Episode 227 | Ozy Merrique - Corie Sheppard Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
All right, we'll make sure his mic's working After 29
years, 30.
All right, your mic's workingUp.
Muzi, everything good I did.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I did.
You got to make sure menremember the lyrics here.
Alright, the mic's working.
How's everything?
Everything good I did, I did.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
You've got to make sure men remember in lyrics here
.
You know it's only tell methese things.
You know it's not me who say so.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
How's everything, how's your season?
Treaty and everything, ooh,just that bad.
You know, I have no season.
You have no season.
That season, particularly, itwas good.
It's not my season.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
It's not your season.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
No, I have all seasons.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
That is something we had to get into, because you're
really a man of all seasons.
Yeah, we could get into that.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
But let me just call it ah right, so it was my season
, because it was season two ofthe Jam in the Junction.
Well, Well, that's where wemeet up.
That was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
I want to go back to where I met you originally,
which was a show with Benjai inKaiso Blues Cafe.
Right we were down and takingto Benjai.
Benjai had a show during thecarnival season there and I see
a fellow brisk boy moving, so hegoing, so I trying to figure
out I said what is this manmoving?
so, brisk, you know what I mean,settling down at all, but them
days you have a turban and youtie down.

(01:22):
I'm a Yawas and my turban, so Iain't making all the face at
all.
And then Hakeem's Vidal.
I started to talk to him alittle bit and thing and he say,
he say you know Ozzy.
I say I say what do you mean ifI know Ozzy?
I say that yeah, you have mynumber for me.
So look how you ride it Me andrealize it's you passing up and

(01:44):
not going in Peace.
And then I learn about theGermany Junction on the
Wednesday night, so that'ssomething I'm continuing to
enjoy.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I come in there as much Wednesdays as I could get
there, I know, I know Glad tohave you so that was season two
of Germany Junction.
That was season up with theidea for that.
It was a borough, really interms of the name, because from
a song by the Lady BrotherResistance RIP called Crucial

(02:12):
Decision right.
It's one of my favorite songsfrom him, but it's not
necessarily in the top ten thatpeople will quicken and say, oh,
that's a resistance song.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Is that B-side yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
To some people, but it's always my A side and I
always like that phrase.
You know what this song isCrucial decision.
But the part that I like iswhen the rap so jam in the
junction.
Jam in the junction and I see,you know you had to bring back.
That's a good way to bring backa certain kind of energy inside
of the rap.
So energy, right.
So that's how it started off.

(02:41):
But also it's nothing new to meto do series like that.
I've done series by Trevor's.
I've done series up in.
Trevor's is in the East, right.
Trevor's, yeah, yeah yeah, acouple other places too, and
there was one called theJunction.
That was done.

(03:02):
We were trying to work on thedates because the brain cell is
not too kicking, but, um, it wasdown at the end of St James.
It would have been just before9-11, so that we just trying to
place the time.
Dating yourself, yeah, yeah.
So, um, we used to do that downthere and I think it was a
Wednesday or Tuesday night aswell.
It was a Wednesday or Thursdaynight as well.

(03:23):
It was called the Junction.
It was a place called CaribbeanConnection.
I believe it was a store.
Ken Valley used to own and runthat spot.
Okay, gotcha, we had a littlebar behind.
In front you used to do likelocal and Caribbean liquors and
stuff, right, and in the backyou had a little bar.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
This is Ken Valley the politician.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Ken Valley and we did that there.
So I wasn't even thinking alongthe lines that I'm going to try
to reproduce that with Jammin'the Junction.
But then I step inside and Isay, but wait, now I do this
already.
You know so, but I've beendoing things like that over the
years.
But Jammin' the Junction camefrom that song and also because

(03:59):
of the need I felt to create aplatform not just for music but
for art and writers and thingslike that.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, I had to tell people that it's really creating
a platform, because it's morethan just you have artists
passing through which we willtalk about, but you have your
art on display.
You have several differentpeople who will come and sell
their wares, whatever they'reinterested in or however they
express themselves.
Exactly.
But going back to your earlydays of doing that in St James
or in St Augustine, was it?
It was just to do the samecreate platforms for people who

(04:27):
had expression.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, essentially it took on different kinds of forms
at different times, you know,and it's also about paying a
certain kind of respect andhonor and giving recognition to
the foundation of the thing, thepeople who have gone before you
know.
So I used to do somethingcalled before TTT and all come

(04:49):
back.
It was called Trinidad andTobago Thursdays by Trevor's
Nice TTT, the old logo and thingand whatever.
And in that we would basicallyplay old school, but we wouldn't
just normally play the 70s, 80smixed jam that everybody just
normally hear, you know, with um, raise your hand and jam and

(05:12):
that kind of thing.
We go all the way back to ourspoiler, go all the way back and
stuff like that.
And then what used to make itinteresting is that we had
something called the kaiso quiz.
So you do a little quiz, alittle multiple choice thing, so
early in the night now, giveout pens and paper and people
sign up the thing, littlequestions and things based on
the theme of the night.
I would DJ and at the end ofthe night we'll do like a pick

(05:36):
out and the person will win alittle prize.
So that's one aspect of it, butthe other aspect in terms of
the open mic element of it.
I did something called MagicMondays by Trevor Stewart, so it
was the same kind of open micconcept.
Did you have any junctionelements of that?
But it's a little bit morewider in scope.

(05:56):
Try to embrace different kindof creative art forms and things
.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Gotcha.
The first time I saw it onadvertised on Raze Bar Instagram
.
Right, I saw Ben on ouradvertised on Raze Bar Instagram
.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I saw Benjai performing there.
Wow, the energy was somethingelse.
By that time you had been doingit for a while, right?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
We've been doing this since August last year.
Right, yeah.
So yeah, no season.
You bring in some classesanytime.
That was season one.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
So who are some of the people passionate for season
one Season?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
one.
A lot of it is what we planned,but most of it is how it
evolved right.
So we had kind of tried tofocus on the young writers or
not so young writers,storytellers, who have things in
print that they have to sell.
So it ended up being that wehad well, we had theme nights,
obviously, so we invited poetslike Darren Darren, Sandy, Idris

(06:46):
Salim, Ruth Osman.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Ruth Osman is a singer too right.
She's good jazz, right.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Instrumentalist Right .
Ruth Dury at that time hadalready launched his first
chapter of.
Well, first first version ofAnansi Okay.
So he came he read and stufflike that, and in between we had
Charlene Bailey.
But I would say I'd ratherrecall.
You see, let me bring my filestoo.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I intend to put you on this podcast.
You test this memory here today.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
But I can say, though , that we ended up season one
with a bit of a bang because wehad um charlotte bailey, we had
um remy, right and um it was anamazing you know actually an
amazing night that particularnight, because it was around
christmas time now.
So remy come and mash up theplace and was that was around

(07:41):
the same time he had dropped thekaraoke.
Of course, I see you do thatright.
It was that nice kind of, andthat's how the thing was around
the same time he had dropped thekaraoke.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Of course, I see you do that Right.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was a nice kind of and that's how the thing was
happening at the time, becausethings was just happening
Organic, nobody wasn't planningnothing, like I never planned
the Remy thing, right?
No, no here.
Well, I'll give you a quickaside.
I think Remy probably buys methe Monday or something like

(08:06):
that right.
Then I say he said, boy, we cando it today.
You know, I have it ready foryou by tomorrow.
I said nah, boy, because in mymind I have to plan out the
Wednesday night, of course.
Right, I had to plan out theWednesday night.
I have all kinds of graphics todo and things.
So I said you can do it Tuesday, friday.
You say no problem, and things.
And to be honest, I had notreally spent going a deep dive

(08:29):
into what he was doing.
And I got up on the man's sideand I see, okay, 67,000 views
for Poser.
I say, remy, you're doing thistoday because you know, make
sure you ask nobody Wednesdaynight.

(08:53):
That's how things are supposedto come together you come after
that and perform to close offthat particular season beautiful
and you say most of the artistsare coming through.
On the strength isrelationships's relationships
basically, yeah, Well, that'sthe strongest part Because at
the end of the day, it's a laborof love for everybody,
including the owner.
You know Akins, who providedthe space and the platform and

(09:15):
raised the bar for us to startand continue, and you know you
took a chance on the idea andit's not a place where we charge
at the door.
Of course we do a collectionafter that and stuff so I think
there is a certain level ofgoodwill and relationships that
I had formed as well over theyears.
But also you try to be fair,because when all of a sudden,

(09:37):
then you know this is my job.
So I'm very fully sensitive tothe fact that you can't pull a
man out of your house just forfun and games, you know for the
culture.
Plenty of that there, but so Ijust try to balance it out and a
lot of I see two things thatend up happening.
Some artists wonder sometimesit happens by accident and

(09:58):
sometimes they realize theycould do that where they would
come and bust a tune that theyreleased.
Yeah, try it you know, feel itout, feel all the things, feel
all the feel, all the audienceand thing.
And the next thing too, and Isaid is something that even when
Omari performing, omari havet-shirts to sell, so it becomes
a way of generating some kind oftrade as well too.

(10:20):
When Andy Venture performed too, when Andy Venture performed,
he had his t-shirts you know,yeah, he don't miss a week
either.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
He's there every week .
You know what I?

Speaker 2 (10:26):
mean, and I had my art, my t-shirts and then, of
course, the books was really thefoundation of the thing.
So we had a good couple oflocal authors providing Nice.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Well, I fall in late.
It is amazing for me to seesome of them up close and
personal, because I would havebeen real small when the man was
in the heyday.
But Crazy stood out and I'lltell you why.
Like you that run up and down80 something, yeah.
I guess 85, I think well, you,you again, when I see you by
your raise, or in Germany,junction, you're running up, so

(11:00):
you run down, so you turn on.
You're playing this music forthe DJ.
You're DJing for most of themtoo, pretty much, yeah.
So I'm going to tell you whyCrazy stood out right.
I come in there now with anexpectation, because I came and
I saw Superblue, I saw.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I see Johnny King already.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
I reached late for Johnny King.
Johnny was done when he came.
But this is men with catalogSongs that.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I love.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
And and so when I come in on the road right as I
leave home, I started to thinkcrazy, he go do this, he go do
that, he go do this.
All right, I've never been ableto predict where you send the
artist, because you have a waywhen you're going that dj booth.
It is so crazy, you can'tforget this boy.
You had to give me this, you dothat with crazy with
screwdriver.
Yes, I forget us.
I'm completely.
But of course I don't know, Imight be the only man he said
and the boy crazy went into themood.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
So you've been a student of this thing for a long
time, oh, yeah, for sure,forever.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
And strange, you have to bring up that because in St
George's College I went in to doA-Levels.
I went to Holy Cross beforethat.
So, st George's now I tellmyself, well, right, give, holy
Cross is that boy's school, stGeorge's is that mix school.
So I say, all right, I'm goingon star now, I'm going to be the

(12:14):
proper star I'm supposed to be.
So I perform to all them, boyand them.
So I go on in St George's nowand I entered.
St George's was unique in thatsense because that's when they
used to have lip sync was athing beyond party time.

(12:35):
So they used to have a double,that double crown.
So they had a calypso crown anda lip sync crown.
So I enter both now.
Bit crazy, sujaima, oh serious,I enter both.
Now.
Bit crazy, screwdriver, ohserious.
I am telling you, oh shit, yeah, I think the year was cardboard
or brown paper or some kind ofthing and a jumpsuit and a
screwdriver.
You know, Some of the teacherswas like, ah, ah, yeah, no, no,

(13:00):
hold on.
And I think that year I won thelip sync but I didn't win the
calypso.
Right, I go back again the nextyear now, and this time you had
a little group called CurryCrab and Dumpling Nice and I did
a shadow.
So there was an old skit thatused to be on Sesame Street Pigs

(13:25):
in Space where they'd pretendto be operating on this dude
with power tools and saws andshit.
Anyway, we reproduced that forthe Shadow Arm.
How you feeling the feelings,baby?
So every time some fella is inDr Mask and thing pretending I
lie down on that table.
So they would be like how youfeeling the feelings, baby?
Baby, I go feeling the feelingsFrom the operating table.

(13:47):
We know that.
Nice, nice and boom.
Now I go and I say I'm inCalypso too now.
So I write a song called Youngand Restless.
This is going my motheraddicted, father addicted,
sister addicted, brotheraddicted too, the young and the

(14:08):
restless.
So I just gave you some play.
I think she passed away.
I can't remember her name rightnow.
She used to play piano.
So, coming down to the end ofthe song now, she started off
with the young and restlesstheme Blum, blum, blum, blum,
blum, blum.
Ba-da-da-da I said hold on, holdon, hold on, hold on, I'm done,
I'm done, I'm done.

(14:29):
I care if I win or lose, but Ihave to leave now.
I have to go and watch my show.
Yeah, I get your stories.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I went on that too.
Well then there's youngwrestlers who would have been
hated.
That was what everybody yeahyeah, it's a pretty lie.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it's a pretty lie, but I think my appreciation
for quote-unquote, the culture,goes even further than that.
You know, my grandmother was aqueen and guire.
I see she used to send for tocome and teach when Woodbrook
discovered folk Mm-hmm and mygrandfather, who passed away a

(15:03):
couple of years back he was theoldest Ghalib Sunian singing in
the tent at the time.
You might be surprised Nice.
So I grew up around that.
So, as I always say, sometimesyou had to make a circle,
everybody had to make a circleback to themselves.
You know, some of them youngboys.
A young boy who had to start toplay mass for the first year.
It is good thing, I think.
I made a small circle, right,right, made a small circle early
in my life.
So I was kind of frustratedthat people didn't really catch

(15:26):
the fact that what we have is sogood that we had to represent
locally and on the wider stage.
You know.
So Germany, junction is justcrazy super, I mean yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Johnny King must have been nice.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
I heard it was nice originally but I heard it was
nice, johnny was good yeah, yeah, real, real performer.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
There's a lot of classics too, but I always see
you do that with artists.
It didn't sound super.
You did it with Super too, ehSong, where it's song, like them
, and didn't come near toperform that bass.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Hey, super, you had to give me this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it'srefreshing for them and also
refreshing and a bit educationalthat you use that word in a
creative context, butinformative, you know,
enlightening to the people whodare to know.
And again, it's some homework.
Go check a tune from Crazycalled Creole Chocolate Creole

(16:19):
Chocolate.
The intro alone is about fiveminutes long yeah, that was the
days for them.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Long intro yeah, yeah , yeah, I can't call Beaver
Henderson.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh beautiful, and them had done it right, but just
the intro alone is a whole jazzsuite, right, you know.
So I know them kind of things.
So when I call for tune, yeah,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Of the top right.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Them fellas are the singers.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
You education.
I want to dive into it, youknow.
Let me talk about early lifebecause I try to get education
on where you from.
Let me tell you what I come upwith.
I come up with guayam grandy,belmont, tunapuna woodbrook.
It had no end to where you from, where you're from, tobago san
agustin, um when you hear us inamerica capping him down.
You cap it when I.
When I check your name, it'sabout five different
spellingings published.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
All about, you see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
So where you from?
Um, grandy, you're a Grandy man, grandy man, gotcha, gotcha,
gotcha.
Now you say you're a Grandy man, right, and you was talking
about doing some themes for yourseries.
I want to.
I want to come to that.
But your last show that you didbecause you closed off the
second season of Jamming, theJunction with a show by Kali and
them, which I was out of tongueso I missed as well.

(17:27):
Alright, I saw the clips and itlooked like it was a special
night it was?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
yeah, it was, it was, it was amazing.
I mean, look out for the clips,okay good or one of the clips,
because or your water cupbecause, oh, you have more to
come.
Yeah, because at the end ofthis we're giving you all we
socials and things beautiful.
I will just say that in themiddle of singing.
So imagine this in the middleof singing take me home, mohamed

(17:56):
and Lou.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Free.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Tongue was the guest at the time started singing the
David Rudder hey Mass, yes, onthe same chords and things.
So, boom, now we used to walkright across the crowd and walk
straight to the stage, davidRudder, I fall down, I pelt a

(18:21):
chair.
Oh, you didn't know, nobodyknew.
I tell myself I say, but waitnow, I would have still pelted a
chair.
Oh, you didn't know, nobodyknew.
I tell myself I say but waitnow, I would have still pelted
the chair, you know.
But I tell myself ooh, this isan amazing thing that Mohammed
and them did, because I thoughtthey invited him.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh, so you don't know that them don't know neither.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, I don't know that.
Them don't know, them don't knowthat.
I don't know, brother.
The story, according toCaffrey's son, is that there was
by pulling to spring on themand they was on the way home.
Caffrey was taking them homeand then he say you know you're
passing because you're havingsomething by Carly.
You're passing by Carly andyou're passing by Carly.
You walk up the step.
He say, okay, I want to use thebathroom.
So he's walking towards thebathroom and the bathroom on the

(19:02):
side.
So he's walking towards thebathroom on this side.
So he walk into where's thebathroom.
Man, he hear his song start.
He say, okay, I will do that.
After.
Walk straight up to the stage.
Boom, music start them singing.
Mohamed fall on the stage.
I pelt a chair quite so I startto sing and everybody's just
going mad.

(19:22):
Then you do so.
Boom, I bust out in tears.
Mohamed bust out in tears,umari bust out in tears.
Because then everybody startedto realize nobody planned this.
You understand, I tell myselfKali, I feel this, kali planned
this Because the way the thinghappened right on time, and I
tell it on time and that gave methat kind of encouragement to

(19:43):
realize what it's you know it's,you know it's probably
something I'm going to do?
Yeah, I think so, and tocontinue it as best as we could.
You know, of course.
So we ended with that.
I must give respect, of course,to Darren Ellis on Pan, who
performed as well.
He and all Jumpy, yeah, genius,right.
The next nice part is becauseKwame, who's a resistance son,

(20:04):
was doing the music, djing, buthe's also played drums, so when
a quarter way into a free townset he go on on the drums, boom.
Darren Pan moved to the stage,so it was a full band.
It was just supposed to be Louon guitar and Mohamed singing
and it ended up being a fullband.

(20:25):
Soul Fire performed.
I performed a good bridge andmy name Luke.
Come out to the bush.
You know who Luke is right,luke is a.
I want to move to the west side, course in a best ride, cause
I'm tired of the east side.
Before you see the black side.
Yeah, so he jumped out.

(20:46):
It was an amazing night and Iwas putting it lightly, you know
.
So I'm probably a little bitfrightened now.
You could have topped that.
You kind of put the jam in thejunction and pause for a little
bit.
You try and kind of collect ourforces and hit them again.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, well, you have our support.
You have our support and it'ssomething that I would encourage
anybody to come and take inbecause the performance is
special.
You know, I always like to seeevery genre, see it a lot, and I
found that growing up is notsomething you used to see a
whole lot.
Artist-to-artist interaction issomething that I'm always
fascinated by.
For instance, you had Superbluethere the night right, and
while Superblue there, I'mtalking to Omari.

(21:29):
So this whole thing donesurreal for me.
Already I was a real, realgroupie and fan of this thing
right and Omari is telling me hesay, boy, you know me and
Superwork together a few timesthis, and that he said I produce
one of Super the super biggestsongs.
And I wonder if he's going tofigure it out.
I'm trying to figure out what.
I'm trying to match up with myage now to super age and say

(21:49):
something I did not know whatbiggest song he could do.
and then, when he was about tosing Sundar Pappu Kolo Mari, he
said hey, come, you produce thissong.
I feel like into somethingthere that people need to see
more of that instance.
It's called Obia.
See if you can bottle some andlive with that.
Exactly, exactly no, but I loveit.

(22:10):
It's something that I keepdoing.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
I appreciate that yeah yeah, yeah, David Rudder.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
now, David Rudder was part of your origin, part of
where you start outside of theschool and winning competitions
there.
Party time was a big part ofwhat your next step was into
entertainment.
Huge eh yeah.
I hear you telling a storyabout you and David Rudder.
We're doing the same.
Was it lip syncing as well?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Lip syncing.
Yeah, yeah, we went, we went.
I took the same team fromschool Right and we went into
party time in 89.
And tell myself you know, wecould more than likely win best
local performance, because atthat time everybody hip-hopping
and dance-hall-ing.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
So that's how, in party time, most of the music
that people going up with isforeign music 99, 99, 99%.
And what kind of year this is?
Yeah, what kind of year this is?
Around what time?
89.
89.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, 89.
So August, july, August, july,august, 89.
So I went up with our same team, curry Crab and Dumplings same
concept and thing, nice, and werun through the semis and thing,
thing, thing.
Actually I think we hadactually done much better in the
semis.
Something went wrong I can'tremember exactly what it was,
but we still end up in thefinals.

(23:20):
We run last in the finals butwe win best local performance oh
nice, so you run last and winbest local.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
I ain't like that.
I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I think we was the only local at the time.
You know, I had to give respectto the two other people, I
think before me who had done itwas Oscar B.
Right, he had done our Abrigo87, somewhere around Some of
them, so it wasn't party timetoo.
Oh well, yeah, before a littlebit before me.
So you're going up there withthe curry, crab and dumpling and
ting ting.
But I find when people come inand shake my hand and

(23:49):
congratulate me they're sayinglike okay, well, that's the
consolation.
You could never win against allthem fellas who dancing, and
the boyster men kind of styleand this kind of thing.
I say let me tell you something.
In my mind I say let me tellyou something.
Why not?
Why can't I go up with a localsong where the supreme goal is

(24:12):
to win?
We're not less than we might bebetter than in many ways, but
we're definitely not less thanwe.
Start off with the assumptionthat we're less than then.
We start off with theassumption that we're less than
them.
See me and this shippeners.
So I say I'm going to do DavidDutta the following year.
So he had released 1990 in 89,actually Late 89.

(24:32):
It was on an album calledSketches.
I always remember that.
No, I lie, I think he releasedit after Carnival.
I think that was his firstgrand attempt to come out of the
lockdown of the season.
So he had released Sketches1990.
Was on that and became a bighit.
So I said, well, I can't do itright now.

(24:53):
So I got my boots, I practicedmy limp, I said me alone going,
this time I'm not going to win.
I had some little tie-dyeclothes or some kind of thing.
Um, but that time I had alittle picky drive.
So you should reach about here,probably put some little bow on
it and um, the, the neatlyshaped bed was always the

(25:15):
challenge, still a challenge forme.
So this girl I should haverecalled her name she had, she
performed I think she hadperformed a sting or something
like that, right, and she had alittle beard.
So she was a girl playing a boy.
So when I found out how she didit now, she used to put

(25:36):
Vaseline powder first andVaseline, a little line of
Vaseline Right and chip up hairfrom like a wig and sprinkle it
on, so you make your own.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
David Rudder beard.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
I make my beard and things.
So I go in these semis now I'mpreliminaries, I get through.
I didn't think I was doing 1990at that time, I think I was
doing another song.
So I'm a limp and I think, andI go in through semis, come now
and coup.
The coup happened in July.
So you see, well, it cancelledthen.
So, then, so the coup happened.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Part time was going on.
Yeah, oh, I thought yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
I think the old prelims was already done.
I think that was half into thesemis.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
So this is, this happened in Westmoreland times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh show, okay, so we can't.
Now it's for youths, right,right, so you just can't we?

Speaker 2 (26:25):
well, they basically figured out a way to cheat the
curfew, right?
So they used to run like maybe11 to 4, right so they started
it back, thank god.
So by the semis now I say youknow some?
Um, I wonder if I could getactual clothes borrowed from
other.

(26:45):
This is just me guessing.
I live in quite a lot.
I live in something PittiValley side.
So I get a number from him, Icall him.
I already know by then that I'mdoing this now.
Okay, okay, you know you arecreated a little buzz in the
party time thing.
So I go on.
He say, well, come on, come now.

(27:06):
So I go on down my road, fine,leave Laocata.
So I go and numb my rudder,find, leave, lockett, arima,
port of Spain, pinty Valley,traveling.
When I reach a dog there hebite me.
I bumps up a man in the cornerand say but wait, that's David.
I say is this David rudder?
He say no, that's David rudderbrother.
No, david brother, david rudderbrother.

(27:28):
So he point and wave.
So I go on.
The dog's still trying to biteme.
So I go on.
He say you could get this, youcould get this.
I say Alright, cool, I get itclosed.
I say what?

Speaker 1 (27:38):
kind of matting is this?
So he just cool, you call him,and he acts, and he just say
come true, you see what I'msaying, and I end up With the
original clothes Because,remember, that's 89 and he would
have been 86, 87, 88.
Yeah, he'd be, he'd be.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Clothes-wise and all fashion-wise he was tough.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, of course, of course.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
I had the curve so I gave him the clothes.
Now, boom, mash up the semisGoing for finals now and I say
you can get what I win with in86.
With the Yoruba symbols and theIFA symbols and things.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
That's the yellow suit red.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
and you know it, he said but anyway, I had to bring
that one back.
Yes, I remember the others.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Seriously, he came.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
He knew all the things he said, but you said
that one.
I had to bring back that one.
So he said I'm for to tell youwhat make the thing by Carly so
special.
Mm-hmm Me, I never invite himTo the final Mm-hmm Up and up.
No, I never invite him.
Boom, now it's like a, a waveof a whisper Start to go from

(28:41):
the door To the upstairs part.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
David Olaje, david Olaje.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
David Olaje In part, in part two For my final.
So you just walk in, they watchyou around going up the stairs,
they put him satis-sit down.
Well, that time I say, ah, Iwin.
I have no choice at that pointin time to get the man sat down
right there.
So said so done.
So there was a kind of historyrepeating itself, done by Carly.
Now, of course that is asurprise.

(29:09):
The man just so.
That was the party time.
Party time story.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Nice in a nutshell well, I don't actually this
right because it's a plentypeople listening who are not
certain age.
I can call the number, but whenyou say bella buzz, right,
people's only thing that meantiktok instagram, because then
had none of that.
So what was building a buzzthen is any papers, and how are
you getting To where the brotherKnow who you are If you?

Speaker 2 (29:31):
do an interview With Alison Hennessy On TTT.
You'll be like Buzz that isD-Buzz One.
Alison Hennessy, wait about 11TikTok right now.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Respect to her, respect to her, yeah, yeah, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
So we used to do that little route.
I think I don't think I'dEncountered Peter Blood Until
route.
I think I don't think I'dencountered peter blood until
kiss kitty, though.
So, but some kind of papersthing went on, so it was like
two little story in the papersand then people were covering it
, covering it, um, and there wasnothing else to do on watch on
tv on a saturday morning.
Anyway, you know it's a rushthat was really young and and

(30:09):
restless.
then the youths had a nice timebecause it was recorded by TTT.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so the buzz, it wasalready national news Understood
and you have a name thatunforgettable when we play Ozzy
Merrick it's hard to forget.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
It's about to ring.
You're bound to be a heart,isn't it?
I don't read them, did I?
But Ozzy Merrick is my father,so he passed away.
So you're Ozzy Merrick Jr.
No, I'm Ozzy Merrick now, but Iwas a junior before.
No, there's no junior, nosenior, it's just one.
It's just you.
It's just one Now you know?
Yeah, it's just one.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
So from party time.
Yeah, man, how you reach fromthere, you have a buzz.
People know your name.
And then, how did Kiske DiCaravan part come about?
Now, because I'm hearing astory that a little buddy told
me that Kindred was supposed tobe three people and Ozzy was the
third.
How it come to that?
What were you doing that causedyou to get picked up on your
radar?
Kiske Di Caravan or Kiske DiRecords?

Speaker 2 (31:08):
well, omari had basically opened that door, but
that's a fast forward.
So if you throw, throw back, Isay, but wait now I can't be a
lip sync artist.
There's no such career in that.
You know, I'm like best I be aMichael Jackson in posting it or
something yeah, because inschool you done writing and
singing songs.
I was writing and singing and bythat time I was heavy into
writing poetry as well too.
One of my first appearance Imade on television wasn't even

(31:31):
part of the time.
Ralph Marad used to have a showon Channel 4 called Book Talk,
and by that time I had my fullcollection of poems ready to
release.
So I'd be the next DerekWalcott you know what I mean?
yeah, yeah so that kind ofexpression was always part of
the thing.
And then I said I like toperform, I like to write, I love
local Rapso.
So I started to write Rapso onmy own, just a create my own

(31:54):
collection and thing, and Ithink it was 1991.
Um, I said this is what I wantto do.
Um, so I wrote my first Rapso,conscious Beat, my first
official Rapso.
I used to write in what youwould call local parlance before
that, but sometimes, andconscious beat, I took it to

(32:14):
resistance on the drag mall.
He said you like it?
Ting ting ting.
He said, yeah, some vibes.
And then I said but what do Ido with this now?
So even all them time Omari andthem used to be with a group.
Well, he told you the story,but it used to be.
That was a whole kind ofBarataria renaissance with Gage

(32:34):
and Gatorians and everybody fromthat time right, and Omari and
Akinde had performed in a showthey had called Youth Fest.
And in Youth Fest they run onwith a rap song.
In the middle of the hip hopset, I hip-hop set.
Now I was like what the hell isthis?
I'm in the crowd.
Oh, you did that time.
I was in the crowd.
I was no part of that, yeah,but you just attended.

(32:54):
I searched out to marry.
We sit down, we talk, we startmeeting Uwe.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
So this is after the performance you went on.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, I found him out and met with them and we
started to talk and around thattime I still wasn't sure what I
wanted to do.
So I was still in UWE, so Ididn't want to leave.
I was kind of neither here northere now.
And so when they got theopportunity to run with the
Kiskidi well, the first noCompromise album I said fellas,

(33:23):
you know I will come.
You know I come.
In.
Just now and a couple of yearsafter the next year I formed
Homefront Right.
And coming just now and acouple years after the next year
I formed Homefront Right.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
And well, the rest is yours.
So what caused you to not endup with Kindred?
What went on?
You just decided to stay in UWEat the time.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Well, I was torn to tell you the honest truth.
I mean, you have an opportunityfor tertiary education and this
and that, but I tell myself Ido an English lit.
And you said one or two littlecreative courses at the time.
And then I say but wait, now,this is all I want to do, more
creative everything.
But you couldn't even do it asa minor, you couldn't.

(34:01):
So it was like studying theclassics and breaking things
down.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
So what they call in the classics then is British.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, but then, yeah, still a large extent Mm-hmm,
but then at the point, so I sayI will stick with it, because
the other lecturer called thelate great Gordon Rowlett Mm-hmm
, and Gordon Rowlett used tointroduce us to the spoken words
then of the time.
So there's like Okwunura Ota,Jamaica, mikey Smith, muta

(34:34):
Beruka I see Resistance fromTrinidad, and one day we sit
down in a class and spend twohours analyzing Jose by David
Rutter.
I say, but wait, now, it isyour favorite class now.
Well, no, it wasn't, it was myworst class.
Because I say, why am I sittinghere and I could be already
making records?
It's true, it's true.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Why am I sitting here and I could be already making
records?
It's true, it's true.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Why am I sitting here ?
I am a contemporary, you know,in fact a little bit younger
than this dude, so I could bealready doing this thing, and
that was kind of, so I say, look, I'm done with that.
So at the point I said, let mestay and give it a try.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
I see, and then, yeah , yeah, then you decide to stop
studying literature andcontribute and be literature I
got you.
I got you.
Now I had to ask you right, arandom question.
But when you say I went andfind David or I find Omari, it's
something like such a like no,you have so much access to
people you could, you could DManybody, right, right, but I

(35:26):
don't know, maybe back then itwas easier to just pull up on a
man and meet them and that kindof thing.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
No, you had little connections and things Because I
went to Georgia's so at certaintimes we would have bounced up
within a circle.
So it may not have actuallybeen me meeting him for the
first first time.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
But after I see that show.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
I had him, I had to go and I had to say, go on the
road with a bag of shillings andcall, and then he is he pay
phone?

Speaker 1 (35:54):
and?

Speaker 2 (35:55):
he mother go answer and say yeah because he's doing
the homework.
Now.
He's doing the homework now.
You could rather call him backtomorrow, some kind of thing
like that.
You know so it was.
But it was fun though, becauseI remember when I tried to find,
I tried to remember who I wentby.
But it wasn't.
It was in the later half.
I used to go by Sprung for allmy old time music Gotcha Used to

(36:15):
give me like hard drives andstuff.
It was somebody I went by but Iwas looking for a chuck who,
god bless.
No, I didn't want to.
There's an old shadow Fall inlove again.
Love is too much pain.

(36:36):
Anyway, I had to look for thattrack, so it wasn't Rocky
McCullough, some other collectorat the time.
So I had to go.
You had to blow out all themuds and things Go in the thing.
Then you had to find a way tosample that and then, he said I
can't sample that, but I'll lendit for you.
You gotta bring it back tomorrow, then I'll go by, maybe
somebody like a Robin Foster,and then I'll sample that, and

(36:59):
then I'll put it on a duct tapeand boy at that point you're
listening to that music tocreate.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
So when you say sampling, you're gonna use it to
do something.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was a time I'd kind oftemporarily signed to Ritual
Records and I'd done two tracks,one called Let them Talk and
another track, actually, withthis guy from Diego Martin Can't
remember his name right now.
But, yeah, I'd done tracks.
I was looking to sample someold-time kaislan thing in it

(37:32):
gotcha.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
So this is in between .
This is before you get pickedup by uh amar and him no that
that that time was out when Iwas looking for them chucks.
Okay, okay, so that's after.
So the the pickup with amar,because, again, listening to our
sister on here to marry hereand they were telling these
stories sister and say ain'tinvite you to the kiskidi
Caravan thing.
I had to deliver that messagein person.
She say anytime you're doing aKiskidi reunion call her, she

(37:55):
will fly in and she will do itright, documented right.
But the original album was Gageand them it was Gatorians, it
was Sister Ron and General GrantKindred Grand, well, grand Do
Shot Call.
I guess that's A runaway record, but all those Records stand up
Up to today.
Yeah, it's right when they findyou, or where you find them so

(38:17):
that you became Part of I usedto be.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
In and out of the studio While them fellas Was
recording still, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
When.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Kinjo was recording.
So I was part of that wholeprocess as well.
So I used to be in there andalready, um, I'd already, robert
and them had already known whoI was, you know.
So sometimes I might spit thatverse here and there, but so you
know, but I didn't have aconcept or a group or a plan?
Oh no group yet Nah, okay, um, Ithink it was as it is straight

(38:44):
up.
Um, it would have been when,when that first case did come
out 93, it would have been theChristmas of 92, when they were
supposedly looking for peopleand stuff like that.
So I think I had a littlefooting, because people tell me
of the kind of pain and fear,fear and losing when they had to

(39:04):
go and audition for shock now.
So it wasn't easy.
What, seriously?
Well, so I hear, because I nowrealize I had a little bit of
ends, because I rememberbouncing up shock, straight up.
I bounced up shock by Coconutsat night some Wednesday or UV
night or something.
I think he was playing becausehe's a DJ too, right, and I say
shock already.
So I'm ready.
I say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(39:30):
I say I have a drummer, a manplaying African drum, and he
makes two real kind of consciousvibes.
He said come in.
So we went in the followingweek, you know.
But it wasn't a big dramabecause he didn't know who you
were.
Okay, okay, so, um, so then wepicked the pick.
We had sung two tracks to themand they had like Free Yourself,

(39:51):
mm-hmm.
So they said we'll go with FreeYourself.
The other track was called umShouter.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
So Free Yourself was the original um Homefront track.
That was the one that, paul,you know.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
We had about five tracks, supposedly.
Well, we had about performacapella with drums or whatever
right, but then out of that fiveyou would have picked those two
, and then out of those two theypicked Free Yourself as the
first single.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, that's what they're going to promote.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
So home front.
Who's the original three?
Yourself.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, the original three.
You know I must pay respect toBrian Kinky Danford, right, he's
been a friend, a company, acompany and an advisor.
Right, like I'm a risk owner.
Yeah, but an African drum fromeven before.
You know, when I was on campusI used to go up and I like all

(40:45):
them little concert and thingand perform poetry and things I
wrote and or sometimes just getkicks, you know, and I used to
go and check him because he usedto work here and live right and
perform poetry and things Iwrote and or sometimes just get
kicks, you know, and, um, I usedto go and check him because he
used to work here and live rightaround the corner from you.
So that has been and still is aspot by Monty Grant.
We go and rehearse and write andyou know, and jam and um, so it

(41:07):
was me and him working togetheron some stuff.
And Gillian was an old friendof mine but she had just come
back from the States and so Isaid, what are you for?
She said, well, what are youfor?
And then we just kind of talk.
We used to actually paintt-shirts together and go and
sell in all the little marketsand them and Frederick Street

(41:28):
and in UV and things.
So we had a t-shirt businesscalled period designs.
Gotcha shut up and then then,um, so we started to write, you
know, and um, I'll tell youstraight up, she came and she
says ozzy, I dream this, thismelody, you know, dream this
line.
And she started saying giveyourself a chance, let your

(41:48):
spirit start to dance.
Free yourself to dream that.
Yeah, and then I jumped withthe bombarding and then I kind
of flesh out the verses and thelittle chant in the middle and
work on the production andthings like that.
So, yeah, so that was that?
so that's that's where it wenton with the initial and then,
yeah, we had a little thing andwe was well under the high heavy

(42:09):
dashiki and thing too and andthing you know.
And so it started off withprimarily she and I doing
performances.
Then we kinky then became anintegral part of it.
Thought it was just cool.
And then, um at a clan.
Um, mark Jimenez at a clan.

(42:30):
He was not a clan at the time.
I had known Mark from and MarkJimenez at the clan he wasn't at
the clan at the time.
I had known Mark from, seeinghim around on Frederick Street,
seeing him in parties used tohave long plots at the time and
used to sell bags, I believe,and he mentioned to me he have a
midnight rubber style.
I said, thing, thing.
I said, well, we done recordalready, no, done, you see, not

(42:51):
die nothing you know.
And he had known Jillian aswell.
Thing I said, but we donerecord already, no, done, you
see, not die nothing you know.
And, um, yeah, none, childrenas well too, I think both of
them used to model with RichardYoung.
And, uh, we hook up.
And I said, well, all right,cool.
I said, yeah, what to do Beforewe record another song?
The little chant in the middlefree yourself, you go running
and do that, and then the threeof we well, it ended up being
four of us officially.

(43:12):
Really Right, we go run it hardand we run a good couple of
shows with that unit Mm-hmm.
And then, um, that didn't quitework out, mm-hmm, no, so no.
Then, um, yeah, um, we kind ofwent our separate ways in that
sense.
My children started to do onething.
You know well, mark went on todo amazing things as a clan, but

(43:34):
then Lisa Romany came in, kindof mid-local tour, mid-kiskeedi
tour, and so the three of usended up being the proper home
from the I don't want to sayproper, but the one that a lot
of people yeah, that's the onethat people know the visual that
people recognize.
So that's we.
Three of us went to New York,miami.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Atta Klan on board that time?

Speaker 2 (43:58):
no, no before we did Jump Started, oh, that's before
we did the Cannes Carnivaltracks.
Boom Generation and JumpStarted.
And I'm rolling.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Okay, so that time.
Atta Klan not in home.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
No, that was you know .
Looking back on it now, itfeels like it was like at this
big long era.
Yeah, it's like what did thathappen within like about four or
five months, really Well, afterthe Chucks got released, like
in May that year.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, until then.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
And then our Chucks, our tracks got released, first
because they thought the rapsoul wasn't really the the big
thing, it wasn't the Danitop andthe.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Oh, they wasn't pushing that.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Oh, crowd ball out for me and stuff.
So they say, well, technicallythey said we probably needed a
bit more push.
Oh, okay, so Kendra had, canyou Take it on?
So so that bus like me, by June, july we were in Laokita,

(44:55):
maloney.
July we were in the Savant no.
July we were in Brian Larratt'spromenade.
Then end of July, august wewere in Tobago and all of that
and by the end of August it wasover.
Yeah, but looking back at it,now, it was so much it was
impactful.
You see, watch me, young anddutish to us, you're good.
Yeah was so impactful.
You see, watch me, you're goingto do this to us, you're going
to get it.
Yeah, I said, and somebody Isaid I'm most likely he was a

(45:17):
proper asshole at that time too.
But that's the story behind whythe group yeah, I think I put
the blame on me you andeverybody.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Good now I see you and Atta Clan performed for the
K Kid.
It was nice to see springchicken.
Again, water under the bridge,you know they say it is either
another time or another energy,exactly, exactly, exactly.
No.
But the impact of that was feltand you know it's really nice
to hear these stories from youguys because the reaction to
people when Sister Run came hereand say, well, I do the no

(45:52):
Compromise album, but I wasnever on the tour with yourself
like Homefront Idur.
Rinkin and Superchild yeah isthat a little bit of revisionist
history going on there?
Because people tell she she lie, so we only could come and
confirm that everybody was likenah, I know I see you in shows
and things.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Mandela effect, Mandela effect right.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
She said I was living abroad, and that feel that way
now that you're telling me thatabout Atta Klan, because I felt
as if I mean I jumpstarted onthem things.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Well, I was in it and I said it felt like it happened
over like a three year span orsome kind of thing.
There's so much intenseemotions up.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
I would imagine young , yeah, youth.
So let me talk aboutJumpstarted now.
At that point you're writing.
You're writing the whole song.
You're writing for the groupyeah what's the idea there, how
you come up with it, becauseit's something that's so
relevant up to today.
I see you sing it on Remy yeahand the reaction.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
You see the reaction on social media too.
Right, yeah, it's of nogeneration that can connect with
it.
Yeah, that song just would notgo away.
You want it to go?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Again, I've come to terms withthat as much as I've come to
terms with other things.
You know, it's like a bugbearsetup, it's like an irritation,
like come on.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
So much artists.
When you talk to them, the songthat everybody loves is the one
that they found a performance.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I love it now though.
All right, nice Typical artistthing, huh, I say you like that,
but yeah, but listen to this.
Of course this has more oomph.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Of course.
Well, you say you went and digup some shorty songs that nobody
ain't knowing, so that's inthere.
You're looking for certainamounts of depth in your song
Adept in it, so I hope.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, so Our rolling started Well.
It has certain Burrows in it.
The obvious Burrow is thatAround that time it had a guy
called Out and foreign.
I guess he must have said thatX or something Right.
He had a truck Used to goQuestion why is it that every

(47:49):
time During the time that wasalmost.
The whole track right.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
It was just talking, talking.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
So I said, why don't I start that tune with question?
You know, and the whole premiseof truck shutting down was very
current in our youngimagination at the time.
It used to happen every year.
By that time I went in town,like two or four years or not.
But bet you.
But at some point in timeyou're following some truck and

(48:16):
it shut down.
So you had to stand up therefor hour and a half.
People had to try and fix itand I say, okay, that's a good
matter for them.
And I and and this is theopportunity that I just hardly
get to tell people it startedoff with me trying to motivate,
almost in the same vein as giveyourself a chance, but in a
carnival space, meaning that wegot to start back rolling.
You know, on the right track.
You know, pick yourself up andmove to.

(48:40):
Like that old man, say themyoung people crazy.
Oh, they're getting on so damnlazy.
But the music creator frenzyand the reason remain a mystery.
All we know we pushing soul,pushing the music into the world
, using the power inside thesoul to make sure we start back
to roll.
So that was the full metaphor.
But then we started the party,you know.
So we say, well, jump started,that's a dance, push started,

(49:04):
okay, that's a dance.
And hand on your bumper, I say,oh, that is the dance.
All this still in the chalkzone.
I said, oh, all that is thedance, all this is still in the
chalk zone.
I think one of my.
Then I say, you know, I sayfinish this whole song without
using the word wine.
Why are you giving yourselfwork, extra work?

(49:27):
Don't ever use the word wine,but make sure people wine.
See, hand on your bumper, putyour back in it so you listen to
that song and never say wine.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
There's a hell of a instructions of wine, yeah, hand
on your bumper, put your backin it.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
You listen to that song and never see wine, but
it's a hell of a instruction towine.
Yeah, hand on your bumper, andbumper went and took over the
wheel.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
After that, all barbierats and all them places
you hear the metaphor to thebumper and the truck.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Don't say it like it's obvious.
It's a hell of a thing.
But now that I listen back toit, I mean the motivational part
in it.
There it really is.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think what has ended uphappening as a writer,
especially in your writinginside of a dance space, is that
you just had a, you had themotivation first, you know, and
then you had the hooks, and thenthere are certain times you're
trying to write to suit thedance and the hooks take over

(50:21):
the motivation and the entiremotivation is lost.
People have no, because itmight have been deep or at least
not so obvious in a song likeRolling Mm-hmm Nobody even catch
.
If you think Rolling used togive me problems.
I had a track called Fan myPolari.
Yeah, that one, yeah, yeah.
What was the problem, boy, howit go here?

(50:42):
My man, I was working with ourproducer at the time.
I think everyone's looking forthe rolling part too, okay.
So I think I went like twohooks too far.
So by the time that happened nowpeople lost the fact that the
idea is that this couple sellingPolori around the Savannah for

(51:07):
carnival A couple, and they'retrying to build a business and
stuff like that but the womanthere's a man and a woman and
the woman's saying you know somepeople having that time, why is
I doing commerce?
You know why we had to behustling in that time.
Why is I doing commerce?
You know why we had to behustling.
I could be jumping up in thebarn.
So she say she could make onerounds around the savannah and
come back and help himself.

(51:28):
But she say, while I go andmake sure somebody find the
polar, you know, with you Nobodygot that.
Really, lord, I wish it is anightmare for a poet, you know,
because I tell myself, you knowit's about that kind of urge and

(51:48):
sometimes you know the littlestress, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know relationships, it'shard to go through, yeah,
because you're trying to build abusiness and people having a
good time and you're sweatingwith a cold pot and whatever you
know.
And she said we'll just takeone round and come on and jump
in a band and come back around,but while I'm gone, fan Mepuloid

(52:09):
yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
That sounded too strong, too strong.
All I do when you are here andthat is Fan Mepuloid.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Man waiting for that part to reach.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
So that's the issue with rolling People.
Didn't get the depth of thesong.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
I think as a writer and I think I'm a little bit too
, because I mean I realized, ohGod, it's not a book I'm writing
, it's a song.
So I need to find differentways of balancing, you know, the
messaging and the madness andthings like that.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
That is fair.
That is fair, yeah, you know.
Now you say you're not writinga book, right, I want to talk
about a book you work with today.
You work with a book calledTowns and Villages.
Yeah, this is Michael Anthony.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, this is my new Maxi book, Mm-hmm.
So I'm reading that and HardyBoys are hardy boys you're hardy
boys.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
What do you say?
You know how long me need abouthardy boys.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I just pick up, take and say well, alright, irish and
Tongue, whatever.
That's a good two hours, anhour of reading so.
I pick this one up now, andthis is a whole Guayaguari man
too.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Guayaguari man.
Why you say two?
Because you say from Grandy.
This is why this book's sofascinating to me.
Right, I want to tell peoplewhere's the chapters in the book
.
Right, when I pick it up, Ipick up the contents page, which
is usually further size reachin any book that I pick up and
the contents say let me see if Icould find it Arima, aruka,

(53:32):
blanchishes, kaiwal.
What's the wrong side, right,caranage, korra, sidra,
shogunate?
I don't know.
The first thing I look for isif St James Day is not, but it's
part of Port of Spain.
And I find it so fascinatingthat you reading a book like
this now, especially against thebackdrop of me, trying to find
out where you're from and can'tcome up with a definitive answer
.
So you say Gwaya 2, you're fromGwaya 2 because you're Thelma

(53:53):
Grandy.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Um yeah, Okay, so let me um my mom family from Manzan
, Right, Okay, so let me mymom's family is from Manzan, my
father's family is from Gwaya,so they come together and end up
in Grandy, so that whole EastCoast is where the roots still
exist.
You know, everybody know,michael Anthony as the fiction

(54:20):
writer um, green Days by theRiver and yeah, in San Fernando,
and things like that.
But he also has done theseamazing books dealing with kind
of, you know that history thatpeople are not even familiar
with.
And, um, it's not the firsttime I'm reading it.
Uh, just pick it up the otherday and I see them go through it
again and but the the magicalthing about reading this book

(54:40):
Wild in the Maxi you're readingabout, you're reading about
Tanapuna in 1845, and you'redriving through Tanapuna and
you're looking around and you'resaying, but wait, now, wait,
wait, wait, hold on, hold, on,hold on.
All here was just sugar andbullcat.
And you know, and you're, andyou see the visual in your mind.

(55:00):
So I, I know I think there's aparticular reason I'm going
through that, because I think ithelps me to see where we live
in, a different life, adifferent kind of perspective.
So, like before I come and meetyou now, I kind of went over
Sawa.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, we meet up in sour, right, yeah, we bones up
in sour.
Ozzy, you can't get no horrorsand men and get your metaphors.
You wanna kind of understandthat this is normal people
you're creating for.
But there's a, there's a hellof a connection here, because
you're coming through the busrooms and half the places that's
written in this book but it's.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
I think I have a little bit of a skill to kind of
humanize.
And then about another storyyou remember just now, yeah,
tell me.
So in one of Michael Anthonybooks now you talk about this
guy who was going to a cyclingcompetition in Curacao or
somewhere along on that side thedetails may not be proper and

(55:52):
he ended up at the bottom of aship, either a British ship or a
German ship, but he had abicycle and he was down there in
the dark.
He down in the hull and,unbeknownst to him, now World
War II, world War II start andthey call for the ship and tell
the ship okay, party start, youneed to turn around now, come,

(56:13):
drop what you doing ship.
So this poor fella end upeither in Germany but everything
might be Germany, just he andthe bicycle alone, and had to
spend the whole world warsomewhere where nobody knew
where he was and all this kindof thing it's a fresh start in
the world war.
So, besides the whole historyand the background and things I

(56:34):
said, imagine you are that guydown inside this dark ship and
you walk up and see sunlight.
You want to pull out yourbicycle and see where you're
going and go to the meddlingcure, yeah, unimaginable.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
What the hell is life like at that point in time when
you get that news Exactly.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
So he's got these nice little anecdotes.
That is really humanizing too,right, right.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
So you're drawn towards this book because you
casually sit down here and saywell, I'm not married, I'm
embarrassed, I'm not going to gomad.
And you seem to be fearless inyour journeys wherever you get a
call in your head, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (57:11):
And being semi-famous is the best you could get to in
Trinidad.
It used to kind of affect me inthat type of way, you know,
because I used to like to moveOn the low.
Yeah, you know, sit down andwatch people, you know, like too
many people, too much peoplewatching me.
So I like to sit down, you know, watch people, take an abseil

(57:31):
and write background stories onpeople and stuff like that, and
I guess I, as I said, thin linebetween fearless and stupid,
take some kind of chances.
I'm kind of a bad man thing,you know.
Just live certain places and Isay, yeah, what's going on?
I tell my lady, tell me.
She say, good friend of mine.
She said I have an apartmentfor you.

(57:52):
Now I say, well, I grew up inLockett.
She says, yeah, it's on NelsonStreet.
So I tell myself, oh,planning's bad.
Okay, let's go.
When I do so now, it is abuilding like on the edge, right
Between between the pannier andwhere the planning starts.
Right, it's a two-storybuilding.

(58:13):
When you're going upstairs it'sa one-bedroom, black and white
tiles, bathtub.
I sit and weight.
Now I'm in the penthouse.
Life's sweet that's a smalllittle story.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
You seem to be going, you're on the move, yeah, yeah,
it's just like when I say mycalendar and I don't know You're
on the move, you make it.
So I had to ask you because, asa man who went to UWE right, I
had a story.
I always tell people I went toundergrad and I do business at
the time and I wasn't sure if II wasn't sure what I wanted to
do my first.

(58:53):
I was first accepted in UWE todo was the name of the program?
Yeah, I applied for businessbut my grades wasn't good.
So they tell me you accepted,but you do carnival arts, right.
And I remember telling mymother I said girl, I get
accepted to do carnival.
She said korea.
Can I draw a straight lineyou're going to carnival arts
thing.
Now that I'm doing this, I feellike if that was a calling, I
might have missed it but I catchit back but I finished the

(59:15):
degree in ue at the time and umall of was applying for masters.
All my partners and them saidthey're doing an MBA.
Now I see Lisa, the Apostlesand them fellas bright.
All of we apply.
But the thing about me is it'skind of similar to you.
You see, anywhere we'reoffering, I work it.
So, I work in since I was 15, 16.
So one of the issues was themfellas had to get in to do their

(59:37):
masters.
So I remember applying and thenI alone got accepted for
masters.
Well, no off-rightener, becauseI know me ain't no master at
nothing and I need them to passany course I do in.
So I come home the day to tellmy mother I got accepted to them
days it was UE, iob, instituteof Business, I see it was Tuna
Puna, pashy, tyree, you knoweverywhere in Trinidad.

(01:00:00):
And I come home to tell mymother that girl, I get accepted
but I don't want to go becauseI'm waiting for my partners and
them when they go work and theygo get eaten right.
And when I say I get accepted,my mother thingy about in tears
and hug me up.
I say, oh God, wrong person,boy to go home.
And I call my father and I sayhe's a more reasonable man.

(01:00:21):
You know my father, a youngfella.
I said, boy, here we go, Ican't accept it, or nothing.
He said, boy, you're telling meyou don't want to go and think
about it Now, I had to do mymasters right.
So I always wonder like that'sfunny what is it like?
your parents were supportive.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
They never met my mother no yeah, she was there a
couple of nights.
Well, my mother is an amazing,just an amazing, that's all.
That's all she is because she,she grew up and, interestingly
enough though, she made certainchoices in life.

(01:01:01):
Obviously, she had kids young,got married young, but she was
bright as a bulb and I was likefirst batch or second batch in
Northeastern College inTrangrandi, right, and she pick
up sewing and well, you know,she's proper designer.
She is going through years, takecare of five kids, six kids,

(01:01:21):
and had little jobs here andthere, and I still don't know
how this woman had done it.
Yeah, right, you know, but shepicked that creative route and I
think with me, I think therewas always a healthy or
unhealthy degree of skepticismwith me as a child.
Anyway, then, okay, I got you.
So I don't think they wereparticularly surprised.

(01:01:43):
You know there might have beennah, this might be a bad idea,
you know, you're sure you wantto do that and stuff like that.
You know, but I was performingPaul Keane's Douglas skits in
primary school, yeah, singingCalypso.
Well, I went to SDA school so Icouldn't really sing calypso,
but you were singing calypso.

(01:02:03):
Yeah, come up the road, singcalypso every year in Holy Cross
, writing, drawing, creating,jumping off the roof, you know.
So at times they say, well, nah,this boy gonna be an engineer.
So this man was passing aroundselling with a kind of component

(01:02:27):
toy system, where it was likefor ages 13 and up I was like 7.
They say, nah, you're right, sothey buy this thing for me,
where you had the kind of youcould technically build a radio
by all the different you know,the little modules and things.
Like I kind of pop in somethingnow.
Well, I take all that engine, Imake fun.

(01:02:48):
I think I make a kind of pseudorace car and I don't know.
I think it had some littlewrong ball bearings and stuff, a
picture of that.
So that was a lost cause, youknow.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
But the thing about it is that I think it had some
Little wrong ball bearings andstuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
I picture that.
So that was a loss Cause youknow.
But the thing about it Is thatI think why they thought that
that would have Been what mything was Is like they have a
little Transistor, you know Iopen that, take out all the
parts, cause I wanna see how itwork when I put back the parts
correctly or put them back atall is another question.
But you'll take it apart, butI'll take it apart.

(01:03:24):
He says, yeah, that boy's goingto be an engineer.
Of course I just curious, youknow, I just want to know how
the thing working from theinside.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, after that, I good, I want you
to figure this out, you allright, I good, you need to know
nothing else.
So by that time I suppose theyknow they have a son who
interested in the arts, becausethat time You're drawing and
painting and stuff already bythat time I was already painting
T-shirts, going on the road andsell it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Sometimes I used to do business With her actually
Because she would make T-shirts,I'd go on the outfit.
So they knew that was myinclination.
They probably just smelled thatrat long time, gotcha, yeah.
So it wasn't really a big, itwas a little bit.
My father was a little bit more.
He was like quietly skeptical.
Yeah, he was a kind of cut hewas a kind of cut-eye kind of

(01:04:14):
guy like eh, really that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Yeah, but we can.
Now I have a kind of templateand a formula for this podcast
right, where I put people indifferent brackets in my mind
Maybe it's you eating right Withall these other courses but I
say, all right, well, I have anartist this week.
I have a performer here.
I had Ben Geyer last weekAmazing sculptor, you know what
I mean.
And then I have a businessperson.

(01:04:35):
When I had Conrad here, I don'tknow where to put you Ozzy
players.
You're creating a little bit ofan issue here for me, because
I'm feeling like every time wereach a certain part, I want to
go back to the start and wait,wait, because the business part
outside, outside the art, and weget to the art too, because
you're working a book here Iwant to touch on.
But you seem to have always hadthe entrepreneurial dress from
childhood or where you get out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
I think my mom has and she's, I really think, well
her side of the family today.
On this shoot, my fatherobviously had a strong creative
foundation as well.
Um, but my mom, my aunt now,who live in Manzan she's
basically the, the mayor ofManzan, you know, she doing her
thing, um, but my mom, my, youknow, you know I can begin off

(01:05:20):
to call her Kamzin.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Kamzin is the ultimate problem solver there is
, yeah, me and my aunt no,that's, that's my aunt my mother
.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
She's the.
She is the ultimate problemsolver.
There's not a problem.
In other words, then she see acup and she at no point would I
have ever remember sayingthere's no ice in this cup.
You know it's a poor example,but I'm just trying to see.
Ah, you were making a joke theother day, how to survive.

(01:05:52):
Now I see, if you're making a,you have nothing in your kitchen
to cook, but you have somesplit peas and you have some
flour.
You can make some dumpling andsplit peas, dumpling and lentils
.
And we used to have this jokethat you could put a piece of
pig tail on a string and justdip it to you, get a little

(01:06:15):
flavor, shake it out, put thatback on, put that away for the
next time.
That's my mum, she would she,yeah, not literally, obviously,
but uh yeah, she's fixing ityeah, yeah, she's a fixer.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
But you too, you recognize that.
Yes yeah, well, okay, good,you're saying where you get it
from so the art and thing thatyou you're in so much different
areas, I start to understand whyyou're no season, because in so
much areas of creativity itmust be a most comfortable space
, like I like to ask performerswhere, where, where the most

(01:06:47):
comfortable?
Is it in writing, is it instudio?
Is it in performing on stage,where you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Um, a pen and a paper is is, um, is right, is write
pen on a paper.
So it means that if I have, if Ihave an inspiration or
something right, that pen on apaper could turn into four lines
, or it could turn into fourlines in terms of a painting
right, or a sketch or some kindof thing.
Then you had to add music tothat and then you know I had

(01:07:16):
this and that and the other, andthen I had to have meetings
with radio stations and thenthings had to have meetings with
radio stations and then thingshad to get complicated.
That.
But for the last, I'd sayprobably even 15-20 years,
painting has more or less beenthe center.
So I kind of now starting toshit like come out in a bit of a
light in terms of performancesand even if it's a remembrance

(01:07:36):
of the things I've done before,um, but painting a remembrance
of the things I've done before.
But painting is you get the idea, or you work on an inspiration,
or you follow your path, put ittogether.
You show somebody, they saythat is shippiness.
You say, alright, cool.

(01:07:57):
Show the same painting toanother person.
They say, oh, this is the mostamazing thing I've seen.
You know I say all right, ofcourse, x, Y, z, boom, boom,
boom.
You do the exchange and you gohome.
Music, right now at least musicfrom where I started, which has
been a recording artistrecording and releasing music to
the world.

(01:08:17):
That's a much more complicatedexchange now.
And why get to realisesomething too in the Wednesday
night, because I know yourealise the times you've been
there is that I would play thismix of certain tunes.
Some of them not necessarilythe Kiske D ones or the popular
ones, I play tunes that I knowand certain other heads would

(01:08:38):
know, that man work on andrelease 10 years ago that never
get the kind of radio forwardsthat would have made everybody
else love it.
But by the second or third timepeople hear it they say, but
wait, now it's a new tune.
I say I mean not release yeah,because it's new to them.
I suppose you, you dig and I getto realize that that is like

(01:09:03):
reclaiming that kind ofindependence of distribution,
because distribution broadcastOf course People just think
broadcast is radio or evenYouTube or whatever.
But broadcast in terms ofhaving live bodies in a room you
have a couple hours on a nightin a club.
So that's the kind ofunderground goal that I spot too

(01:09:24):
.
So I just play rhythms, I justplay tracks from people and they
go like, oh, this bad boy, thisbad who sing that.
And I can most of the timepoint out I say yeah, that fella
, he sing that and you write it,yeah, exactly, and you're right
.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, as you take with it.
Right, because I want to getinto your book you work with
today as well.
When I say your book you workwith, that was written by
Michael Anthony, but the onethat you write I want to get
into, yeah, go ahead, yeah.
But I want to ask about yourfinal space to create where the
legends could be.
Almost, I like what you say interms of telling people it's a

(01:09:57):
new song, it's new whenever it'snew to you, right, right, and
you bring the legends there.
You almost give them a nudge toperform some songs that people
like me would appreciate or missor might not ever have heard
before.
Right, because you do the samething with Oscar B.
He and all seem to be almostlike we're fine, you know what I
mean.
He has my energy on his own, butin the midst of that you create

(01:10:19):
a space for artists that maybenobody would have heard about
before, don't know at all, and Ifind some gems listening to the
Wednesday Night.
There's some talent in thiscountry that's going
underappreciated.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Here's some of the younger guys doing this more
straight-up soca, yeah, allkinds of different things.
Tchenko and them, them, get amic.
It's as a man that they holdthat pavement.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was surprised because I waslike who's this fella?
I never heard about him before.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Oh, so you're just giving the space so that come
from the same open mic thing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
That's when you're trying to recreate a good bit of
those guys came because AtkinsAtkins kind of know, of them and
how long time I do music withChenko.
But the other guys, you want todo the the bag and tune and
whatever.
I don't really know them likethat.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Right, yeah, but you bash up the place.
Yeah, you know, it's just sofunny that, just to give people
the visual, there's another bandnext door to raise, right?
You ever realize it's just drawthe audience, you know, and
sometimes the newest artists youknow create them out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want tothank you on behalf of them

(01:11:23):
because I always feel likethere's a limited amount of
spaces for very new artists inTrinidad and Tobago, the radio
being the most limited of themall.
But you know, seeing spaceswhere they come in to perform,
and I feel like it's animportant thing because I had
Omari, feel like it's animportant thing because I, I
don't worry.
One of the most profound thingsI hear umari say I was
repeating on my mind is likeperforming a song that nobody

(01:11:43):
don't know and getting them tomove to it.
You were telling me that aboutkmc, where you say, listen, I'm
coming through, but I want totry.
Some of you, yeah try some newstuff yeah, so it's nice to have
new artists there, that that,that that give in that space and
get introduced to them.
I love to see when you knowjamaica was.
I live in jamaica for a whileright and there was a lot like
that.
You would line by a normal poolhall, yeah, and you see a youth

(01:12:06):
man come out and he sing a tuneand he tank everybody and he go
on, and then that youth manturned out to be sean storm.
You know, it happens a lotthere.
They have a, they have a system, maybe just bigger, I don't
know what leading to it, butthere's, there's, there's a
little bit more tolerance by thecrowds to take in a new artist,
or what they have to say, orwhat they have to do, or how
they express themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
I can see that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Yeah, but that tolerance might be low, I don't
know sometimes, but you youcreate something on Cipriani
there that people listening whena new artist it took, it's take
, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
But like I used to feel so guilty, I used to be
much more hasty because sometimeI did, you know, and I played
some tunes, whatever it is.
I now started to play from myhead.
Some crew lineman upstairs, yousay, oh God, dj, around the
crowd, reach.
Yeah.
I said, geez, I need just to dothis.

(01:12:58):
I'm going up now and, um, saycheese and ages.
Well, how to do this?
I'm going up now and Iapologize.
I say, well, you know he'sreally having a live show
tonight and this is what we do.
I say, but you know, you canmake some selections and make
some requests and I'll try toaccommodate you as a birthday
thing and whatever.
They say wait, wait, wait, waithe can't go under the radar.
The next man say but wait, we'llgo with his neighbours and lock

(01:13:21):
it up.
Boy, serious.
So if I had to go aggressivenow would I be a different
turnout.
But you hear the greatest partof that.
I think it was Remy.
That night Remy had performedand Remy, when they hear Remy
started singing Mr Santa Clausand the thing, they run
downstairs.
You really call down some ofthem, pick them up, put them
wind down to the ground.

(01:13:41):
You understand they had thebest time and the late.
So the point I'm making is thatsometimes the host or whoever
that host is how to kind ofsometimes make that extra effort
to bring them in.
You know, and that's why I liketo do the mixes now, because I
will do a mix where I will dovery, just say I do two Marshall
, marshall, marshall, marshall,and then, boom, I drop a Andi

(01:14:05):
Venture or drop a Ski 2 orsomewhere in between in the mix.
They may even realize why I doit.
By the time they reach to thatthing they're not dancing
already, you know.
So things like that.
So, as I say, responsibilityfor the people who put anything
on to provide the platform, yes,but also to kind of pacify of
course, as you say that it'slike hey, oh gosh, five minutes

(01:14:28):
here, time that I'm with us justtrying to show a film.
Yeah, there wasn't here in that.
Yeah, not that I went tonightwhen the drinking boys.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Yeah yeah, people had done bad already.
I understand, no, but that'sgood that you're doing the work
to sensitize them.
You know you're softening upthe crowd basically, yeah,
exactly, I'm with you, I'm withyou, I'm with you.
So the book you do I was takingin this book and that's part of
your Wednesday nights as well.
You sell the books, yourpaintings and so on, so you work
with the book, right?

(01:14:56):
The book seemed to bedescribing some of the paintings
I would have done over theyears.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Yeah, Actually that's more true of the other one.
The first one, right, this islike.
This is how to put it.
Boy, this is like if, if wegrowing up, or me, and I said I
can't really clock your age yetGood, your age yet good, if we
had, if we had internet, thiswould have been facebook post.

(01:15:24):
Yeah, kinda, and I haven'tthought of it like that before,
but I would say it's like youknow the experience of growing
up in a certain kind of periodin life and that we it's almost
things that we never really talkabout and there's no reference
nowhere except in our minds andour memory, and some of us just
erase that, of course try to actlike something else you know.

(01:15:44):
So there's like a lot of like,um, dead Man's Hill you have a
minute?
Yeah, I'm with you.
So it's a hill coming down fromCalvary and Arima, right when I
went to school, holy Cross.
Well, technically there arethree hills, three access points
.
You could have come straight upfrom by the downhill church,

(01:16:05):
bend the corner and coast up thewinds to school.
You could have come from by theWasser station on the eastern
side, where Socktown Sabrinaused to live right.
You could have come from by theWasser Station on the eastern
side where Sockton Sabrina usedto live right.
Stop by Boss for a pie and waittill they get to school and eat
one from Miss Furman, or youcould have come up on the
cemetery side.
The cemetery side had one steep, no-ass hill that seemed to go

(01:16:25):
straight into a graveyard no lie, and people used to roller
skate down it.
Yes, now at the bottom of thehill, harris RIP used to live.
Harris was my best bredren.
Harris was gangster with a loveof literature and mampies.
To say Paris was a kind of idolto me is an understatement.
A way to get through with thegirl's style and, most important

(01:16:47):
, a house mostly to himself mostof the time, and creative ways
for me to get into mixes, mixsex schools for christmas
parties and such, pretending tobe actual students.
But that's part two part.
Cheesy lady used to live nextto him, used to pee on her back
step.
Her name was splash out, truestory.

(01:17:10):
This is about hill number three.
Hill number two was for goingdown, not up, unless you live
right close to the base.
What make young folks feel?
The carola skate down that hillescaped me until I was
challenged.
We never even get the big wheelskates we got the white ones
with the skinny wheels Was likethe batter bullet of skates.
So see me standing on top ofthat hill now and see the

(01:17:30):
outline of tombstones down inthe cemetery and knowing I
awkward as F with some shitskates and I say, see me, I
wasn't even prepared to skatedown hill one.
I take them off and put on myslippers, yes.
Next thing I hear somebodytried and dead or broke 17 bones
or hit the head or end up avegetable.

(01:17:51):
Wasn't nobody from my schoolShooters?
May not have even happened tobe, may not have been anybody at
all, but we were all told andmany still do tell the story as
if someone's kid on the hillstraight into the grave.
Dead man's hill 1984.
Who sabrina is it?
We're just shooting at 150 nowwho's Sabrina?

(01:18:12):
you say Sok Tong Sabrina.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Alright, I just wanted to make sure Names would
change to protect me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
That's not her name.
She's still around.
She's still around.
I just want to shut up now andthen, but you're shorter, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Every village needs a Sok.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Tong.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Sabrina, come on, where's that village?
You know so the theme behindthe book, because you have.
You have several paintings Onthe pages of the book as well.
Those are your paintings, yourcreations, and so it's not
describing the inspiration tothe paintings, the paintings.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Is that unrelated?
No, it's Not completely,because for the shadow track,
for the shadow track it's like Imatch Some of the paintings To
the works, gotcha right.
So I have a story called meshadow and I'm the pascatch, so
we have the shadow.
Ah, with you you dig good kindof shadow shadow painting, I see

(01:19:04):
, I see.
So it's not.
It's not a cat dog kind ofassociation and I have some rap
so lyrics here, which is whatmakes this book a little bit
different from the first one.
So like Nigerian money andthings like that actually have
like a person chorus.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
So you make the books available, your paintings still available
for sale.
Those things are sell-ready, orthose things that you have, you
know, as you're saying that Iwant to the next.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
I really want to make it More of an art Word book.
This was, as I said, not reallystructured like that Gotcha,
but this new collection, I'mdoing these 4x4 let's kind of
call them smalls, right, youknow?
And I come with a nice littleeasel too.
I feel like we're on theshopping channel now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Yeah, let me go.
What's the price?
What's the price?
Now is the time.
Yeah, yeah again price.
There's a price.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Now is the time, yeah , again, this one cool 250, nice
, right, signed, authenticated.
But again back to what you weresaying.
If I this series is a niceseries because it is always kind
of get a quick sense ofcompletion when you finish a
small piece, like yeah, you'redone and you move on.
Yeah, and also it helps to likepeople who want to try the

(01:20:14):
collection of paintings, becauseyou know so it's a nice prize
and I've started to write somework associated with each piece.
So when I reached like about 40pieces, you know, something
happened with you, with you,with you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
So galleries and things.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
That's things you did before, like displays, like you
do, I did my last majorexhibition was in 2019, before
the COVID, so that kind of ofcourse, everything kind of yeah,
we had to figure out what theworld is now right yeah, and
then I did a small show couple afour day show at it's that same
art studio, art gallery onCipriani.

(01:20:52):
There TAW.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
Think that work.
Oh, just filled up from there.
Yeah, filled up, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
I'm not sure if I'm going to do an exhibition this
year We'll see but I think thisis the perfect opportunity to
make this particular pitch,because all the nice talk and
sweet talk, we're talking, corey, this thing about mathematics
that we don't really know how itworks.
We just do it, do it, do it.

(01:21:18):
And there's a point where wereach where we really can't
continue doing it without somehelp, right, of course you know
what I mean.
So if anybody, everybody, youknow, I guess we'll have all the
contacts and things.
There's a GoFundMe going tostart as well, but we need the
support because the series isprimarily well, essentially free

(01:21:41):
to enter, you know, a smallintimate vibe space.
But just to cover some of thecosts, you know, make sure the
artists can get something fair,yeah, of course.
So we're trying to raise thosefunds in a very serious way,
right?
So 1-800, 1-800.
No, that's not even a number.
1-800-help what?

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
I will do is, when you have the GoFundMe, send it
for me.
I'm going to put that in theepisode description because I
want to make an appeal.
I have a consistent among thelisteners who are listening to
this every week for the lastthree years years, yes, and it
has always been about about you.
In whatever form you come inthis culture, it has always no
matter why you're talking about.

(01:22:19):
It always comes back to who weare as a people, right?
So if we have people whoserious about it and I I mean
I've given him a word that thisthing on a wednesday is
something I would pay for, andI'll go, I'll extend it to say
that anything you do issomething I would pay for,
because you ain't living herewith that painting or that book.
So I don't want to talk to himabout the rest right, but the
thing is I feel like it'simportant.
You know, one of the biggestregrets I don't like the word

(01:22:42):
regrets too much, but one of thebiggest regrets I have with
this I tell people all the timeis trying to get explainers to
come on and him saying yes andme not doing it and him passing
away.
You understand so when I seeyou put crazy there, you put
super there.
It's so important to me as aman can't stay up past seven,
eight o'clock in the night, butfor you I will.
As the song goes right, I comein there because to see crazy on

(01:23:05):
that pavement and to see I seesome young people set up here,
yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
Somebody said oh, super lip sync and say hello,
you pay Super lip sync and onesuper rich.
Step on up, grab that mic andgo.
Ooh, ooh, you've already gottenyour money's worth A hundred
percent.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Aussie a hundred super lip sync.
Have that respect Super doenough in this world
Disrespectful.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
It.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
You know, I see him saying in an interview recently
he asked him when he knew he wasan artist and he said well,
when I come out of my mother'swomb he said, I take my first
breath in the key of life.
You know, he didn't do it bybeing born.
He don't have a shot.
As a matter of fact, if you doGermany Junction 10 years from
now and all Super do is come, wego pay to see him.
I want to do something withSparrow Bad.

(01:23:51):
I would love to see that.
I would love to see that.
So I think the things need thesupport.
You know, I had a young fellowhere, a younger fellow.
I would say Again you're my age, right, 45.
He's 40.
So that's young to me.
But Adrian Schoon is the CEO ofWoW Events and he does the
Sokka events as well as SpiritMass.
Right, yeah right, no.
And I found it so encouraging tohear somebody like him say how

(01:24:13):
important the culture is to him,the traditional characters.
He doesn't have fed by the nameof mecca every carnival friday
night and he very, veryconnected to the culture, right.
But I was also very, veryencouraged to him saying this
had to be profitable, it had tomake money.
The commercial thing is there,and he said that the arts is
where our competitive advantageis as a nation, right.

(01:24:34):
So I feel like as people whowould have listened to this as a
region too.
Well, of course, as a region,100%.
So when you're doing thingslike this, I think people need
to pay to do it, because I seehere, for instance, you might
get somebody to pasture and thenwe pass a bucket and people put
that is noble, but I thinkpeople should pay every week,
including myself, which I Ithink you might be surprised.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
There's no door, really, that's the problem
that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
So salute to raise, and, and, arkeens and everybody.
But there has to be a way thatpeople pay to partake in this
thing and a price that ispublished on that kind of thing.
You can figure it out.
Good, good, good, and whereverthey go, fund me is lemon, I
don't know where it is I'll getour, our.
Our contributors, our listenerswill contribute it.
I could guarantee that For sure, because we want to see it
continue, especially becauseit's such a.
I consider myself a bridge, I,I, I.

(01:25:20):
You know how long we're tryingto organize this, me and you.
I miss a day, you think, but wefigure it out Because I feel
it's important for young and nowcoming in this space.
Like you say, you say as ahasty fella, glad I meet you
when I meet you, you say as ahasty fella, when you was young.
It's important for you to stillhave that energy to be hasty to

(01:25:42):
hear your story.
Yeah, it's critical.
And you doing that same bridgework, because before I see Crazy
the Night, I see severalartists who just try it you know
what I mean and who trying.
You know what I mean and whoexperts.
And you're seeing the what youused to call self-actualization,
when they grab that mic andthey take they in, transform
completely.
Me didn't know there wasartists.
I see them sitting down thereand I who is this person?

(01:26:03):
I see Levi Myers and I'm soglad to see him.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Yeah, and he and all did some new tracks oh man,
first time ever to performanywhere else, you know you know
, I hear him say too he comeinto terms with performing his
father's music.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
He almost say it's something I never used to like
to do, but he say I love doingit now in tribute and honor to
my father, nappy Myers.
Right, so you're creating aspace that people must pay for.
I put it out there.
For that, whether it is truth,go fund me or pay by the door.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Do it like Swizy Rankin, go figure out some kind
of cure.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
However, we must pay.
We must pay Too important tonot pay for.
So where are you seeing itgoing in terms of the Germany
Junction now?
Where do you feel is?

Speaker 2 (01:26:44):
next, I want to be careful in terms growth could
sometimes go in the oppositedirection, the vibe, but at the
same time the thing had to hadto be at a certain kind of level
where it could be fair, as Isaid, to the artist, to the bar
owner and to myself.
So somewhere inside of that,I'm thinking, the brand could

(01:27:05):
easily become something likethis, you know, like radio, tv
and all.
So that's, that's down the road, but I want to.
I was telling you the idea, theideas I had for season three,
which is going to have to be putoff a little bit more because,
as I said, we had to raise somefunds.
Um, where each each week islike question, right?

(01:27:28):
So one of the first I getyelled at, question, right, so
one of the first I get yelled,so one of the first questions.
Suppose you still had federation, suppose federation had worked,
and then we start that and thenwe actually engage people to
answer that question.
Actually I had some footagealready.

(01:27:48):
Omari did the response and thenI say let me deal with some
music.
So we deal with Sparrows, ifyou know you didn't want
Federation.
Then we deal with Caribbean man, but then we deal with the
obscure one which is Federationby Small Island Pride.
Okay, okay, small Island Pride.

(01:28:12):
Now you know Mastiffé Mastiffé,he's famous for that.
No, yeah, I don't know MastifféMastiffé, that's his famous for
that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
No, yeah, I don't know his actual name.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Mastiffé, mastiffé, meet me down by the quays eh.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
Cuttauta.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
Cuttauta, cuttauta Right, that's his famous for
that.
But he have a bunch of othertracks and his flow is
immaculate.
He was the first rapper, butthat's another story.
Small Island Pride are singinga tune about a Grenadian and a
Vincentian having an argument.
Two women around the Federationand one saying last night she

(01:28:44):
was with a Grenadian, nightbefore she was with a Barbadian.
She make a child for a Chineseman and she say bet your life
that's a duration.
Yeah, she take it to the nextlevel.
That is what you call federated.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
That is what you call federated.

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
So it opens up the door now for discussion
generally of what's happening,going back to some of the old
Kaisos and asking the man on thefloor because actually, what
inspired that is like?
You know, you're talking red,yellow, green, blue and I say,
but what about the Caribbean?

(01:29:26):
You know, I mean, because Ithink that's wild thoughts again
If we had one answer to all themadness going on up the road,
you know what that could havebeen.
It could have failed, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
You wouldn't have these kind of problems.
That's what I said.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
I prefer to talk about Federation than talk about
some of the bacchanal that'sgoing on here.

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
Of course, of course.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
But going forward.
Now it's have things like youknow.
Question is are we a kick-softcountry?
Have things like you know.
Question is are we a kick-offcountry?
And then I go deal with somecomedy, humorous calypsos and
spoiler and things like that.
So it's going down and that'sthe theme.
So the Gandhi night wassupposed to be will still be.
I ain't calling no name yet.

(01:30:07):
But Gandhi has most easilyoutpost back in the day was
where everybody used to end up.
You know there's a big call up,so call Arima tonight Sangi
Grandi, tomorrow night A femalestick player from Winnie living
Sangi Grandi, that's Zanduli.
So the Grandi night will happen.
He's a Grandi man now he's aGrandi man.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Well, yeah.
All right, I'll listen for.
But from my memory, some of theartists you know to tell you
who your book, right, butgrandies are, you know they have
some special places, like thisbook you work with today.
Right, and that has somespecial places, grandies one
it's like an ozzy merrick.
It's talking scrunter.
It's talking poser.
It's talking this young fellathe kutain, who to me is a
genius.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
It's talking treason and m1, yeah so.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
So that's the name of you yeah, and sapari is a place
like that's a big way of energy.
So so your idea going for thegermany junction is to to spot a
theme that I love, thefederation theme.
Yeah, because you, your themegoes far beyond the artists they
invite.
Like you say, you, you put alot of thought into this damn
thing and I want to sing yourpraises a little bit, God.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
listen to the music.
Some people don't feel as good,just show up.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
It's because you've run up and down plenty.
It looks like you're hustlingit looks like you're not
organizing, but the music youplay as a DJ on a Federation
night more vast than the artistsyou could invite.
Some of the artists I'm herewith are talking about the
Federation.

Speaker 2 (01:31:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
So I think it's worth the support.
I love the idea of the themes.
By the way, the first time Iheard about that I said nah, boy
, because you know I enjoy thatdrive from home trying to figure
it out.
I say let me see where he'llcome with.
I say I know he'll sing this,he could play that, he could
play.
And I was wrong every singletime, including today.
I was wrong every single timewhen I feel a no thing.

(01:31:56):
Yeah, just understand.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Sometimes I don't know until I know, until they
tell me.
You say it's Obeah, that iswhat it is.

Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
That is what it is, so we can expect to see some
changes.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
But we know Jammin' E the junction coming back, it's
the jam yeah, and the vibe willalways remain and we're trying
to maintain that, and what we'regoing to do is beyond the jam
and how we started theconversation right, the jam bram
is like the extension, so thathas been happening by Kaiso
Blues, carl Jacobs Spot, andwe're going to have that more

(01:32:32):
than likely, sorry beingpromoted as soon as we send all
our information as well, too.
So, Jambram is where you pay tocome in and we're going to have
some artists.
I'm talking to a couple ofpeople.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
Yeah, I can't wait.
The answer will be yes.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
The.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
O'Byrdors will come.
The O'Byrdors will come, yeah.
Talking to a couple of peopleyou know, yeah boy, yeah boy and
Jambram.
Is we're going to pay by thedoor?

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
yes, no tickets?

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
no, we have a link for tickets too good good, good,
good, good, good, good, good wehave a link for tickets too,
again up to the time.
Finally, yeah, good you sayingup to the time, but you're so
far ahead of your time.
I was watching an interviewwith you the other day and you
say you had done paintings asthe ticket to entry to our event
.
You had done pieces.
So you say when you buy thepiece, that is your entry.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
Yeah, something I want to do as well too, but when
that ticket might be 700,that's not what we're going to
have People paying thousands ofdollars for a good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:29):
Nobody art.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
Yeah, so I had to find a way to you know, I'm
thinking I might actually Dooriginal prints so that every
ticket Is an original print Ofan art.
For me to sit down and pay anhundred tickets For $50?
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
Sorry, it's an original print.
That jersey you're wearing,that's your thing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
Yeah, it's one of my prints here.

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
What is it of To break it down?

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
for me, this was the original adoptionation face.
It's an exhibition I did acouple years back and I was
using this as the main promotion.
So it's like basically my facewith inlaid art, right, you know
.
So you have to kind of stepback to see it really.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
Mm-hmm, you know, but we also have the Homefront
T-shirts and a couple of theoriginal prints as well, too
Generally Ozzy, Merrick, RRIQEor anything galvanized-oriented
on all platforms.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
I forget to say that Wait, wait, wait.
We had to go back Hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
I was going to wrap up.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
But before I get to it, where did galvanize come
from?

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
I just like the idea of the flying galvanized.
You know the myth, I don't.
The myth of flying galvanized,no Boy, that was like worse than
the boogeyman, because growingup country and thing they say do
not stick your head out thewindow during any hurricane or

(01:34:52):
big storm, and thing, because ithad a time in 1946.
A man did stick his head outthe window and a piece of
galvanized fly off from the roofnext door and cut off his neck
clean.
Visually at four years old.
Five years old, you've seenthat.
Yeah, hold on to that Flyinggalvanized whatever.
So any little small briefsplash, you're inside, so you're

(01:35:14):
not venturing by that window atall.
So some people know about thereference.
So Flying Galvanized Disco.
It come out from that kind oflighthearted reference to that
story, old Wife's Tale, whatever.
And it started off as being Asound system, kinda boring From

(01:35:37):
the sound system culture.
But this time Is based on Letme see, roots, rapso and you
know Local vibes, yeah, andthat's how we do Like it wasn't
even Supposed to be like Ahundred Right, just even for
like A 70-30 when we still playSome popular Urban style tunes,
but it's set up like a soundsystem.
Flying Galvanized Disco, youthink I wasn't.

(01:35:58):
I could hold my own on a onesand twos after a little while
and get rusty now, but it wasalso always supposed to be a
two-man job.
Now the MC and the the selectornever find a selector to commit
.
So but then I say the selectorNever find a selector to commit.
But then I say I'm going tobring back the name because it's
still, you know, even though Ican do the mixes and stuff like

(01:36:18):
that Gotcha.
So Flying Galvanize the scoreand then Galvanize because of
what the name means to us.
It's also to kind of spark amovement.
Yeah, to create, to create thatspark that will grow into
something bigger.
So I think that's what I do.
So galvanize is galvanize.
Gallery refers to the shop, thestore, the works and the.

(01:36:41):
Flying galvanize the squareswho put on the show and the
musical armor, the thing.
But galvanize, as I say onceyou do flying galvanize or
galvanize gallery or Aussiegalvanize, mary, you can find me
On any platform you should beable to have.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
So that's all your platforms Aussie, galvanize,
merrick.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Primarily there's artists Aussie Merrick too but
as I say, I tell people it's nothard to find nobody if you
really want to find them.
Well, you proved that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Yes, I did.
I didn't even if you had a killpeople.
What and correct spelling ofOzzy is Ozzy.
Why Ozzy?
Why Merrick?
Right on all platforms Ozzy,merrick.
That's how I find you onInstagram as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So listen, we're lookingforward to where you come back

(01:37:28):
with.
Wherever you come back with,you have our full support and
talking on behalf of everybodywho take this in you have it,
you have it.
You have our full support andtalking on behalf of everybody
who take this in you have, you,have it, you have it, and we
will figure out how to get thesupport done virtually for those
who care.
Be here in person.
Exactly, don't forget sisterrun say next time you do a thing
, she could be here in person sosaran, so saran, and he started
singing this song and sisterrun.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
why?
It was just a glitch in thematrix, because I called
actually I I'm telling that partI called her and tell her about
the show and then somethingcome up and we had to put off
the show and then she said, ohshame's boy, she was leaving the
following week.
But it turns out she might havebeen here, but then we had to

(01:38:08):
go on with the show because Ithought she was already gone
Gotcha.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
Well, these things just happen.
The truth about it is, judgingfrom the response from her
episode, people want to see sheand General Grant do that song.
You know what I mean.
So we had to make that.
We had to make that?

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
Well, let's make that happen.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
All right, good, good , good.
Confirmed.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
Jam Bram.
Yeah, boy, look at that.
Boy, look at life Do you haveany links with Caribbean
Airlines?

Speaker 1 (01:38:34):
Well, what we might have to do is do it in the
States.
You know what I mean.
Do you have any tariffs, and soon?

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
The guy Gavin was on Party Time.
The CEO of Caribbean Airlines.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Was that Party Time man Gavin Medina?
Yes, yeah, he's not taking mycalls, all right well maybe lip
syncing, still How'd it be Gavin, let's talk.
Yeah, gavin, let's talk.
We have things to talk.
We have things to advance.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
Yeah yeah, so we'll take care of the kid.
Bring down Lisa and all two.
Oh yeah, boy, it's true.

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
It's true.
It's true to the home front.
Yeah, forward to everythingthat you're doing.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate you coming through.
We're trying to do this for awhile, like I tell you.
I tell them only the backbehind the scenes, right, I book
wrong date.
Then when I call them I say,boy, I booked the wrong damn
time.
I book at 8 o'clock in themorning, all kind of thing going
wrong, but you and the OBL hadthis was a great, great

(01:39:30):
conversation and only look forthe rest of painting and then
look for the rest of smallsbecause this one gone.
Outro Music.

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Episode 227 | Ozy Merrique

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 227 | Ozy Merrique