Episode 232 | Muhammad Muwakil - Corie Sheppard Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Corie (00:17):
I talked to this man.
I've talked about this man longenough.
I've talked about this man andhis band's music long enough, so
it's good to have you here inperson.
How are you going, sir?

Muhammad (00:24):
I'm good, I didn't know.
It's good to have you here inperson.
Mommy, how are you?

Corie (00:26):
going.
Sir, I really you're good.
It was gonna be so dark.
Yeah, it's a dark space, youknow.
Affordable imports is the kyleand chan let me call all the
names, aaron and conrad isdarkness all around a hundred
percent.
A hundred percent for that no,they just try to put me in that
position, you know.
I mean, I think they feel likeeasily distracted like this on
on the.

Muhammad (00:41):
It don't look so right but jesus christ, I feel like a
man gonna come maybe and if, ifit does happen, it does happen.
It could be kyle, it could bekyle.

Corie (00:53):
It could be, kyle.
I don't think you'll be able toreact fast enough for everybody
to be dead.
But anyway, a man who say thealbum by the name of born in
darkness is telling me the placeis dark, it's beautiful, you
can script this.

Muhammad (01:09):
So it's born in darkness and escaping to light
the last two lines in our songsays I was born in the dark.
Now watch me live in the light.
I was a child of the dark, butnow I live in the light you live
and you live before you start.

Corie (01:22):
You tell me.
I know people listen to thesesongs all the way through.
So it proved that I stoppedwith Born in Darkness.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Istopped right there.
So again, brother, I came and Isaw you all recently and it was
the second time that I saw youall perform in an intimate space
, tight space this is the nameof.
I want to talk about the firsttime, because Freetown

(01:42):
Collective was bubbling for sometime as a name you're hearing
and you don't know what it is.
You don't know what FreetownCollective is exactly Right.
And I went to a charity eventto Habitat for Humanity in
Anchorage.
Ah yeah, I remember Played someperformance, pass through and
then I get to see y'all.
So then I realized, okay, it'sa band, it's a group.
I'm not sure what to expect atthat point, but some people in

(02:04):
the venue knew the music andthey knew you all.
So they're excited to see youguys, and when you all strike up
it's something to see, you know.

Muhammad (02:12):
I never see it.
So yeah, I had to tell youabout it Live actually.

Corie (02:15):
Listen, yeah, you've seen it live, for sure.
I've seen you perform live.
You know you've seen it.
I like you're in the audienceand on the stage on the first
time and I see you running theaudience that time too.
Yeah, you come off the stageand get closer connected to the
audience.
So one of the things I alwayswant to ask you about is that
really, that connection with theaudience, with you?
Uh, where's that come from?
That's something you're justfeeling on the stage and you do

(02:36):
it uh, I, I know what music hasdone for me.

Muhammad (02:39):
You know, as I used up , there are portions of my life
that I remember to the sound ofSizzler's voice or Shadi Soleil,
of Love, them kind of things,and so I know what music is
doing when people connect to it,and I always want to create the
most beautiful experience forpeople, wherever that could be.

(03:02):
You know, if I see that a songis touching you emotionally, how
can we do more?
How can we make you never, everforget this?
You know, if this is a goodmemory because we don't get too
many adults sometimes in thislife how could I make this the
best memory you?

Corie (03:15):
know what I mean?
Gotcha, I'm with you, yeah sothat connecting yeah, yeah, it
shows, it shows.
It shows because theperformance was going great
everybody.
But there's a little crew inthe back who I can't remember.
This song you're singing, butthey were rocking side to side
and all this that stood out tome that you went and you rock
with them and you play with them, and that kind of thing.

Muhammad (03:34):
Yes, because a lot of times too, the way things set up
.
They they like to make us feelas though and I used to feel
this way that our artist is somekind of special magical
creature that is born.
And if you're not born withthis, you know.
I think everybody has thespirit and the soul of artists
and it gets taught out of us, itgets beaten out of us, it gets

(03:54):
reasoned out of us, and then webecome adults in the definition
of what this capitalist crazysociety want to tell us an adult
is, and we forget that we wereall artists.
So what people feel there manytimes is a return to themselves.
They feel a return.

Corie (04:07):
The artist is offering you a pathway back to how you
used to be so your audienceperforming for you in a sense,
then, when, while you'reperforming for them, which is
all one thing, bro.

Muhammad (04:17):
I, I come and I offer a way to raise the vibration.
If they accept it, then thevibration raise and they can
raise it again.
So now I feel it, I raise ittoo.
I raise it again.
If we do it right, we end up inheaven, right?
I'm with you, I'm with you, I'mwith you all right.

Corie (04:32):
So the tight spaces, that's important because I'm
gonna look at it.
I mean freetown that I saw inanchorage then and freetown now.
I guess you'll evolve a lot,the sense of fashion I was
looking at, so many style fromof the old videos.
Everything evolved right, butthe tight spaces seem to be
something that's still importantto you guys as a unit.
Getting close to the fans aredoing that yeah, in 2018.

Muhammad (04:52):
we've been doing an album for about two years, maybe
more, with sheriff and wedecided to drop the album in
2018 and we hadn't done a lot ofperformances before the album
drop, right.
So I said to I say you knowwhat we need to do?
We need to do a series of miniconcerts and kind of pull our
people back together, let themknow we're doing something.
And we were like, well, let'sdo them in business places,

(05:15):
small business places, so thecommunity could also benefit.
So the first one we did was inOblique, imperative by Corner
Chagrita and French there by thegas station okay, I know this
one, yeah, and we did it there,you know, and so we did a series
of those that led up to the, tothe album launch, which we did

(05:35):
in Minshel, mars Camp, keralaCompany, and it was our biggest
show to that point.
And then after that, yeah, itjust became well.
It took us two years againbefore we did it again, right,
but after that it just kind ofbecame a staple.
It's just something that wereally love to do.
You know, they have the madnessof carnival and traveling and

(05:55):
everything, and then you comeback and you go.

Corie (05:57):
This is the roots, is where we come from, right I saw
the connection with some ofthese songs you perform because,
of course, I think at thispoint, once you'll see y, you
all they want to hear thesoakers.
You all did.
But that crowd was intimatelyconnected to a lot of the songs
that you all performed.
Yeah, you wait time to see anytight spaces.
The same kind of crowd comingback all the time you're seeing
different faces.

Muhammad (06:14):
That's the thing, like this particular tight spaces
here.
When I asked, it was like halfthe crowd had never been yeah,
so you're talking to the newbiestoo.

Corie (06:21):
That that was fun.

Muhammad (06:23):
So Half the Crowd had never been, and that's what we
see more and more these days.
Like a lot of new faces, peoplecurious.
Like you say what is it exactly?
They're hearing the soaker, butthey're also hearing that or
seeing that there's something alittle more than that.
So what is it?
What's happening here?

Corie (06:36):
I think they're hearing that in the soaker as somebody
to songs and um, every song thatyou'll sing have something
happening behind it.
It happens to when you meetanyone of y'all from the band,
so different though you all,have a bunch of people who, if I
had to pick a crew, I don'tthink I could have picked all
you, so so everybody's sodifferent.

(06:56):
Yeah, yeah, but when you listento the music, something deeper
happening or an intruder musicand I'll just give everybody
some advice.
I know you said the 20 secondsis the next tight spaces.
Yeah, don't reach late becauseMohamed will put you on the spot
he's not putting you on thespot.

Muhammad (07:10):
I just say, no late, shaming is what I was saying you
can't say that.
They can't say that we'retrying to sneak in, walking
directly through the crowd so Ijust want to stop, not awkward
for you okay, thanks, sir, Iappreciate it.

Corie (07:23):
As I said, man, I sit down in my car.
Do you think?
Say it's starting eight?
I say right, or walking eight.
That was a bad idea.
You lady at the door say thedoor just close a sec, okay oh,
you reach right then.
Yeah, you were right and as Iopen the door, as I open the
door, you, you ready, that'slike, oh, I should not come here
and so gain, get settled.
But it's a, it's a hell of ashow, something I appreciate as

(07:43):
well that you do, because I feellike if our, if I, was just a
limit to the carnival space, oreven you don't see it anymore.
You don't see performanceswhere you could see the
performer or be as close to theperformer as you are, yeah
vulnerability is a dying artamong artists, especially in our
region.

Muhammad (08:02):
Here, you know, the way that we approach things is
is killing certain parts of usbut we don't really realize.
And then, when we kill thoseparts of us in ourselves and we
don't manifest them in the art,the next generation picks up the
art and, unless they have somekind of an intervention, they
create the same type of art in away you know what I mean and it
kind of passes down Um, can Ipass this down?

(08:26):
Um?
The art is supposed to be ofthe people, supposed to be
listening to what the peoplegoing through, offering them a
reflection of themselves butalso offering them a way out,
you know, um, easing their painbut also showing them where the
pain come from so they couldstop the pain ultimately.
All of that, and you can't dothat if you, if you're always on
a stage that's about 20 feethigher than where the people are
.
You know, I was talking tosomebody yesterday and saying
how crazy it is to me.
I don't fit generally, right,but as a, as a form of well, you

(08:51):
know, research, I would saythat I cannot deep with but that
too, but liking to get out, butalso research right.
So you go there and I went to acouple this carnival and one of
the things that reallysurprised me was where the
general is.
Like it would be any vip stagefront thing and then they'll

(09:12):
have space behind the largecrowd in the vip sometimes and
then you look back there andthere's a fence.
It's kind of dark and then youwalk up to them.
You realize that there arethousands of people behind this
thing.
What that doing to us like welaugh about it and bungee said
you know, um, you remember whenthe uptown massive and the
downtown massive had no fencesto separate?

(09:33):
When I hear that I just feelsad in my chest I don't remember
that time I never was a fetterin all that right but yeah,
we're doing something that we

Corie (09:43):
don't really realize how dreaded it is I want to go back
to vulnerability before I get tothe offenses.
But when you sayvulnerabilities are dying,
you've been on behalf of theartists.

Muhammad (09:51):
Being as vulnerable as this is to perform in a small
space yeah, absolutely, becausenow these people they're looking
at all your little microexpressions, they're looking at
you know, do you really believewhat you're saying?
Because it's hard to put on ashow in a in that much of an
intimate session.
It's not a show anymore.
You really believe what you'resaying?
Because it's hard to put on ashow in that much of an intimate
session?
It's not a show anymore.
You're just telling you know,it's not a show.
This is not a show, an acousticthing where somebody is

(10:14):
literally sitting down six feetin front of you and you have 50
people in a room.
You can't escape.
You cannot run behind costuminglights, nothing.
You cannot run behind costuminglights, nothing.
Two guitars, three supportingsingers and one lead voice what?

Corie (10:31):
are you doing?
Completely exposed?
Where are you?

Muhammad (10:33):
going and now you have to give something else.
What are you offering in thisspace?
It's not spectacle.
So what are you offering?
And really what it is ishonesty, but Jesus Lord.

Corie (10:46):
Sometimes you don't feel to do that.
I'd ask him about that, though,because for that, that level of
vulnerability and, as you say,that honesty with the audience,
soka is a genre that, more andmore, is seeing less people like
yourselves and more peoplewhose songs are written for when
.
When a song is written for you,you feel it has the same effect
or you could perform it withthat level of honesty.

Muhammad (11:17):
I wrote every single word for Feel you Love right,
and a part of me thought that Icould progress like that.
But when you get to a certainpoint, one, it becomes kind of
almost physically impossible todo if you have other things
going on in your life, if youwant to produce a certain amount
on a certain level.
But what I've really learned isif you talk into a nation,

(11:42):
there is a part that you have togo in and search in yourself
and and give a message.
But it's also important tocollaborate, because many people
feel many different thingsabout the same thing.
So when I sit down on this mevonmyself, kit and lou as four
grown men in a room who've allexperienced take me home, for
instance.

(12:02):
We've all experienced that indifferent ways.
So I remember we had gotten upto I'll cross any ocean to find
it, the one I know, mountaingets in the way um, come across
the water into the fire.
And we were stuck come, okay,what next?
And then lou said I know thatmy heart will show me the way
and I'll always remember thatmoment.

(12:22):
So would we have gotten thatline, if you know?

Corie (12:27):
If you try to do it on your own.

Muhammad (12:28):
Yeah.
So I'm saying there's a levelof pride sometimes with artists
and I was there where it's likeI write all my songs, right,
okay, but for who?
And if there's ego involved inthat statement, they had to be
real careful.
So I think that someone caninterpret something that is

(12:48):
written as deeply as it wasintended and maybe even deeper
If it resonates with them.
The problem is that a lot ofwhat is being written isn't
being written for anybody.
Anybody who wants to reallyinterpret from their personal
type of experience.
It's.
This is what the crowds want.
Yeah, so I'll write this foryou because I know this could be

(13:09):
popular, but, as opposed to, Ihave a personal experience of
this and I'm so sure well, Iguess it would come down to song
selection as well.
For a space like that, you'rereally choosing songs that you
that's what people who have beensuccessful at having writers
that's that has been their thing.
You know, um, when you look atpatrice roberts catalog, she's
good at and embodying it rightand also embodying it right.

(13:32):
So she have a singing sandrabedrock of energy and a
something else on top of it andthat's what resonates with us.
So she's able to sing um,father, bless everybody in this
party.
She could give me that and atthe same time, she could give us
other things, of course.
You know, I mean, um, and shehas the authority because of how
she carries herself, yeah, andso it is possible for people to

(13:54):
embed, to embody it on a certainlevel, but that has to be the
intention from the jump funny.

Corie (13:59):
You say singing sandra.
She was one of them whoembodied it because, like for,
for instance, voices of theGhetto.

Muhammad (14:04):
You can't tell nobody that Sandra did it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie (14:06):
The writer, yeah, yeah yeah, doggy Slot, who was the
writer.
Sometimes it looks like, okay,how did that come together?
But yeah, you can't tell.
She writes in it every time shegoes on a stage.

Muhammad (14:15):
You can't tell Because she who feels it couldn't sing
it.
Yeah, I would imagine it wouldnot connect that way.
No, when we see singing sandra,we saw mother, we saw wisdom,
we saw take care.
Here we saw somebody whounderstood our pain and went
through what you know, I mean,right.

Corie (14:34):
So, yeah, yeah, embodying is something that is down to
intention, I think so before Iget into freesown and where that
started, I was against yourearly life.
I'm a boy born and grown in stjames right, and on the other
hand, you were born and grown inSt James too.
You live close to me, a fewblocks away from me.

Muhammad (14:50):
Yeah, St James, you say St James.

Corie (14:52):
Yeah, I claim it, you know.

Muhammad (14:55):
I was born in Caranage , oh you were born in Caranage,
I'm trying to claim you as a StJames man.
Upper School Street in Kailan,Right.
My father was born when myfather grew up on School Street
Right and there was a riverUpper School Street and when he
got married to my mom I know hisbrother, my uncle deceased they

(15:18):
went up there and they wereplanting and stuff and he built
a board house up by the river.
No running water, no lights.
One of my earliest memories isseeing this man digging a
cesspit by himself, bathing inthe river with a fire hose.
He was a giant of a man.
And, yeah, that's where I wasborn.
I was born in Caranage when Iwas about four years old.
Maybe we moved from there andwe moved to the number one

(15:41):
Mukurapo Road, St James Jamaatal-Muslimin Muk, and we moved to
number one Mokorapo Road, StJames Jamaat al-Muslimin
Mokorapo Road.
I don't know if you can saythat in St James, Maybe all I
did is say James yeah.

Corie (15:48):
St James too.
All right, I grew up right onthe opposite side of that
cemetery, that's facing here.

Muhammad (15:52):
We used to be jumping in that cemetery and picking
dongs.

Corie (15:55):
The cemetery was home.
Yeah, a lot of people are.
I hear people talking aboutsymmetry and even in this thing
that happened kind of symmetry.

Muhammad (16:03):
So comfortable.

Corie (16:06):
Later on in life I went Fatima too, so all my friends,
other friends.
I had to go Fatima St James,like Compre Junior, so it's
always a me to walk through thiscemetery.

Muhammad (16:14):
It was, and now it's seen as this yeah, we buy a lot
of stories that are not ours andthat's not ours, and that's
again coming back to theimportance of the art.
We bought a lot of thingsthat's not ours.
It's okay to buy things that'snot yours, but when you begin to
believe that they are yours,you know what I mean.
Like you could buy it, but Ididn't make that.
That's another man's story.

(16:36):
I like it.

Corie (16:37):
It's a cool story to tell rules and Halloween and all
that, that, but I know we should, of course we believe in
ancestors.

Muhammad (16:42):
We believe in life after death.
We believe life doesn't end.
This is what we believe, theother man's story.

Corie (16:47):
We buy a lot of them things yeah, and sometimes at
the expense of our own things,like I was talking in a
marketing class the other dayand a student brought up organic
fruit, something he's like.
Bro, what are you?

Muhammad (16:57):
talking about organic brother.
What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?

Corie (17:03):
they say organic and thing I say alright, I mean
mango, we just pick in theneighbour yard and free range
chicken, I say come and foul.

Muhammad (17:12):
I remember somebody when I was younger decided to go
to another primary schooltalking about the same thing and
picking dungs in the and belike were you eating that, that
tree feeding on dead people?
I like cook.
Is it best fruit?

Corie (17:32):
is it best fruit?
I always remember a randomstory, right?
But um, uh, leroy Clark, who ishis family, is close.
There's he was there in theshow, matter of fact, there's he
and I.
There's my son's godmother, mywife's, one of his best friends,
you know, when I met himthrough my wife and so on, and
she was pregnant, he told usbury the afterbirth and plant a
fruit tree.
Yes, yeah, you know what I mean.
So that is the best kind ofdongs, you know.

(17:55):
So, yeah, I guess you're right.
Like sometimes we lose some ofthat sense of who we are and
where we're from and thosethings.

Muhammad (18:01):
And again, the artist is on the front line of that
battle because culture, cultureis the border right and the
thing that holds you andseparates you in a good way from
the rest of the world is whatidentifies you as you.
And in this world ofglobalization and this kind of
homogenized culture that we getit from TikTok and all that,
what defines you as you isculture, and the artist is on

(18:22):
the front line of defining whatculture is and redefining what
culture is.
You know what I mean, of course.
Yeah, the artist is the onewho's warring on that front line
.

Corie (18:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, people don't see it because some of
those even in the song.
We come in and hear a song thatyou work on a year before, two
years before, you're pushing itforward all the time.
Yeah, so One Mokorapo Road,what was life like growing up
for you there?
Like that's a taboo thing forplenty of people to talk about
during that era, you know.

Muhammad (18:48):
What was it like for you growing up there?
Number one, mokorapo Road, wasan Afro essentially Afro-Muslim
community of people who believedin doing good.
So there was a doctor doctor'soffice at that place.

(19:10):
Um, people could come for care,sure?
Um, there was rehabilitationservices at that place.
Every day food was cooked.
People used to come off of thestreet and know you can get food
here.
Anybody who had any issues inthe community, anything that
they needed, they could come tothat place.
This is the part of the storythat isn't told, because when we
hear Jamaat al-Muslimin, wethink big and bad Muslim take
over the country and what haveyou.
But the reason why the Jamaatal-Muslimin had so much power on

(19:33):
the ground is because they usedto look out for people.
Every Friday, hundreds of mealswere cooked and we and would go
into Port of Spain and hand outfood to people.
I can't tell you how manycommunity disputes were dealt
with quietly out of the courts,you know.
So people didn't have to go.
I talk about everything fromstealing to murder, where the

(19:54):
community would deal with it ina way that's satisfied, because
right now, if a man get murdered, the police hold him, they
carry him to court.
It take 15 years for him to getwhatever.
He's the breadwinner of hisfamily.
How is that family being takencare of?
We call it justice, but abreadwinner was removed and now
our family is left alone.
Who is paying that?
Who is filling that gap?
Justice is not what we think itis, and so the Jamaat

(20:16):
al-Muslimin was a place wherejustice was offered to people in
a different way.
When you have an organizationlike that, it's very difficult
for the law to deal with them,because they're operating
outside of the purview of thelaw, which is rather strange.
They're offering justiceoutside of the purview of the
law.

Corie (20:32):
Yeah, defining community, but it goes against what the
state wants to define communityactually.

Muhammad (20:37):
My father and they.
Some of my earliest memories isseeing my father, you know, put
on his weapons and they'd goout in the night and they would
go into these communities wherethey had drug dealers and thing
and they would go and you know,they would go before and they
would see these men and them.
Yo, we can't sell drugs in thecommunity.
And my father told me when hewas alive he said they would
offer them different businesses.
You could do this, you could dothat, you could do that.

(20:59):
If you don't want to do that,we come in for you of, of course
, take your drugs, I'm going totake your money.
They would destroy the drugs,right.
And it got very complicated, aswe know, because the way that
the thing set up is not just thedealers that run in things.
There's many, many layers, andso people began to personally
come for people and whatever.

(21:21):
One of the Jamaat al-Musliminmembers, abdul Karim, a young
man who was going to UWE at thetime he was going to St James to
buy a roti was held by twopolice officers and they said
that while they were walking himto St James police station,
somebody jumped out of a taxiand stabbed him over 20 times,
right, yeah, that case wasactually won by his wife later
on and whatever.
But these were things thathappened, you know.

(21:41):
We were told as young boys, ifthe police stop you and they
tell you to run, don't ever run,lie down or whatever, but don't
run from them.
You know what I mean, becausethese were the kind of we were
victimized at that point in time.
And so living in that communitywas me understanding that there
was a world out there that wastroubled and that it needed
assistance of good people toright itself in the smallest

(22:04):
ways and in the largest ways.
And that's what our communitywas to me.
It was mothers, where everybodyis everybody else's child.
We didn't make any distinctionbetween families.
Nobody would go hungry.
If I had something, it wasyours.
That's how it was.
You know what I mean.
But that community was alsoheavily persecuted.
Every week the police wouldraid, you know, and drag all of

(22:25):
us outside and everybody lyingup in the mosque and whatever.
We were so young, you know, wewere watching the guns and
things and it was a game for us.
What kind of age were you then?
I was under six years old, youknow.

Corie (22:35):
So you just was in a country.
It was six when they grew up.

Muhammad (22:36):
once we were watching guns and die my gun it's life,
it was only after the coup Irealised that guns were illegal.
A lot of the things that washappening.
I didn't understand thatconcept.
So life was life.

Corie (22:50):
I understand.
I appreciate you going in depthwith that because it's
something that, as a little boygrowing up in St James, all of
us who grew up in St James havea different definition and
understanding of what that waslike.
One of the things that is akind of juxtaposition, and you
know David Rattle here the otherday he had sung that 1990,
followed by well, the two songs,1990, and then who Say?

(23:13):
Who Say?
Real juxtaposition for us aschildren, because on either side
of that cemetery is Abu Bakr,on one side of the mosque there,
and then on the next side is ahussayat.
If you walk through both gatesyou're coming out right by a
hussayat or the corner ofclarence street and thing there.
And I used to I couldn'tunderstand.
It's the same thing you'resaying as a child, I just don't
understand it.
But this is muslim people,muslim people, peaceful, they of

(23:36):
community.
They're giving and loving andkind and they will help you.
Whether the help is is isdisciplinary or you need a
pickup, they will help you.
Whether the help isdisciplinary or you need a
pickup, they will help you andit was the same energy in both
spaces, except that you justused to.
You know, when you see the newsor you see what's happening,
because you're seeing policepulling up by one, but no police
.
How many people say that?

(23:57):
It's just a weird thing?
As a child, you couldn'tunderstand it.

Muhammad (24:00):
You see, there's the type of peaceful individual that
says my peace is rooted in myability to take care of me and
mine.
What happens in the world isnot my concern and that person
lives.
And they live until what'shappening in the world comes in
and disturbs their peace.
There's another kind ofpeacefulness that says that my
peace is rooted in the peace ofeverybody.

(24:21):
None are free until all arefree.
That type of peace is verythreatening to those who create
corruption and different things.
In the peace of everybody, noneare free until all are free.
That type of peace is verythreatening to those who create
corruption and different thingsin the world.
That peace is not the peacethat they want.
They want the peace of the manwho says I don't care what's
going on out there.
I handed me and my family andwhatever.

Corie (24:36):
And close ranks.

Muhammad (24:37):
Yeah, close ranks, but no matter how tight them ranks
close, something's going tosqueeze in there and cause
something.
So there has to be some levelof concern, at least for the
community around you.
And when that concern ismarried to an ideology like
islam that teaches us not tofear death, that teaches us that
oppression is worse thanslaughter, that teaches us
different things.

(24:58):
It's not that you're goinglooking for a fight.
It's like 50 say I don't wantto look for a fight if you bring
it to me.
Of course you know I mean likeand nobody going looking for the
fight, but we born into it, youknow.
I mean, let's say I was born ina system that doesn't give up
about you or me or the lives ofour little children.
We sit down singing this shit,but it's reality for you is what

(25:18):
it is.
That is the reality, and so Iwas born within a community of
men and women who decided right,I see the wrongs, I'm going to
talk about them, I am going toact on them.
In Islam it says if you seesomething wrong, you should
reach out and try to stop itwith your hands, and if you
don't have the strength to dothat, you should speak about it,
and if you don't have thestrength to even do that, you

(25:39):
should hate it in your heart,and that's the weakest of faith.
That's our philosophy.
You marry that to the ideologyof community and the ideology
that peace doesn't exist unlessit exists among all people, then
you have a problem on your hand.
But if you really examine mostnative cultures and cultures
that are rooted in community,that is the idea you'll find
those similarities.

Corie (25:58):
Yeah, yeah, so that's what I'm talking about.
For instance, I have manycorner dengue street and
anderson streets.
I grew up two houses from there, so I used to see the jammer
used to come up every year innumbers.
That's right, go to that spotto pray all the time.
So again, just observing itthrough a child's eyes, you're
trying to understand what it is.
You know, everybody come up,everybody's so serious,
everybody so.
And even 1990 was a shockingthing for me because you, just

(26:21):
you don't understand everythingthat happened.
All I remember is that Ithought it was a parody.
I just see somebody on tv thenight and they're talking.
I say, boy, finally somebodymaking some joke with the news
and them kind of things.
But at that point you are child, just experiencing it.
You, you only you on in mygrandpa when that happened no,
my grandmother, we sitting onthere.

Muhammad (26:40):
My mother didn't know, nobody knew.
I see news come on and imam onthe news.
The imam is like a father toall of us.

Corie (26:47):
He's the imam.

Muhammad (26:48):
He's like this mythical figure to us right so
the imam on the news and he'sseeing brother Hassan and
brother Kala and people like youknow they're on the news so we
make it annoying.
My mother, like, hush, shut up,go inside, like what going on,
of course.
Then all of a sudden the whole,the whole atmosphere becomes

(27:08):
tense.
What's happening?
Like?
What is actually going on?
You know, my mother, I rememberso.
In in islam, you, you getburied in a white shroud, pine
box, white shroud.
It don't matter if you have abillion dollars or whatever.
So my dad had his burial shroud.
He gave it to her.
She had it right.
I don't know when she got it, Idon't know how they, but she

(27:29):
didn't know what was happening.
But she had it and she washedit and had it hang up on the
line in the back of the yard.
And I remember when theexplosion went off in TTT.
Hmm didn't expect that way, hmmhmm, yeah, corey, you're digging

(28:06):
up things, not on purpose yeah,boy, when the explosion went
off in ttt she had it washed andI was hanging up on the line
and it was like I was only six.
But it became real real.
It came real real at that pointin time like yo shit so your
granny?

Corie (28:24):
then the whole scene is where so yeah, you're hearing
that bro we see in the fire ofcourse, st james was the same
experience.

Muhammad (28:30):
We're seeing everything we're hearing
everything TTT's right there onMaraval Road as I walk across
the savannah no boy.
And so it's like all of asudden, as a child, it become
real, like shit we in danger.
You're hearing that the policeon top the Hinton snipers and
they're looking for all of thefamilies.

(28:51):
So I remember we realized atone point we had to leave from
Belmont and my grandfather.
We got a place to stay in,maraca, st Joseph.
My uncle had a place with abush in the back and he was like
you could come up there andpick up Uncle Larry, and my mom
had to take off her hijab and wewere in the car.

(29:12):
I remember she was, we were inthe back seat and she was lying
down behind the seats there wewere going up, you know, and as
a child you kind of still don'thave a sense of what it is.
But yeah, we were basically inhiding for like a year and
something of.

Corie (29:28):
Of course, for younger people who might not understand
what was happening in the coup.
The armed forces at that pointwas any Muslim, so the hijab
would have been dangerous.

Muhammad (29:37):
Yeah, I mean, there are stories of families who got
taken down to Tetron.
You know, boys who were olderthan me and things questioned
and had guns put in their mouthand all kind of thing.
You know.
It was a real dread time and Iunderstand what.
What was happening, what wewere doing, what did you matter
muslim did?
It was dread so the responsehad to be dread too.

Corie (29:56):
I'm not saying that it was you know, but, man, what a
time yeah, of course, of courseof course and we had a point
where you know you hope thatmore and more people tell these
stories a moment, because everyjuly 27 there's a expose, a
documentary or whatever is here.
It's only time where peoplecome and tell.
But I do feel as if sometimes,as a boy grew up in st james, I

(30:18):
always feel like if, okay, Imean again both sides of this
story and sometimes all right,so cooler heads prevail.
Plenty years pass, plentypeople not here who was involved
in that?
No, no, it is a good time tostart to explore.

Muhammad (30:31):
Yeah, it's funny, like I, that we should be gay.
I didn't think, for whateverreason.
I didn't think we would gethere, which is fine, though, but
last night, or night before, Iwas thinking to myself that I
have to.
I need to go on my Instagramand I need to curate some
stories about this and get someof the people that I know to
talk about it as well.

(30:52):
Just from perspective rightbecause this is a part of our
national treasure, it's a partof everything that we have to go
back and review the tape andsee what we did or didn't do,
because I don't think, I'm notsure that we learned the lesson,
I'm not sure that we learnedthe.
There's always the possibilityof it being repeated and the
problem with that is that Idoubt that it would be that
organized if it happened againyeah, yeah, yeah Well, at least
you're not seeing any.

Corie (31:12):
There's no movement, at least not visible to people.
No, and that is not the answer.
No, of course it's not theanswer.
Yeah, well, I mean, you do agreat job on your Instagram.
Them a stories.
I mean, granny, you have grannygranny's a whole superstar more
famous than I am she gave me afamous attitude and thing like

(31:34):
she let me know she's on charge.
She's a star she don't knowwhat instagram is no so she wait
, she have no idea.

Muhammad (31:41):
Really, all she knows is that when she go out, people
just, and sometimes she's justlike why.
All these people know me, ofcourse, what's happening, you
know why, but, but I'm realhappy for that?

Corie (31:52):
Yeah, of course I never thought of it from that
standpoint, Like she notconsider what happened on the
next and she just know yourecording To her.
It's just you and her.

Muhammad (31:59):
It is fun People on the camera and she's lighter.

Corie (32:03):
Nice, nice, nice.
That's why I'm giving her someattention.

Muhammad (32:05):
Yeah, right talking to her and thing whatever she just
said you know.
Yeah, it's nice to live througha era where we could document
these things yeah, well, that'sone of the main reasons that my
nieces I have two nieces thatreal young, you know, and they
she's not gonna live into a partof their consciousness for them
to really store who she is in acertain kind of way.

(32:28):
So I've captured these thingsfor me, for my sisters, for my
family, but those two littleones you know, and the ones who
may come, who might not be there, might just never know.
Her, yeah, of course.

Corie (32:37):
Yeah, of course this was our person.
Yeah, it's only the blessingsof social media.

Muhammad (32:44):
Like we could come up Again.
It's come like when you say ifsomebody could interpret the
song as well as it was narrated,who wrote it?
It was the intention.

Corie (32:51):
I got you.

Muhammad (32:52):
When you approach Instagram.
It was the intention.

Corie (32:56):
Now you're documenting that, just to step back a little
bit and that almost, like Iwould say I don't know if it's
natural or not, but it feelsvery natural, like storytelling
ability.
I wonder how much of it carriesthrough your writing now
because it's something that Ifeel like I was telling you
before we started.
I called lucas here and he wastalking about dollar wine.

(33:17):
Right, it's by far biggest, oneof the biggest songs in socal
and I was talking to him abouthow much of a story he told you
it had a thing she wanted tolearn to dance.
He's thinking to send fivesentences all the way to the end
of the song where she'steaching him how to wind up.
And I feel like listening toyour music or the band's music
over the last two weeks or so,just preparing for here, there's

(33:39):
a sense of story that lives inyour music and I feel like now
we miss some of it.
It feels like Colin describedthis as we have songs where
people put five hooks togetherand you love this song and
you're fed to it, but you can'tremember nothing about it.
So deliberate for you, or thisis just part of who you are the
storytelling part.

Muhammad (33:58):
It's well so.
Lou and I started off as spokenword poets.
Okay, a poet is nothing withouta story, like if a poem not
telling a story, what is itdoing?
A poem have a beginning, middleand an end, unless you are
purposefully trying to dosomething else.
And so when we transitionedinto music, we were storytellers

(34:20):
from the very beginning.
I love to transition was thefirst song that we ever wrote,
you know.

Corie (34:24):
So the band started with just two of you meeting and
connecting.
It was abroad because I hearyou talking about writing songs
in London.
We all met on Zoom it veryquickly went abroad.

Muhammad (34:32):
So we started the band in early 2010.
We kind of started talkingabout doing something and we
wrote a song together.
I had a song that he jumped onand then we wrote another song
together and we realizedsomething was happening.
And then, by August of of thesame year, we were invited to go
to london and, yeah, the restis history based on the song

(34:57):
performing as a band, based on,yeah, two songs that we had.
That people saw us performingthese songs and they were just
like yeah, there's a group of usthat went over myself, lou
keegan maharaj, who was one ofthe original members of freetown
collective as well, and thenTaharaka Ubika, who is in
parliament now yeah, he wasthere yeah he was a poet.

Corie (35:16):
I see, I did see him do some spoken word on a podcast
recently.

Muhammad (35:20):
Yes, I see we all went over and we did a show and over
there Lou and I wrote aboutthree more songs and we made the
decision to try to do somethingwith this.
When we came back home wedidn't know what that was gonna
be, but got it.

Corie (35:33):
Here we are and when you say you're saying, write songs,
but you're a poet, so you'resinging and thing at that point,
or you're just delivering alittle expo.

Muhammad (35:39):
Okay, yeah, lou was.
Lou was playing guitar andlearning and I was there to sing
learning to sing.

Corie (35:46):
So where does that?
So it was naturally likegrowing up singing and all that
kind of thing.

Muhammad (35:49):
I I grew up reciting the quran and I grew up singing
in the choir in primary school.
I see, um what primary schoolis this?
Um st joseph tml okay, gotchaand then I had an experience, um
with some, some boys in thearea I was living in in curie
boys.
The men unbended knee was outand I had a real high voice and

(36:09):
the man was like jokingly tryingto sing the song and me as a
boy of nine years old, closed myeyes and real singing because I
was singing, leading the choir,and when I opened back my eyes,
these fellas who I was lookingup to new you know, new crew was
having the time of their life,laughing at me.
Done sing, laughing, done sing.

(36:29):
I done sing, bro, I done.
That's it.
I tried to sing again insecondary school but I developed
such stage fright that Icouldn't.
I couldn't make it.
Yeah, when I was in CIC I triedto sing in a calypso
competition and right, a calypsoabout being bullied and
whatever, and go up on stagethere and choke out.
Yeah, and that was the day forthe career.

(36:51):
Seriously done.
Did not sing again until.
Did not sing in front of peopleagain until Free Town, until I
was 20, 26.

Corie (36:57):
So what?
What caused it to trigger whereyou could get over it to do it?

Muhammad (37:02):
A couple of things, but one of the things was I used
to drop brothers and sistersand them to school.
Sometimes I would take them tothe hike and thing and when I
picked them up in the car and Iput on the radio, they singing
all of these songs word for wordcar tell and thing, and that
bothered me alright, because Irealized yeah, they would like

(37:22):
my poetry, but I didn't have theaccess to them that music had.
So I said, right, well, that isit a, and I wrote a few songs
not very good songs and poemskind of mixed in, right, and I I
don't even remember what thosesongs were because I didn't.
It didn't stay for a while.

(37:44):
I just kind of wrote that forthem and I put it on a cd and I
probably was like two or threesongs I recorded by Corey
Corey-san and I gave them on myCD and she played it in the car
and sing, and within two weeksthey were singing all these
songs word for word and thatkind of.
I didn't, I didn't think topursue it at that point.

(38:05):
But then I wrote a song calledLove Trans transition and then
lu, who had love transition andhe was like I want to be on that
song and that's so how y'allconnect?

Corie (38:13):
because when they say he heard, we're all his friends at
the time yeah, yeah.

Muhammad (38:15):
So we had met in 2005, right um, at an open mic that I
was hosting, and he came in andjust blew me away.
I was like yo, this man,amazing, and we set up and talk
all night, and then I didn'tknow he was from Tobago we
didn't exchange numbers oranything like that, you know.
and then he disappeared for likefour years I didn't see him
2005.

(38:36):
And in 2009 I went to Tobago toperform and I performed this
piece and when I was done hewalked up to me and he had an
Ethiopian cross on a red, goldand green shoelace around his
neck and he took it off and heput it around my neck and he
watched me.
I said use that guy.
I said use that guy.
We've basically beeninseparable since then.

Corie (38:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, sometimes you watch your
favorite band and you just kindof hope that the members is
really friends.
But you know how it does gosometimes.
You know people just do our jobsometimes.

Muhammad (39:15):
It seems like, like you all are genuine, a genuine
connection.
Yeah, no, no, no, that's mybrother.
Yeah, that's a soul mate, yeahfor sure.

Corie (39:17):
Yeah, destined to find one another?
Absolutely, yeah, it benefitsus a lot.
I could tell you that benefitsus a lot.
Good, good, good.
And I was listening to I don'twant to lie to you.
There was an album I pulled uphere, yago and um, it was funny
when I saw the intro to it beinga nancy, because I felt like
you know the whole storytellingthing.
And then I hear Anansi, so thespoken word, it makes sense,
yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, that'swho we are.

Muhammad (39:36):
The music should carry something.
The intention shouldn't just beI hope they like it.
You bury things in there thatthey will find after you go on.
You know people will dig up andthey will talk about they will
write theses or theses, I don'tknow they're right.

Corie (39:56):
Yeah, I don't know the answer.

Muhammad (39:57):
Yeah, feces sounds so close to feces.
I don't know why I say that,but I feel like it's that
because english real messed upsometimes you just have to say
more than one thesis, more thanone thesis will be written about
.
How about?
But you know, like, because asong has the potential to live
forever and it also is a libraryin itself.

(40:19):
Yeah, you should.
You should create things thathave a level of depth that
people could draw from all thetime.
You know all the time you knowall the time they could just
draw from there's.
There's something about a songthat is perfect in the sense of
words are in and of themselves,failures.

(40:40):
All right, if you say water,yeah, what is that?
So, when you say water, there'sa library that opens up in your
head of all the things thatyou've learned about water.
What we learn in more and moreis that all of these things that
science has said, science isalso a progressive discovery of
our own ignorance, right, soit's just moving on.

(41:01):
Okay, that's not true.
That's not true, correct?
But water as a word is alibrary in itself, right.
So when you say water, yourbrain opens up and it offers you
all of these things.
Right, it offers you all ofthese things.
But we know that the word is afailure.
Probably the greatest failureof a word that we have is the
word God.
It totally fails to describeanything you know masculinity,

(41:24):
femininity these are allfailures that are trying to
describe things that haveextreme worth to us and value
and meaning right.
But when you marry the words toa melody and the artist now
kind of embodies their livedexperience of it, you have all
of these things happening, livedand embodied experience.
The word that is in and ofitself a failure but allows you

(41:46):
a certain level of lexicon, andthen the melody that ties it to
your memory.
Something happens when you mixall of those three things
together that does things tohuman beings who are essentially
flawed themselves.
But there's something thathappens there when you marry
those three things together thatare all just trying to ascend,
trying to to give something morethan themselves.
If the intention is correct andit's all mixed together in the

(42:07):
right way, it does something tothe human being so you're,
you're, you're right and like,even listening to the albums,
there's not, it's not.

Corie (42:16):
It's hard to say okay, freetown is this genre, because
I hear things that's somethinglike heavy rock.
I want to know who plays someof them guitars and them things
something like heavy, like rockdark scatter oh, that's what it
is on human.

Muhammad (42:28):
Go, listen to the end of human form.
There's the most.
Go and listen to the end ofhuman form.
Yeah, there's the most amazingguitar solo played by Dark
Scatter.

Corie (42:38):
Yeah, the solo sounds like Everything throughout the
song.

Muhammad (42:40):
I mean the solo sounds like a man who has been lit on
fire and is running through aforest to go and jump off a
cliff.

Corie (42:46):
Well, there's so much happening in that song we can't
tell you.
Like I'm walking around thesavannah and I say I want to
immerse myself in what yourguy's doing, I want to find that
space.
And boy, a song starts and Ihear dogs on the back.

Muhammad (42:58):
I nearly take off, yeah yeah, yeah, it's so real,
it's visceral, right.
Yeah, the mastermind, sheriffand lou, really masterminded
that album, the whole album.
Yeah, I did a lot of thewriting on that album and
sheriff and lou in terms of themusic but, sheriff really took
us under his wing at that pointin time and, yeah, I I believe

(43:21):
that what we did with that album, yeah, it was a contribution to
the history of philadelphiayeah, does he feel it right in
the dreadful place at this point?
You know we can always judge andsay you know this didn't get
what it needed or this didn't,or people didn't, but I don't
like to dwell on that.
When we released that album,space for a Heart went to number

(43:43):
one on iTunes for two weeks.
That's unheard of.
Space for a Heart is not a songthat goes to number one on
iTunes in Trinidad that doesn'thappen.
So we're real grateful for that.
And many things happenedthrough the course of that album
and what that music was able todo, that we're real, real
grateful for.
What that album will do in thefuture.
Will it reappear in somechild's hands 5,000 years from
now?

(44:04):
so they could understand thatCaribbean people had more depth
than what was sold to them bythe world.
You know like I don't know, butwe made it.

Corie (44:12):
It's there and that was important yeah, so you are in in
approaching that album.
You're not.
You're staying away fromanything, anything that's tiny,
down to anything, because spacefor us was also unexpected when
it reached the end of the albumis like who is this?
Yeah you know and I saw sherifftalking about you all
deliberately wanting to closethe album there- yeah.

Muhammad (44:30):
So we had all the songs and they were like we need
a love song, we have to closethe album, we need something you
know because the album startedoff on one, it started
aggressive, it started on one,yeah, yeah and, um, I had this
song that I had written onguitar and I thought it was real
cheesy.
Yeah, I came to the, I came tothe studio and I say, fellas, I,

(44:51):
I had.
You know, I feel in real, I hadsomething I know what.
And again, this is thevulnerability, right, this is
like a space that offers you thechance to to be this way,
because I have two brothers herewho not gonna laugh at me,
right, I come, you know thislove song and I, you know, I was
with someone at the time that Ireally love I can't say loved.
I love this person.

(45:12):
And I actually saw her twonights ago and I came with the
guitar and I sat down and Iplayed this and I was so shy to
play it.
I closed my eyes and I wassinging it, closed my eyes and I
played something and when Iopened my eyes, sheriff had
already opened up the session onLogic.
He started to record and andthing.
And when I opened my eyes,sheriff had already opened up
the session on on logic to startto record.
And how we recorded it was theytook the lights off or they put

(45:36):
the lights low in the room,they put a stool and they put
the mic down so I could sit downand they left the room and most
of that song, other than thechorus of course, was freestyled
.
So all of the verse I was bornto be a storm, all that those
things were freestyle at thatpoint in time, which is crazy to
me when I listen back to it,because of the depth that it
carries and what it means to me.

Corie (45:58):
But, um, love will do that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but
you were saying you didn'texpect it to be a wedding song,
like you didn't know where itwas going.
What?

Muhammad (46:05):
again.
It's like you don't know whatpeople are gonna do with what
the music when you put it outright we had never performed in
weddings before that, because wejust had music that was like
real revolutionary.
And then here's this songcoming along, bro, every time
wedding season comes around.
Now it's like three tongue inabout five.
But oh nice, yeah, every year itjust the song just resurges

(46:26):
every year around a certain timeand then it's quiet, you know,
and then somebody will find it,and it's a real beautiful thing
yeah, of course, of course.

Corie (46:33):
I mean the lyrics of the song is touching.
If you ever feel love or youwant to know why it's a good
song, like people should listento it.
You know, space for heart, yeah, space for heart, yeah,
powerful, powerful song.
The very surprising, because Imet you outside um by ozzy
herself, by ray's bar, when theywere doing some performances,
and I remember, uh, talking toyou about soca somebody.

(46:54):
So you're doing at the timecassandra being one of my
favorites and he's saying, well,maybe you're only doing soca
like three, four years now.

Muhammad (47:00):
You know literally, 2020 would have been the first
year that we really entered intothe foray, with, with um feel
the love.

Corie (47:07):
I wonder if that's the only business.
Surprise when you say that itfeels like you've been doing it
forever just because of how longthe name has been around and
that kind of thing well, we, weman, we've just been successful
at finding our, our, our space.

Muhammad (47:20):
And, you know, give god the praise for that, because
I don't have a formula for it.
No, your formula is be yourself.
The formula is when lu say hefeeling this go.
Go with it, and something inLou belly flip-flopping, then we
have something.
I could feel like we havesomething, but I don't fully
just trust that alone, because Ididn't get here on my own and

(47:41):
there's a feeling that thathappens Right.
So, man, if God say we going,we going, there, we go.

Corie (47:48):
So what was that?
Is that a choice, like you'resaying, um, we should do soca
because we're from here, becauseit seemed as though the initial
albums it was not.
It have a few songs, I feelwanted to head to soca a little
bit, but um, is that deliberatechoice at that point saying we
trainees, we should be doingsoca, we did a?

Muhammad (48:03):
song called where I am and released it like in the
middle of january or somethinglike that, because we don't know
nothing about carnival andreleases or whatever right.
Um, and that was the first timewe had like an intention of
trying to do a soca.
Okay, how do we sound as socaartists?
Because carnival is a spacewhere, you know, it's like our

(48:24):
largest cultural connection.
Everybody comes there to feed,to come to get something.
That's when we listen toourselves the most, it's when we
are most ourselves, it's whenall of the culture just kind of
comes together.
Nobody should miss out on that.
If you are Trinidadian, if youare Trinbigonian, that is a time
when you should accesssomething, because it is a
swelling of ancestral energy, itis a heightening of our sense

(48:49):
of self and the world sees thatas beautiful and we see it as
beautiful.
It's a time when we are open toourselves.
And, yeah, so we made adecision to not, you know.
And then ryan came along at areal opportune time and he had a
rhythm, um, that nyla wassupposed to be on and and kes
eventually came on and I wrotethis song for his soca brainwash

(49:10):
that year, which was supposedto be entitled wonderland.
So the idea was to write a songthat could encompass the thing
and the song was calledwonderland.
At first, when you see theoriginal demos and yeah, it feel
the love came out of that.
And once feel the love hit, itwas like well, you don't get
that gift.
And then turn away and say no,I don't want that and yeah, no

(49:32):
you know, we saw how we could beourselves in that space, and
that was the problem.
Before we didn't know how wecould go into that space and not
become something else rightthat we didn't want to be.

Corie (49:43):
Yeah, you know so when you said it become something
else you didn't want to be, interms of the ban on the identity
or the ban you mean, I meanterms of the message, in terms
of what it seems or what itseemed.

Muhammad (49:56):
You had to be in that space, Okay, you know.
So over the years we saw Voicecome up and do his thing.
We came up.
Now you have Mikal, now youhave treasure sorry you have
mccall, you have kutin.
I think it's showing youngerones that sukkah is not just bam
bam, rag, wave pen overwhatever.

(50:18):
It's more than that.
That is a part of it.
So we're not down crying that.
There's no self-righteous ofcourse, sermon, this is just,
there's this and there's thatright.
You know, I mean, back in theday we had balance, a beautiful
balance.
You had aloes and you had baron, who was the crooners, of
course, and we need croonersbecause you're speaking directly

(50:40):
to the hearts of the women andthe family and when you're
cooking your food sunday morning, and that's a part of the
nation that needs to be handledin a kind of a way.
So you have your crooners andyou have men like sparrow.
You know your your ultimate man.

Corie (50:53):
If you want to put it that way, any?

Muhammad (50:55):
direction.
Yeah, you know that, that, thatshango energy.
Right, you have that andthere's a balance there.
Then you have on the outliersof that, now you have your andre
tankers and your nappy myers.
You know the wistful souls, theTravelers and Returners.
You know those who live in akind of an in-between space but
affecting the culture.
Then you have your Shadows andStalins and Valentinos.

(51:21):
These men refused to go throughany other door than the door of
spirit.
This is the door they was goingthrough.
So you have men coming throughthe door of.
You know the crooners andshadow and spiral, but you have
now the spiritual men.
Yeah, you know the shaman ofyour time.
You need all of these things tobalance.
Somewhere along the line welost the balance.

(51:41):
Somewhere along the line welost the balance and there are
many stories as to why, but Ibelieve that the reason that
this year in particular felt theway it felt to everybody it was
unanimous that 2025 there wassomething about this kind of
yeah, for sure, that feltsatisfying and it's because we
had the balance well, you thinkis the.

Corie (52:00):
I was talking to somebody and I was asking them if you
know if it's just the first timewe come back out since covid in
full, but you see it as a youngbrother gave us greatest Ben
over, and that energy he'sdefining himself in that space
because people, as hackers,though, we don't need steam, but
we need the steam of course, ofcourse, we need that energy,
and you have Teja existing inthis kind of spiritual space as

(52:22):
well.

Muhammad (52:23):
You have Kutain, who is the rebirth of the kruna and
kes so we have our krunas back.

Corie (52:29):
We didn't have krunas for a while.
I'm with you.

Muhammad (52:31):
I'm with you, you have fritong, in a kind of space
where we're somewhere in betweenthe krunas and the spirit, but
really coming through the doorof spirit and you have your
heavyweights, then you have yourmarshals and you have your
bungees holding down certainaspects, it starts to feel
balanced again, like yourculture breathing.
You don't know what you'regoing to hear from Kuti next.

(52:51):
You don't know what you'regoing to hear from Teja or
Fritong, or from brother.
Anything can happen in thisspace, because remember brother
went in Calypso Monarch.

Corie (52:57):
Yeah, and hold it Impressively.
I watched that man on SkinnerPark stage which you talk to
some of the bads who sit downright where you are here now and
they tell you what Skinner Parkreally is and I watched that
youth he was in this life beforethat man walk out to the edge
of that stage and give that songand say goodnight Skinner Park.

Muhammad (53:14):
When you call your calls and when you decide to
answer the call, everything inthe universe conspires to make
you achieve what you want toachieve.

Corie (53:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He achieving it in in a space.
I like the.
I like the conversation aboutbalance.
It's something to contemplatebecause I always say the
audience tells you when we lackin.
So I remember early 90s when itwas heavily dominated by preach
writers like preacher, butsuper blue runny them first and
then dominating the space, butit gets to be a jump and wave

(53:43):
time.
All these songs are similarkind of code structure, similar
kind of message and you know,the instruction era was born in
Soka and people kick up a fuss.
The audience love it.
But I like the way you put it.
That's balance.
You saw it with the Bajaninvasion too.
The thing went so far in powerSoka.

(54:05):
That term didn't exist then.
But people wanted that Balance,balance, balance, and.
But you know that people wantedthat balance.
Yeah, and now bungee callingback for that balance.

Muhammad (54:12):
Nowhere, power seemed to be missing a little bit from
the yeah, we all have to look atthe culture as a tapestry and
we are all pieces of the fabricof this tapestry.
And when it, when it's hard togo over, you see a little hole
here, you say, well, all right,do I have the power to fill this
space?
No, can I inspire somebody togo off.
Where you see a little holehere, you say, well, all right,
do I have the power to fill thisspace?
No, can I inspire somebody togo and fill that space?
Because we need, we need moreengineers, we need some.

(54:35):
Yeah, we need some writers.
Boy, how come?
How come we don't have as manyfemale writers as possible?
What cause in somebody who dowe need to talk to?
How do we get into the like?
You know, that's what.
That's what it is.
As an artist, I think you havethis bird's eye view, and
anybody really.
You look at it and it's just.
You go okay, their space is tobe filled.

(54:57):
Where can I fill this space?
You?
know I have a random questionfor you know because of this,
but the space for youth you seein it emerging more in soca,
like I wonder sometimes, likeyou do see a whole lot of young
artists coming out all the timewe have a problem where there's,

(55:18):
there's, there's and I don'thave the exact description of
the problem, I don't have theexact prognosis, true, but
there's a meeting place of fets,promoters, culture, money,
something inside of there whereno one wants to take a bet and
no crowd has been nurtured towant to listen to the new Right,

(55:43):
right.
So where's the space?
Not just some random tent onthe edge of a forest Right?
Where's the space inside theculture for the ones who are
coming up?
I'll tell you one space Welcometo Freetown.
Over the last how many years wewere featuring Kootenai before
Trinidad realized what they hadRight.

(56:04):
Jimmy October has been there,annalie Prime has been there.
So we need spaces that are inthe mainstream, or at least
close to the mainstream, thatfeature the younger ones and
give them a real opportunity tocome out to show what they have,
to show that they're able totake the bigger stages and, if
they're not, at the point intime to give them the

(56:25):
opportunity.
It can't just be.
We have to realize that it isus that have to replenish this
natural resource, and a part ofthe replenishing of the natural
resource of artists is givingthe ones who are not quite there
yet, the opportunity to gainsome experience.
You could see it, they rightthere, and that one performance

(56:48):
in fatima, that one performancein, in, in, in veil, vibe or
wherever, might bring them out.
They just need a little thingto turn and realize oh right,
this is how you, you know, andI've been there for sure as a
new person into soca, I couldtell you, my turning point was
fatima this year, do you meanthis year?
No, no, in terms of performingin front of soca audiences right
as a whole different beast.

(57:10):
My turning point for performanceright in front of soca
audiences was fatima this year.
I don't know what happened, butI developed something that I
feel gave me a lot moreconfidence than I had before.
Okay, so there's a space forthem.
You know, they need to feelunafraid to reach out, and then
those of us who are in aposition to assist need to.
We can't answer everybody whenthey call, of course, but there

(57:36):
are those like when I met Kutin,I knew immediately.
I was like.
When I met Jimmy, I knew.
When I met Annalie, I knew, youunderstand, they have a youth
called Kilu right now coming up.
Yeah Right, they are youths.
Sharifa Salman.

Corie (57:48):
Yeah, sharifa, salman Salman.

Muhammad (57:50):
It's very simple and easy to see.
There's a youth called Tuflas.
There's a youth called Mahestiz.
There's a couple of them comingup who are doing things, and it
mightn't be directly in thevein of what you know.

Corie (58:05):
There's a youth um a girl .

Muhammad (58:06):
Her name is ella, real amazing voice.
She needs some voice, you know.
But balance.

Corie (58:12):
Yeah, of course, so with you balance.

Muhammad (58:14):
We can't all just be concerned with our own careers.
Our careers are fed by theculture.
Culture is fed by our careersin a symbiotic circular
relationship.
Every now and then, as thatcircle continues to draw itself,
it must be a kind of acentrifugal force pulling others
in.
Of course the culture continuesto be fed.
Otherwise what you'll have is amonopoly where you have 10

(58:34):
people were hired by everybodyand the circle among the
successful.

Corie (58:40):
Yeah, it against the form .

Muhammad (58:42):
Those people not necessarily even wanting in our
way to work as circles go.

Corie (58:48):
If you continue that way, the circle starts closing in on
itself, it closes in on itselfand then it dies.

Muhammad (58:52):
But also it loses context and it closes in on
itself and a wider circlehappening around it.
It loses connection with whatis actually happening.
So there's nobody in ChannelIsland Tobago who is in culture,
who shouldn't know the nameKutain, but some people do.

Corie (59:07):
And some people who are very important in the culture
too, didn't?
It's crazy.
Nobody should not know whoAnnalie Prime is.
Nobody should not know whoSharif Asal is yeah, but it
happened, but it happened.

Muhammad (59:18):
You walk into the offices of these people and
they're like, wow, who is this?
Well, they've been around forlike six years.

Corie (59:23):
People are doing shows, selling out shows, seasoned
performers, but it's funny andmy unsolicited opinion.
But when I heard Feel your Love, so when you all release songs,
it's almost confusing.
You don't know what to think orwhat to feel.
You know you like, like it, butit's hard to box in.
It feels very different.
Feel in love was the first time.
With that and even theconnection with Private Ryan, it

(59:44):
seems strange because you seeyou start seeing Free Town as a
brand, as almost a sort ofbohemian group who do in this
kind of you know, and then allof a sudden you hear Private
Ryan for a fet like Brain, whichwas as commercial as it gets,
but the song and I feel likethere's an opinion coming in
this more than creating spacesfor youth, I feel like that song

(01:00:06):
in particular and what you'veall been doing since then giving
youth permission to bethemselves in the space, the
whole point, brother.

Muhammad (01:00:12):
Okay, good, that's been the point from the very
beginning.
You could check back a millioninterviews.
The one thing, lou and I alwayssay, the whole point of this,
is to give people the permissionto be themselves.
Okay, good To realize thatthere are people out there who
are successful at beingthemselves.
I am not a party goer.
I am not by nature an extrovert.

(01:00:32):
Anybody in my family.
If you tell them, if you toldthem 20 years ago, that Muhammad
Muwakil was going to sing andbe on big stages performing,
they'd be like that quiet, no,quiet.
Little youth, you know, didn'twant none of this.
But what is wrong with that?
I will go up on the big stage,sing, share along, as they say,
or whatever, make somethinghappen in people and I will very

(01:00:53):
quietly go back in Belmont inmy little months you know, and I
will go on a little hike and Iwill be in the forest for a
little while and I this is me,but it doesn't mean that I don't
have something to say.
Of course I don't have to be theembodiment of wildness and the
embodiment of our fat cultureand drinking and liming all the
time and all.
I don't have to be that totouch the souls of our people,

(01:01:15):
our gri, griots and bads, peoplelike shadow and Stalin and
things.
People was recluse real plentytimes, you know brother says, so
you know he says a man inblanchettures, when people feel
like sitting down here, listen,I just trying to buy a piece of
land build a little nice littleboard, place on it a little
wooden house and be in my placepainting and writing and being

(01:01:36):
inspired, and to come out fromthere and to deal with the world
.
But I don't have to be theembodiment of the world.
As a matter of fact, I don'twant to be.
There's no desire in me to bethe embodiment of what the world
is right now.
It's like Leroy Clark used tosay all the time.
He said to lead them you haveto leave them.
He said it all the time as ayoung guy.

(01:01:57):
I don't really understand, butif you want to make a change in
the place, you cannot be likethe place.
And to not be like the placeyou have to be outside of the
place a little bit and observeit.
You know and observe it.

Corie (01:02:10):
So you're expecting that reaction when you did Soka the
first time.
When you finish your song, youknow you have something you
don't know nothing.
Yeah, you keep saying that.

Yeah, it's like praying.
You know, you believe thatthere is a God and sometimes
it's difficult with the sensesthat you've been given.
I know that this table is herebecause I could feel the table,
I could think, but you believe,you know.
So it's like praying.
A poetry song and you do yourbest, you know you do your best,

(01:02:41):
you write it, you try to listento what is existing and lean
some into that, while nottotally excluding who you are,
and I'm a poet.
So I want to put some poetry inthe song, but I know if I put
too much.
I'm going to lose people becauseI'm a man reading, you know
Kamal Braffet and Wilcox andwhoever, and didn't you know,
come out braffet, and yeah, wenot wherever, and you know

(01:03:04):
people not.
But that's me.
I enjoy that and I'm not goingto be shamed for that.
I like that.
Yeah, my brain real like that.
I love imagery and metaphor,complicated sentences and words
and thing, but I can't getpeople out just so.
So there's a lean in, you know,and lou definitely helped me to
strike a balance, and when wego in these rooms it's important

(01:03:25):
for the collaboration becausethat's where I find the balance
too.

Corie (01:03:28):
But, um, you never know, yeah, you never know yeah you
hope, you know and that's whatall the songs you, yeah, yeah
yeah, I thought midsection wasgonna blow up you know, every
man alive, without question.

When I listen back to it now, I see where I might have
um gone wrong in certain areasokay, not gone wrong.

Corie (01:03:51):
Yeah, but you could have done differently balance of
things.
Okay, okay, you know again,balances you with your passion
with you and the visual natureright, and from poetry to when
he say a laughing flame and themthings so Second Star asked me
about that line one time and Ithought that that was like a
literary term.

Yeah, I think I remembered hearing that
somewhere like a laughing flame.
Okay, so I went and I googledit.
It's not, it's nowhere.

Corie (01:04:16):
Yeah it stands out so what the hell?

I can't put this, but I don't know.
I showed somebody a picture ofit yesterday.
Fili Love was written on apiece of paper this morning.

Corie (01:04:26):
Well, you have it.

Yeah, I keep saying I need to frame it.

Corie (01:04:28):
Yeah, please, yeah.

But yeah, it's like I remember sitting in my room in
Belmont and sometimes I feellike if I breathe too hard, that
house will mash up and I justfeel like the energy just
spilling, you know, and thatfirst line came this city can't
hold me, like this whole town,this whole place.
And I thought about all of youtwo studying in different places
and have these big dreams thatcome from small places.

(01:04:51):
A small place can't hold a bigdream.
You have to shatter it.
You know, this city, literallyit was this place, port of Spain
it can't hold me anymore.
My vibes too high and in thatmoment and my heart it told me
jump right now.
You're going to touch the sky,not later, not before.

(01:05:11):
You will touch the sky, feel mylove unfolding, because that's
what's going to happen theexpanse of my love that I feel
for this place and for the worldand wherever you will feel that
unfolding like a laughing flame.
I don't know what that is, butI do remember there's this
cartoon, like a real old timecartoon, and there was this

(01:05:34):
little flame that was laughingand everything it touched it was
lighting up fire in this wholelittle room.
You know, maybe that's wherethe imagery came from in my mind
and everything I touched it waslighting on fire in this whole
little room, you know, and maybethat's where the imagery came
from in my mind, in mysubconscious, I don't know, like
a laugh in flame.
And then I had a little bit of adebate with myself over that
next line.
I didn't know what the linewould have been and when the
line all who did not?

(01:05:54):
know me when I done the gomunkind of cocky, and maybe I
shouldn't say that, but it endedup being prophetic in a way and
it made me realize that youhave to speak yourself into
existence, especially whenyou're dealing with music.
There's a you that you want tobe and a you that you want other
people to be, and how you wantto be seen and how you want to
be received, and you have tospeak that into existence.

Corie (01:06:16):
Sometimes you know I was wondering if that was where it
was.
Like freetown has been thereall the time and now you'll know
the name.
It was a bit of braggadociousbehavior.

It was like yeah, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna
do this.

Corie (01:06:28):
All who did not know we when we done, they gonna know we
name my experience with thatsong was playing mass with you
the morning and as I wasreaching earlier, if mass
starting 10 o'clock I recordedto 10 a 10, I'd be like it's a
job to me and I remember eachtruck, one by one, starting off
with that song in the morning,because it's an awkward time.
People still veryself-conscious, you know they

(01:06:50):
don't come out of your house,you know they say Adam and Eve,
they recognize your nakedness.
I think that's what ishappening, that awkward time in
the morning and the song.
I mean you hear any song, whole, kind of all at that point in
time.
But when it play on the truckson the road, that like that
morning it's like where's this?
And that feel he loves.
So when you said the city carehome, I always envisioned it as

(01:07:12):
a mass thing, like you're goingthrough certain parts of playing
mass.
I like St James because it'sspacious when you get to St
James, because it's spaciouswhen you get to St James, but
when you get close to theSavannah it gets so tight.
It's just what you'redescribing in Belmont.
I also want to ask you how areyou capturing what a mass player
is going through?
As a man who's not in that, butI understand now you're coming
from a different place.

Mass is a metaphor for life, right In some of the
greatest of ways.
Because of right in the, insome of the greatest of ways,
because of the reality that hasbeen created for us, we suspend
our true selves.
For the majority, most of us,for the majority of our lives,
and in their infinite wisdom,our ancestors created festivals

(01:07:52):
like pagwa, like carnival,knowing that the human being
needs these things to expressthemselves.
We go now and we make um, whatwe call it, these um, the, the
angry rooms where he's going.
But there were festivals.
Mass allows us to be our fullself, whatever that means.

(01:08:14):
So don't think bikini and beadsalone.
Think the dragon, of course.
Think the moko jumbie, thinkthese are all expressions of the
human soul.
Why do some people want to walkon stilts?
What is it doing for theirspirit?
What call them to do that?
What call a man to make adragon costume every year and go
out on your and and and?
What call a man to be a bat?
What call a man to be a sailor?

(01:08:34):
Something in him.
And so when I, when I write andI know that I want to put the
music in that space what I wantto do is really show people.
This space is life, and if wecould find the middle ground to
understand what it is, we areactually enacting how rich.

(01:08:57):
This is what this is supposedto be for us.
It's not just a street party.
You cannot say it all the time.
This is what this is supposedto be for us is not just a
street party.
You cannot say it all the time,minch.
You say it all the time.
This is a living ritual.
What is your intention?
Going into this ritual?

Corie (01:09:08):
I'm with you.
I have a hundred songs to askyou about the moment.
I end up keeping you here allday.
But they bring up mass.
So I want to talk about thatbecause I always say it's
unfortunate that we can'troadmatch by the stage and the
whole scene that goes into that,with a man wanting to win a
roadmatch for legacy's sake andso on.
I wish they could checkeverybody's serato and see what
was played most on the day,because everybody I know who

(01:09:30):
played Mass say it was Mass.
That's it Right.
It played the most on the roadas Masqueraders.
And I know what it felt likewhen the song.
You know what it felt like so,so Feel.
You know what it felt like, so,so feeling love felt like.
You know, like can you feel thelove?
That's why masquerade will feelthe morning like.
I just love these two yesterday.
Just be free or for me, but massfelt like it reset every single

(01:09:50):
time it reset the day.
Yeah, every time this song cameon it's like all right, good,
yeah, it's a refresh.
So you that, that idea, mass,come again.
You met some full for lifegoing into the writing of that
song too well, I can't takecredit for that full song.

I went by Tano to record something and we were
recording and I went to thebathroom and I was coming back
from the bathroom I heard Tanoplaying something on the piano
and I walked in and I said yo,what is that?
He said I just have Tishaworking on.
I said, no, that's why we comehere today, what is that?
So he started singing it for me.
I have a distant melody.
I was like, yeah, what was thereason?

(01:10:25):
No, I was like that song, meand Tisha are going to sing that
song yeah.
And so they had the majority ofthe lyrics written, but they
needed to be tweaked in someways.
The time a lot of the writerswas a little bit more carnival
based.
There was a lot more, you know,and so we pulled out some
things and you got lines like um, give them, the drum is thunder

(01:10:46):
now and that kind of stuff, youknow.
And then they had everything upto the woes.
So we were singing right up tooh.
And then I said, right, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

(01:11:15):
Something wrong with this spirit?
Boy, that song went, listen, II remember.
So they did a, we did therecording and then they did a
kind of a remixed it.
And they didn't really know meat that time so maybe they
thought I was a bit more kind offundamental and like purist,
right.
So they did a remix and tejawas kind of like he didn't know
if I would like it right, and wewent to an event together.

(01:11:38):
They sent it to me when I wasleaving and I'm listening to it
driving home and I knew thatthey were staying at the event
longer.
I just was going home.
Man, I pull up in front of myhouse, listen to this thing and
I jump back in my.
I stayed in the car.
I listen, listen.
I drive back and meet them.
Fellas there.
I say yo, that is it, yo.
I come out of the car, pull upparty song, blah, I do.

(01:11:58):
I ignore really that spiritlike that sometimes but that
song did something to me, boy.
That song, that song, yeah, andit just very, very calmly and
quietly work it way into theculture and take a little place
there, and it just forever musicforever in them.

Corie (01:12:14):
Yeah, that not everybody knows the song yeah, it's just
an amazing yeah must askmasqueraders, but the feeling on
your road was again I alwaystry to figure out like this man
was playing mass in her lifebefore.

Something like how you connect that they've done you
know I have had to play mass mywhole life.
I have not always been able tobe who I wanted to be, so I've
been masking and I've Ishouldn't say I've been playing
mass.
I've wanted to play mass withyou, or mask.

Corie (01:12:39):
I've wanted to play mask my whole life.
Oh, it's you, oh it's you.

I've wanted to take the mask off, so I know what it
feels like to wear the mask fora long time and I know the
desire of wanting to releasethat, so I know the desire of a
masquerader, even though for along time I was not a part of
this.

Corie (01:12:54):
Yeah, I like that.
Mask is life.
I had to tell my wife I don'tplay mass next year.

I'll make sure that she knows, you know.

Corie (01:12:59):
So Teja is another one who has been tapping into
something that, again, peoplewho to me here in some other
lives before, because he's founda like I consider why, doing
here a bridge, like Ideliberately try to space out
when I bring people here whocomes next so I could go men

(01:13:19):
from a certain era, men from acertain era, so that hopefully
some young people start tolisten to some of the older ones
and some of the older onesstart to listen to youth.
You know, and I feel like Tejataps into that in a way that is
amazing to me.
He sings songs so reminiscent,sometimes in his words,
sometimes in his feel, likeLorraine people have tried to do
remixes for Lorraine beforeit's hard.

You can't interfere with it.

Corie (01:13:38):
Yeah but he do one and that'll make lauren live forever
again.
You know we're explaining thatand I always you kind of listen
for what he's doing.
As you say, carne cultureforward.

Yeah, if you could manage to get out of the way,
meaning your ego is a block,your idea of what should be is a
block, all of these things.
You are made for a purpose andyou don't know what the hell
that is, but you're given giftsand as those gifts flow through
you, if you could get out of theway and allow this stuff to
happen, if you could purifyyourself in a certain type of

(01:14:11):
way, then you will get flownaway.
If you tell yourself I want tomake music to make money, you
may make money making the musicyou're supposed to make.
You know, but you also couldnot make money making music you
think will make you make money.
Just make what you're supposedto make.
Let let what is coming flowthrough you, fulfill its purpose

(01:14:32):
and it will provide for you, itwill take care of you.
But you had to be sincere andthat's what Teja has.
Yeah, teja has a purity abouthim that he's not trying to
impress anything on the music,he's not trying to impress
anybody.
He loves music and thereforemusic loves him back.
Oh, it's you.
And it doesn't always work thatway, and I'm not saying that
people who didn't succeed wasbecause they were pure or none.

Corie (01:14:53):
of that, Of course yeah, I'm.

That's a big part of, for me, what the approach has to
be.
Kutena's the same, yeah, same,yeah yeah.

Corie (01:15:03):
I don't know where he's come up with that.
Yeah, he's living in the bushand ground so young, you know,
but Feeling Love is one of thosesongs that tapped into that too
.
That was reminiscent of a song,dave Rudder.
He said there's magic chords.
He said those chords is a magicchord.

(01:15:25):
You see, when you play thosechords, people feel something,
and I was talking to you aboutit before we started, in terms
of approaching it, and you'retelling me that you know there's
some people's people havethings to say about the song.
My audience was saying hey,that's just a high mass remix.
Take me home, is what I mean?
Yeah, sorry, is this is thatjust a high mass, uh, remix or
just what was your thoughts onit?
Approaching it I?

I mean, we sat in the studio.
We didn't know what we weregoing to come up with.
Lou started playing some chordsand very quickly we realized,
oh, this is high mass chords.
So we had a decision to make atthat point Do we abandon these
chords and start over, or do wekeep going?
No, this is what has come.
That's good.
But what we were sure to do oncewe realized that there were

(01:16:00):
high mass chords was none of themelodies in that song are
borrowed from high mass in anyway and I challenge anybody to
go through that song and try andfind a melody in high mass.
That thing.
Yeah, I challenge anybody to gothrough that song and try and
find a lyric that is close tohigh mass.
We just realized that it wasthe same chords, which was
beautiful for me.
Yeah, I was like yo.
This is how you build on legacy.

(01:16:21):
Every other place does it andhas no problem.
Yeah, you understand, but forsome reason we like to be like.
I am very proud to be living inthe legacy of David, rudder and
Attila and Radio and all ofthem, stalin and Shadow.
God rest their souls.
I am very, very proud to beliving in their legacy.

(01:16:42):
So if you happen to hear theirmusic and my music, thanks, and
if it sounds deliberate to youat times, it is absolutely.
They will not die as long as Iam alive they will live on in
the music that we create.

Corie (01:16:55):
So, yes, but it's not a high mass remix and if you're
saying that honestly, you'reeither lazy or you're looking
for raps.
Well, yeah, I guess that's partof the thing I had to pay
attention to.
Sometimes people just wantanother rap.

That's okay.

Corie (01:17:07):
And that's cool too.
No raps by me.

Because I am not answering you in the comments.
I'm not answering your DMs.

Corie (01:17:17):
I'm not answering your reels.

I don't know raps man.

Corie (01:17:20):
So even in the like, when I listen to the two songs,
because again I just feltfamiliarity when I heard it, and
familiarity because again,playing a little bit of music
myself, I said, but this, thischord's feeling, you know.
And then I realized I said,wait, these fellas do that.
And one of the things I alwaysfind beautiful about High Mass
is the song almost have twodifferent themes.
So you sing the and he said hewas writing it from just being

(01:17:41):
in the Catholic church andknowing it have something there.
And then in the midst of it hestarted to say, oh yeah, hell of
my country, you know what Imean.
And when I listen to, take MeHome, it's such a like nation
building.
There was some things that youand Lou were doing with the
little drone fly out thing.
That thing was special, yeah,and the song just continued to
build and build and build andbuild and some.

(01:18:02):
There's some powerful lines inthe song in terms of just
connecting us to who we are thatcould or will connect to any
generation.
But I always wonder, like as awriter, how he has write all
that.
And then the most popular linein the song is ruby the beam,
bim, bim, right there, you know,I mean it's feel that way about
us all.
Right, like that's whateverybody.

It has so much lines, but then everybody waits until
here because, first of all, asfar as ruby bim, bim, bim, bim
yeah, you haven't written downpeople that was our placeholder
when we recorded the demo.
Serious, there was supposed tobe words there, um, and I was

(01:18:44):
playing this song for a friendof mine, chandra, and I was like
, yeah, I need to don't worryabout this part.
I need to say, and she's like,nah, see that, leave that.
There is Chandra.

Corie (01:18:53):
Maraj yeah, she said leave that there.

I said alright cool, um, and then we all agreed that
it should stay.
But it wasn't meant to be that.
No, it funny is like when theysay it about rhythm deep down
inside me, if you are fromTrinidad and Tobago, you

(01:19:15):
understand that immediately.
You hear the pan, you hear likeit is an unexplainable thing
necessarily to anybody elsewho's not a part of carnival
culture.
But if a man say, right there,like that is the rhythm inside
of right, so it is beautiful tome actually that people leave

(01:19:36):
all the words I just told you.
Words are failures.
This encapsulates somethingthat people you know.
I mean that people feel it'snot trying to tell you.
Well, you know, if you movethis way, you go, do this.

(01:19:56):
It's just saying thisexpression has collected emotion
and all is there.

Corie (01:20:05):
Yeah yes, you see them, school children sing that in
belmont.
Yes, bro, but they're waitingfor that line.
Yeah, that energy behind onyour right, that rhythm means
what it means to you as well.
I like the cultural context youput it, thanks the one that's
called hot fries.

Like you could have all the poetry and all the nice
parts of the song, but hot friesis what is sell when it comes
to business and food and things.
You had to have hot fries.
A man coming by here just forthe hot fries.
So don't give people all theyou know ting and spirulina and
whatever cool, no problem if youwant the thing, and I mean I
understand.
Hot Fries pay any bills you canhave releases.

(01:20:39):
A man like me.
I go and listen.
I want to listen to Jose wholeday.
He don't have no Hot Fries, butif you're writing me a song,
you'll remember Kit and Lou andMC and Nevan giving me Hot Fries
.
Alright, hot Fries, I like itand everybody shouting out
because up until that point it'sa nice song.
But then that offers you whatyou want the release.

Corie (01:21:03):
It offers you the space to jump out yourself yeah, you
know, and sort of forces you tolisten to the second verse,
which is powerful, absolutelypowerful, powerful.
So, um, affordable imports andthem.
Go pour you out there and aregoing into selfish time now,
because when you're talkingabout Conrad, come now where
Conrad, come now when Conrad,yeah, let him come in, let him
join.
But selfish question for meagain, that Lightman as a song.

(01:21:26):
You're telling a story thereabout any artist or anybody who
ever tried to do somethingArtist, business, person, know
what that is.
So the theme behind the song isyou basically saying Weak joint
are closed.

I make no money.
My grandmother watching me, mywife watching me, my wife
watching me, my sisters, mybrothers watching me.
Kind of funny.
She say I know it's music youlike, but, son, we have
groceries to buy and we can'tpay the light man with a song.
So I start to weigh out mychoices.
I try hard not to listen to thevoices in my head when they
tell me give it, give it, giveit up.

(01:22:03):
It's so easy.
You could get on nine to fiveand do something good with your
life, but all the while Ihearing you could be okay well,
that's some coming from boy,just real experience bro, I feel
an emotional, let's say, andthen we'll get back to you.
My grandmother, literally, I'mseeing her open the door to my
room, sticking ahead in my room,seeing me lying down as down as
a young man, in the middle ofthe day.
I know you already like thismusic thing.

(01:22:25):
It's not, this is a realconversation.
I understand that, but it mightbe time for you to think about.
So how are you going to eat?
You understand, I'm not goingto be around forever.
You understand the thing You'renot going to be in your
twenties forever.
You're not going to.
You're not going to be in your20s Forever, you're not going to
.
You know, and my grandma and melike On that bed going, it's
going to work, yeah, yeah,because God not going to lead me

(01:22:49):
To this place, and and Nah,it's going to work.
I have a mission.
I know I have a mission.
You want to bear with me.
You know, granny, yeah, you,yeah, oleg, gotta bear with me,
boy, I don't know.
Yeah, oleg, he's gonna suffer.
Trust me, he's gonna be alright.

Corie (01:23:02):
So said so done, so said so doing, so doing, yeah, even
better, even better.
So said, so doing.
That song Resonates.
You know, I always remember myfather Leaving corporate world
To go and start business and mygrandmother Telling him Boy,
rudy, you have to look for apension.
You know You're changing fromJob to job.

To just A very Trinidadian thing, trinidadian
thing, it's a world thing,you're trying to save you,
trying to protect you, but thenthey'll tell you that you should
admire People like Malcolm Xand you should admire Martin
Luther King and Steve Jobs andwhatever you know, but don't
walk in their shoes, god forbid.
Do not do what they did,however, look at what they did.
Don't do that Don't do what theydid to get there, because we

(01:23:44):
don't want to watch yousacrifice yourself.
That is could be shameful, butalso it'll hurt our hearts to
see it.
You know so much potential.
I was in civil engineering.
I do science my whole life,right.

Corie (01:24:01):
So I was destined to be that that you know doctor or
something.
Yeah, here we are.

Yeah, and they're saying it out of complete love.
It's love.
Yeah, love will tell you, donot follow your destiny out of
love.
But then you know what, whenlove begins to see the destiny
unfold, love has be so happy man.
Love does lose its mind when itrealized, yo, we bet on this
and it's working more are youhappy?

(01:24:23):
all right, there we go, it'sabundance time jesus all right,
we need yeah, you know, I meanto see my family now, how they
are, my sisters, my yeah,because I know that at one point
they were very worried about meyeah, I'm sure they feel proud
now.

Corie (01:24:37):
I mean they, they might, they're here for the journey.
Good good.

Free time for life.

Corie (01:24:41):
Oh good, congrats on that .
That is good, because I thinkmost it's so easy to listen to
that voice, sometimes the voicecoming from within, much louder
than granny voice, you know,saying groceries are to buy.

Nah, boy.
I'm grateful that that voicefrom within never told me it was
difficult.
And there were times when itsaid you're mad over you know.
But it never said stop, it justquestioned my sanity, yeah, but
it never.
It never say nah, yeah, give upon it.

Corie (01:25:09):
It never say go and look for something else yeah, you
know, culturally we have alittle bit of a finished product
syndrome.
You know, people see it whenit's done.

The only time I ever considered, the only time I ever
considered going to find a work, a work.
I had read this girl.
I was going to get married andmy father had connections with
Wassa.
I used to work Wassa.
I resigned Wassa to go UU at 21.
I was always mad.
Even that's something like.

(01:25:37):
You know what I'm saying?

Corie (01:25:39):
I resigned up to work in WassaA to go uni and pursue
other things because.
I wasn't in my life.

Yeah, that was the only time I ever considered
going back to get a job, becauseI was like boy, I could drag me
on this journey.
I didn't want to drag nobodyelse on that journey, which is
probably one of the reasons whyI'm not married.

Corie (01:25:56):
I see, I see, yeah, yeah risky journey, but what's it?
I mean, if it paying off foryou and it paying off for us is
win-win, you know is is allthere now, soca and that kind of
thing is something that, as yousay, had the calling for it and
it's inside you, is somethingyou're thinking of continuing
doing and you're gonna continueworking on yeah, I mean again at
this point we have anopportunity to influence the
culture in a way.

What's dangerous is it has a way of sucking you into
its cycle and then putting youon the track to perform at all
these carnivals and whatever,and in doing so, if you're not
careful, an artist like myself,um, you could lose some of your
depth and your substance.
You could lose some of the loveyou have for the art form,
because when you start to seethe side of the business side,

(01:26:37):
that's not very pretty.
And so the prayer really is youknow, father, allow us to, to,
to be a part of the culture inthe way that you see fit, in a
way that continues to honor usand honor our ancestors and
those who came before um, tomake the statements that we need
to make, to talk about thethings that we need to talk
about and to continue to inspirenext generations, who feel as

(01:27:00):
though you don fit into themainstream idea of what it is to
be a Soka artist or to be anartist from Trinidad.
You know we still want to writeSpace for Hearts type songs,
and Hoshun type songs and when IAm type songs and you know,
expand the borders of what?

Corie (01:27:16):
already exists.
Yeah, you were telling me.

As we wrap up, you're saying that, uh, the reaction to
that in performing in europeand so on, is yeah, I mean, it's
a song that just is just diveinto your chest and start
swimming around looking formemories and things.
You know, it's just one ofthose songs.

Corie (01:27:34):
It's yeah, I'm very proud of you writing on that song as
well yeah, the completeness ofthe song too, because I saw, for
some reason, something hadhappened when you were doing the
tight spaces and there was asong that you all said you were
going to do, and then you kindof skipped the song yeah, and
then you did it in the end andit turned out to be a show in
the end.
I saw it in that space.

It's something else.
Yeah, very, very proud of itsong.
I have a goal in my head I wantto perform motion and affect.
This is what I was gonna askokay, okay I want to be able to
create a space where people knowthat when we come on stage, I'm
going to give you anopportunity to feel something
you're not going to feel in fromanybody else.
I'm going to give you anopportunity in this mad space

(01:28:15):
here, and I think I, man, I wantto do it so bad?

Corie (01:28:20):
yeah, glad, glad to hear that, though.
Yeah, glad to hear that,because you talk about young
brother.
When I get him here, I go askhim, but his caliber is so, so
powerful.
I wondered why, and maybe it'sjust his fat space.
You know, you don't have thetime, but if he had performed
that in some fat, that wouldhave rocked them fat Again.
Going back to men talk aboutHaiti.
They used to sing Haiti, I'msorry, not fat, fat.

So the space is there, the space is there, it was
there and it's still there, butit just we don't even know that
it's in us, right?
You know, like Take Me Home, ithasn't really been a song like
Take Me Home for a very, very,very long time For a song like
that it does.
It says something about us as apeople.
We're ready.

Corie (01:28:59):
We're missing it.
We're missing it.
You talk about the balance whenwe start off.
We're missing the balance.
We're ready.

Yeah, we're beautiful.
You know, we've been told thatwe're one thing, but we're so
many different things and we'reready.
We're ready for more.

Corie (01:29:11):
As you talk about different things.
How uncomfortable are you, if Iright?
But when I compare you to DavidRodd as a fan, what's your
comfort level with that?

I mean, who doesn't want to be a giant?
Who doesn't want to be able tostand and say I represent these
people here, they're proud of meand I'm proud of them?
Like, yeah, who doesn't want?

(01:29:43):
And to be compared to a giant?
Yeah, I don't have any, I'mproud of that.
It means that I have done acertain level of work internally
and externally and that I havenow the opportunity to continue
the legacy of a giant, becausehe left the work at a certain
point.
Now we have to pick it up andrealize that we should still be

(01:30:06):
sorry to haiti and it's still amadman ranting all over the
place and calypso music stillneeds to be honored and sung
about and it have about here,gill, they waiting for somebody
to sing a song about you.
I understand.

Corie (01:30:19):
So, yeah.
You're cool with it.
I saw a guy talking to me oncefrom Seattle Washington and he
said he went to this show in alittle cafe and it was an early
artist performing, you know,similar to what some of the
spaces you created in theconcert during Carnival.
And he said, you know, he wasreally there to see this guy who
was big in Seattle.

(01:30:41):
Everybody wanted to get in.
He had one of the hundredtickets that was there and he
said well, do you have anopening act for them?
A little group from Jamaicanamed Bob Marley and the Wailers
Bob Marley, peter Tosh you knowwhat I mean Bonnie Wailer
performing in a little cafe witha hundred people.
How comfortable are you when Icompare Freetown to what they're
doing?
When I see trinity and I seethe eye trees and I see what
you're all doing um, it's not.

It's not a comparison that I don't know.
It does not that I have done itbefore.
There's a lot I could say aboutit.
All I know is I.
I know I have been brought todo a job.
I'm getting some idea of whatthat might be.
I don't know what it is, butI'm getting some idea of what it

(01:31:25):
might be.
It has something to do withtelling stories.
It has something to do withinspiring people.
It has something to do with measpiring to be the best version
of myself.
It has something to do withdealing with governments and the
way that they deal with peoplesupporting communities.
There were a lot of things inthere, and bob was able to

(01:31:46):
achieve a lot of those things inmassive ways.
I think we get caught on theidea of being remembered forever
.
That's beautiful.
We get caught, maybe, on theidea of all of your songs being
sung by the entire world.
That's also beautiful.
But to fulfill purpose whereverthat is, that is what.

(01:32:08):
That is why.
If so, let me.
Let me see where it is.
Yeah, I will continue to do mybest.
Me and lou will continue to doour best.
The team will continue to dotheir best.
We will continue to put out themusic that we believe in and
that we love, and we hope thatthe people continue with us on
this journey that we're taking.

Corie (01:32:25):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I appreciate you all continuingto do that and finding a way to
stay true to yourselves.
It sets an example for people.
I feel you know, I feel likeyou're also teaching the
audience in a sense.
We've had to.

Yeah, I guess you would, you would.

Corie (01:32:42):
Yeah, we've had to train our audience from the very
beginning of course, because itwas something new and you had to
train the effect audience nowto accept our shooting.

You know, it's some work, but we needed me to love
mass and take me.

Corie (01:32:51):
I would imagine I heard you talk about it when you
performed the other nightbecause you were saying it's
such a big difference when yougo on these stages where tens of
thousands of people, you do oneor two songs and you leave and
you know, versus that intimatespace where you get to, you get
well, be yourself, your completeself, but also maybe try out
new songs, put out these songsthat people want take requests.

They had to know.
You, like, the Fats now feellike the tight spaces audience
to me and that's that's a big,big step right.
But it feels very similar.
It's because people now kind ofknow in here and they know
these songs and once theyrealize, oh, them sing, feel the
love, they, they want to hearwhat's next, um, yeah, and so I
think that the opportunity willpresent itself very soon for a

(01:33:32):
ballad in the feds.

Corie (01:33:35):
Well, I hear for it, I hear for it, I hear for it.
Whenever, whenever it starthappening, we will be there.
We will continue to support.
I appreciate you coming through.
We will.

We've been so bad with time.

Corie (01:33:45):
But I have to tell you how bad I performed on my list
today.
Right, because the conversationis so interesting.
I have about 20 songs here wedidn't talk about, so I
appreciate you taking the timeand sharing some of yourself
with us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think once you startreleasing on that kind of thing
whenever I mean, I hear, I hear,and these things tend to build
on one another, you know.

(01:34:06):
Yeah, so I appreciate the risksthat you guys take and I
appreciate what you're doingthis is important, what you're
doing as well, yeah.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that it could onlyremain share some of the
stories, which good appreciate.

That man thanks a million Conrad, or it's a poo.
We all Conrad.
I be like why I keep goingthrough this boy.
I tell her anytime, thank you.

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Episode 232 | Muhammad Muwakil

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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 232 | Muhammad Muwakil