  Corie: Listen, congrats in advance.
• 1:11:40
  Corie: Pleasure having it here.
• 1:11:41
  Corie: It's a bucketless moment for me, right?
• 1:11:43
  Corie: If people understand what destro means to me and what our music means, I'm gonna stop short of veteran and all that.
• 1:11:47
  Corie: Yeah, you're better.
• 1:11:48
  Corie: Yeah, I will, I will, I will.
• 1:11:49
  Corie: I want to call that.
• 1:11:50
  Corie: I want to be you're a veteran.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you didn't call she that.
• 1:11:54
  Corie: Bring it back, bring it up.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, you didn't call she that.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm two hours the same age.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand that, you know.
• 1:12:01
  Corie: But I just showed you when you're putting work.
• 1:12:03
  Corie: You're putting work from St.
• 1:12:04
  Corie: James Second.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's one of my favourite artists.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I never say that about me.
• 1:12:11
  Corie: Let's win.
• 1:12:13
  Corie: Thank you very much, man.
• 1:12:15
  Corie: Ladies and gentlemen, that's my answer.