Episode 248 | Kit Israel

Kit Israel | From Kan Kan to Folklore, Calypso with a K, and the Future of Caribbean Music

Kit Israel of AdvoKit Productions joins The Corie Sheppard Podcast for a deep dive into the music, culture, and vision that drive his work. The son of legendary musician and producer Roger Israel, Kit brings both heritage and innovation to the table — combining his degree in Mathematics with his passion for sound to approach music as both science and art.

As the producer behind the Kan Kan Riddim, the Folklore Riddim (Hello by Kes, Catching Feelings by Nadia Batson), and hits like Buss Head (Machel & Bunji), Ola (Olatunji), Drink & Party (Ding Dong), Take Me Home (Freetown Collective), and Anxiety (Patrice Roberts), Kit has shaped defining moments in modern soca and calypso.

We talk about his creative philosophy, why he chooses to “bust” new artists instead of relying only on the A-list, the business lessons behind owning your masters, and his bold cultural vision for “Calypso with a K.”

This episode blends artistry, business, and legacy — a must-listen for anyone invested in the future of Caribbean music.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Kit Israel and Calypso K
• 19:49 The Evolution of Calypso Music
• 35:54 From Mathematics to Music Production
• 53:14 The Business Side of Soca Music
• 1:10:48 Creating Hit Songs and Cultural Moments
• 1:29:38 Behind "Hello" and Folklore Rhythm
• 1:39:27 The Art of Music Production

Transcript

Corie: 0:00

Hey, my name is Corey, or me Corey Shepard, but I thought it would be obvious. But my name is Corey, here and today I have with me Kit Israel. How are you going to? Good, good, good. You see how much pressure there is on my hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it, I see it, I see it. Yeah, good, I don't need to get it behind the scenes, people in front of the camera, so people can understand.

Kit: 0:16

At some point you'll get it with.

Corie: 0:19

I want to start with what we're leading up to this week, and I want to start with calypso. I see many, many versions of calypso over the years. I see new calypso, I see several different iterations, but I see you have calypso. That k yeah. So I I eager to ask you what it is. What's going?

Kit: 0:35

well, let me start and say the k.

Kit: 0:38

It's not because my name starts with kit, it just so happens yeah but the the vision was this your afrobeat wentats went from Afrobeats to Afrobeats. It was to keep the core of Calypso without changing it too much, because we really want to stand up on the backbone of Calypso. I don't want to change it. However, the older version of Calypso isn't very modern in a sense where young people kind of gravitate towards it. So I found a way to reinvent it to the point where we keep the backbone of Calypso but sing about modern things and have a modern feel so that it songs in a particular direction. So that was the whole idea behind Calypso Takei.

Kit: 1:16

But we realized that just creating a genre isn't enough. We have to create a culture, we have to create an image, we have to create a whole environment. So the first episode on I'm not saying episode the first iteration, which is calypso, the fashion show we have in it's the s express how we envision calypso and in modern calypsonians would look. So that's what we actually do the look, the look of calypso. Because if you really go like halloween, right, if you want to dress up as your favorite soca artist, it can't really dress up anyway, there's no way to dress up.

Kit: 1:46

But if you want to dress up as your favorite reggae artist, the favorite rap artist? There's a look we don't have any looks like that and that kind of missing from our culture that we have to establish ourselves not sonically only, but visually as well, and then the whole culture will come together as we establish these things. So it's not just one, you know, part of the music alone. The music is fundamental, but it's also the image and the culture of calypso as well. So that's why we're going in the keeping. Calypso said the same way, but with a key.

Corie: 2:14

So david, the whole interview already done. Now you know, because this is all I want to talk about. Oh, shucks, that look right. That look real interesting to me, because my father and I always have this discussion about the look of a Calypso, because somewhere I'm not sure if it's the change in a Calypso to Soca or the creation of Soca as a genre, but Kitchener had a look and an identity.

Kit: 2:37

All of them had a look. All of them had a look.

Corie: 2:39

Growling Tiger, spoiler. Like when I say the names for younger people, it might be the same Youths going to school. Now, for instance, you can put pictures while it is, we talking, oh yeah david asking for that long time, but yeah, yeah, yeah, the the thing about it is connecting that. Look to each one of them.

Corie: 2:58

It was all part of a brand for them correct yeah, so somewhere along the line it started to become because the music has always patterned or sort of mimicked what the world music felt like in terms of the sound. Yeah, and I don't know if that's what happened. When they dressed somewhere around the 80s, everybody just started to look a little more like hip hop or whatever was the popular music. But you say that's something.

Kit: 3:20

The look? Yeah, it's very important, because I was talking to AT and Charles at a point and, yeah, man, it was a look. Yeah, yeah, even him and Free Tongue.

Kit: 3:26

Free Tongue has a look. Of course, they're like the modern Calypsonians in my eyes, and he was explaining to me because he's very involved in the history of Calypso and everything Right, and he was explaining to me that they, they, they needed when they go to the different performances and so forth. So it was more. They didn't have a choice back then, but now we have a choice and we could establish ourself and dress ourself however we want to. But soca end up in a direction where every year, we kind of just follow the trends of the world. So when there was this afro beats era, we end up getting afro soca. When there's this edm era, we end up having a kind of edm song with, like even dubstep, with the 40 foot rhythm and so forth that you and I did. So we just keep adapting and changing, which is a good thing, but it's not, uh, ours, it's, it's always. We morph to match other people and what end up happening is soca became a genre that is definitely tethered to carnival right, and it'd been so tight to carnival. Wherever carnival goes, soca goes, but that's it. It can't go anywhere else other than where carnival goes. So if carnival is worldwide and it goes every single place in the world, then soca would become worldwide.

Kit: 4:40

But I don't think soca could go any further than carnival. But calypso had the opportunity and it proves it did. And calypso I still think it does have the opportunity to go in that direction. So that's why we want to focus more on calypso. I mean, I say we, but I really mean you, know you, but I mean you hope to inspire people and you know if the genre itself, because I found a way to mathematically design the genre so that it's repeatable and it sounds the same. But it doesn't sound the same and every single song has a different emotion behind it but it's still within the same. You know, feel gotcha gotcha.

Corie: 5:14

I don't want to dwell on that look, but it's so important to me because, even as you're saying, people that respecting is real, people dressed up to make sure that they were the best dressed in the venue because at that time you're looking at, the audience was also in suits and that kind of thing. So Etienne's spot on, but think about Trinidad Rio, and when he's about to look, he's a man, fit, looking like you you know what I mean and you have a blazer, no shirt and a tie. It became a signature of of how he looks over here sprang along same thing. So I appreciate the work that you're doing and you also working on that sound. You're having an interesting discussion about that, um, that feel or that, that, that that rhythm that works for calypso.

Kit: 5:54

So yeah, the the idea. I don't know if I could make a little bit well, the the idea, right. I did my degree in maths, right. So you know, don't judge me I'm a little nude, right, and I see patterns very well, right. So in doing music, I've done a couple of songs since 2015 and Choppy's song, sailor, captain, right, sail away, anchor down, da, da, da da right yeah, sail Away Can't call it Captain.

Corie: 6:23

Only have a name for songs internally and we, as fans, have a name for songs.

Kit: 6:26

I just call it sail away. I know it's captain, but it's called sail away too. And that was the first song that I did the groove right, because growing up and seeing some of my dad's performances and the music he did um, there's a lot of the groove was like and I thought that would have been kind of interesting to put in our soccer song. So that song was the first song that I actually used that groove in and it worked definitely. It definitely worked for his career right. And then we tried it again. So then we tried it with drink and party as we wanna drink I don't drink and party no, you know, everybody else could relate.

Kit: 7:05

And it had the same groove. And then the free tongue was the last time that we tried it, which was the. And then take me home, and it's the same groove over and over. And I realized that something about it makes it feel like us, like it is suka, but it's not, but it could be more than and like you could express itself in different ways. And I realized, after a few years, well, of experimenting with the groove, I decided that I only want to do that groove alone. So I'm going to do that only that groove, and all the songs are going to release is going to be in that groove. So, um, actually, coming back to the groove itself, it it's like taking. It's like you're dressing up a mannequin that's already Calypso Sure and you're just making it. You're putting shades, you put a little bit of black dandyism into it, you put a little royalty into it and we establish it in a way where it's ours and we could be proud of it, because the habit Trinidadians have we're going to be proud when we fly out now.

Corie: 8:06

You know we don't be proud while we're down here. If you want to make a good product, send it abroad and then come back, and then come back.

Kit: 8:10

And we have so much exportable material, not just create, not just oil and whatever the case is, but we have creative exportable material that we don't utilize and we don't really go into and it can make us billions.

Speaker 3: 8:21

Sure, sure, sure.

Kit: 8:22

So the aim is really to inspire direction of a new genre, a new look, a new culture and to hopefully export it to a worldwide, you know country.

Corie: 8:31

A couple of things you bring up there. I want to go back to right, but that groove, right, I didn't understand. So I don't know why. I like that choppy or that drink and party, party, the groove, the groove, but how? How do? Let me ask you another question now, from my standpoint. If the groove is the same, because when you say it or you play the groove there, you hear it immediately right, we go back to them songs. How is get such a different feel for each one of those songs? Or there's the same group? Each one of them have a signature field talking about different things.

Kit: 9:00

Yeah, well, the groove it usually is between like 101 10 bpm to get super new right so I try to keep it the speed right, because I've realized those kind of speeds it's easy to digest right, like foreign and locally, because, like doing kes, hello and these kind of songs, it's easier for a lot of people to take in that bpm and then it's closer to afro beats, so it's easier to blend right. So the groove is, the bpm is important, but not just the bpm. When it is you switch tones so like you have a different kick drum, it makes the tonality of the song song different, but then the chords would be different and you use different instruments and then there's different artists and then they sing about different topics. So even though you could have the same group, because hip-hop has had the same groove forever, pop is the same groove, funk same groove forever, but we, even soca is the same groove, even reggaeton is the same groove forever, but we don't have to change it so far where it doesn't, where it is no longer us.

Kit: 9:57

So in in the sense of it, once you change tones, once you change singing topics, you change artists, it it will sound different. It could never sound the same over and over and over again, because it's like saying reggaeton or reggae or dancehall, all of them sound the same right? They don't. They don't. It's a different expression, just on a, on a backbone. So it's almost like this is the fundamentals, like this is you start with this and then you make whatever you want to make with it gotcha.

Corie: 10:24

It reminds me, like when I listen to your music in particular. It reminds me of two eras in calypso. One was real, real calypso still it wasn't. Soca was out, but everybody was a calypsonian. There was nothing like a soca artist and one of them who would have dominated the late music, and you're talking about that groove it takes me back to. It's a people without a culture. You know, it's always have a feel, yeah, it's have a feel. It's have a bong state, yeah.

Corie: 10:49

So I always wonder sometimes when you hear songs and you like them immediately.

Kit: 10:53

Yeah, you know, if it's something connecting you to your past, you know well, I I didn't grow up on clip so I actually grew up on r&b and like hip-hop and all kind I I used to rap and things, real cussing and things.

Speaker 3: 11:05

Real cussing and real gunman lyrics.

Corie: 11:10

You don't love the part.

Kit: 11:12

No, no, no, I had to quickly realize it was there for me, right? But when daddy used to do the plays and all these things and they used to have the dance, the ballet dancers and all this stuff, I just remember very clearly the drum pattern. I don't know where it just came back out from and every single time I hear it I just feel like culture, right, but imagine putting some funk chords on it or some r&b chords on top of that groove. And that's what we've done. We actually have a song coming out with voice soon that it sounds like shardy. But it sounds like shardy with calypso got it. But then it's voicing in it, right, but he's not singing about the road and stink and dirty and all these different things.

Corie: 11:52

So it's actually like, like really good listening music, but you could still wind it I feel it, and that's all part of your effort to take it out, make it less seasonal yeah, yeah, the aim is to go straight through the year, the.

Kit: 12:02

The aim is not bounded by Carnival, but it could still fit. It needs to be able to fit in Carnival as well.

Corie: 12:08

I'll wait you so for the listeners' sake. When you say daddy, you mean Roger Israel, right?

Kit: 12:11

Oh shucks, yes, yeah, my bad, my bad, my bad, yes, yes, yes.

Corie: 12:18

My father Roger.

Kit: 12:20

Israel yes, you had a front row seat but we had a studio. Well, we still have the studio at home. So he worked in the studio like a lot probably more than I worked, but he also had a job. So he went to work and then he came back home and then he worked straight through so we would hear it all the time. We would hear all the sessions. We were right next to the music. The computer was actually in the studio. So when we wanted to go, I see, yeah, and play and play pokemon on the computer, you're hearing the music playing at the same time. So it's kind of ingrained in us. But it was more of an unconscious ingredient, because he never said come and listen to this and come and do this, and I never said that. He always felt as though he created an environment where if we want to do it, it's available and if you don't want to do it, it's fine. Fine as well. So that was always his motto.

Corie: 13:06

Yeah, interesting guy A lot of interesting interviews. I think, yeah, very, very interesting, and one of the reasons I do this is because of people like him, because I feel as a disservice to the youth that they might say the name Roger Israel and people don't know it. Yeah, it's sad, it's sad to me. I should not bring him.

Kit: 13:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, next time, next time You're ready. Season two, season two All right, good, book it, yeah, yeah. Yeah, actually you could do a father-son kind of episode. Listen, I for it, yeah.

Corie: 13:32

I have a good few people who are parents. Their parents would have passed, though.

Kit: 13:39

All right, kenny Phillips and Casey.

Corie: 13:41

I can't wait for two of them to come. But some of them I have, who parents pass, would be like Charlene Bailey, this boy, chris and Joseph. You know a few of them. Second star yeah, great, great, great. And that connection. But it's so almost surreal to hear you say some of these things, because when you say hey, because it's easy to see somebody as a producer and say a beat maker, true, but the depth of what you're talking about two, different things, of course.

Kit: 14:07

Of course, beat makers by the name makes beats like. That's the topic I always kind of get a little passionate about. But a producer is somebody who takes something out of nothing and makes it into something worth selling. Right, and a lot of beat makers they, don't know how to transfer the beat into a full song, into a product to sell. They're very good at making the beats, but being a producer is way more than that. Like you could make the beat, you could, um, organize the musicians. You could write like I write this. I write half of this stuff. I do, um, even I sing backgrounds. Like I make songs 13, 14, 50, 000 times. I, if anybody know me, I just mix way too much, but I'm obsessed with it to the point where it needs to feel as though to me, not just sound as though to me, but feel as though to me. So there's a clear distinction between producer and beat maker.

Corie: 14:55

Of course Somewhere it get muddled, because back in the day you would have had arrangers, producers, produced. It was separate.

Kit: 15:06

Yeah, you know, but now I don't know technology make everything kind of feel like well, locally, we, um, we have to wear multiple hats and it, I think it just kind of just push everything into one ball. So we just put our put a hat on, called producer, but we do everything because even like vocal coaching, like in the studio, we have to guide the artist on how to sing it, like no, they'll sing it this way, sing it this way, sing it this way. Not change this line, this in song, and good. But then some people don't know how to do that and they just press record and then hope for the best. Yeah, but now we can't really afford to do that. So we actually put in a lot of work as producers in trinidad and to be yeah, that's why I like the connecting.

Corie: 15:36

So when you say names like kenny, phillips and so on, this is all else we would at time. Growing up in St James, I was in Pelham's studio.

Kit: 15:44

Yeah yeah, yeah, I know, pelham, and.

Corie: 15:47

Pelham know what you want to hear. It's like you, you know. I mean they Mevan said it too. He starts out comforts. They understand where they need to get to. And boy Pelham tried to get that man. Man singing, he rapped and that man trying to say fly, let your rags fly, fly. I'm trying to get our man to say fly. Oh my goodness.

Corie: 16:03

It's one of the greatest sessions I've ever seen. How do you spell that? F-l-a, f-l-a? My brother had to talk right to me but them days hip-hop is hitting. You know he had a rough time, but that connection with you and your dad is interesting. I remember seeing an interview with him, with Joseon Leonard, and him saying he's an artist, and he said that's a very troublesome word. You know he didn't like to be boxed up.

Speaker 3: 16:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you would say so right.

Corie: 16:31

Definitely he's looking at the whole thing, so it's interesting to see you there. So when you're small, you go in them, spaces and stuff. You're thinking about this at all.

Kit: 16:39

You're thinking about getting a life in creative arts, I guess by the age of like 11, 12. Yeah, I was in it, like when Fruity Loops 2 came out.

Corie: 16:50

You say 11, 12, like it later.

Kit: 16:52

I just want to. Oh, let me put context 11, 12 was 28 years ago, right 11, 12 was pretty young to make that.

Corie: 16:59

You're starting to see.

Kit: 17:00

Yeah, I saw it Like when we had the computer and we had Fruity Loops 2. That's not FL Studio. We talk about Fruity Loops 2 and I don't know. I pick up the program and I was fiddling with it and I think from there I was obsessed, because I started DJing. At that point I used to be an MC as well too. I started doing some refixes, so that's like when you take the acapella of one beat and you put it on top of the instrumental of our next beat and then we start doing dub plates for ourselves.

Kit: 17:28

So we actually had, we had a. We get five minutes to DJing Fatima, mayfair five minutes eh, it wasn't 50 minutes, it was five minutes. We end up getting three minutes. Right, they put us on stage. We say boy, boy, we only get in five minutes. We end up doing a dub plate. You know the j a m jamaica we do a, f a t.

Kit: 17:48

So we record it in studio before we went there and we play one or two songs and then we went to that boy. We share along the place we share along the place and you know what end up happening. Our next dj man. Come on and take the credit for it.

Kit: 17:58

Oh nice, yeah, yeah, you are here three minutes, you understand, but we recorded it home, we did it and we sampled it whatever we needed to, and then we played it. And it was since then. I used to DJ in parties for free well, not for free, we used to beg them for food and things. So once all your feed in us, we used to go and DJ. But music like. Since I was 11, 12, I was obsessed with it. I knew I was working I was going to do it.

Kit: 18:21

It was not an option for me. Ah, got it.

Corie: 18:23

Yeah, I was obsessed with it and you were following your road of playing instruments and them kind of things, or on computer.

Kit: 18:28

I used to play piano, but I find the classical training was a little boring, to be honest. And then what I've learned learning things too much classically kind of stunts your creativity, meaning all the rules that you learn it ends up keeping you in a box. So after I did piano training, I mean I know how to play piano. I end up teaching myself how to play guitar, but I just know how to play the basics. And then you play a little chord and then you cut and you play an x chord and then you cut and you play an x chord and you cut.

Kit: 18:53

That's exactly what I do for choppy song serious yeah, I play the guitar for that on folklore and all that stuff, take pieces and then cut it up because I know what I wanted the to sound like. But I play it, but then when I ask musicians to play it they don't have the same groove, it sounds different, like it feels different and it's just like you know what. Let me keep pushing myself and I learned it over time. But in terms of classically trained, I only have a little bit of training, to be honest.

Corie: 19:17

Serious Kids. We will never finish this interview. You know thing close to my heart you know, but I wonder sometimes about our approach to teaching music in schools. You know, I mean when, when, when you saying that, or everyone say the same thing, two ones still talking about it and give one sort of classically trained too. Yeah, but they understand that we have something here that, um, I was telling kenny phillips this. It should be taught the way he plays, yeah, as a strum pattern.

Corie: 19:41

Yeah, yeah, that's each China music school. I feel like local children will connect to hearing what is your groove or what is Lou's groove, how Lou is strummed. It might connect with them a little better than here. And we name B Koski, try Tovan which is strange, lou.

Kit: 19:55

He played the guitar on Take Me Home, right, and he was playing it in his groove. But I had a particular groove that I developed with the um, the whole Calypso genre that I wanted to push, and he couldn't get the syncopation the first time. I mean, we did it for like half an hour and he got it. But another instance we went to Anguilla for a workshop I don't know if anyone told you this and one of the guys, he was trying to play the groove that we were trying to teach and he couldn't get it because he learned a separate groove and exactly what you're saying.

Kit: 20:24

I think learning the grooves of other people, because everybody has an identity when they play an instrument, is their voice, and if you could teach those things, that will give the younger generation more opportunities to learn different things, to learn the music that we know, instead of them guessing, because the next generation is going to come and they they're going to figure out things the way they will figure it out. Hence this, which is like this, I think, is probably one of the the best things that happen. But zess is really a response to lack of attention, in my opinion, meaning a lot of these artists started off singing soca and they didn't get the attention, they didn't get the support, they didn't get the credit and then you're always starting from scratch.

Corie: 21:02

When you're young, you had to figure out everything and it's like why?

Kit: 21:06

why, like all these artists could have been soca artists under this umbrella, that we could have pushed soca worldwide. But now Zest is bigger than soca, like in certain countries. Territories streaming wise, yeah, definitely, but I mean, the culture of Zest is a tense yeah, some some topics.

Kit: 21:22

Yeah, he's really bad and he says but I I still love it to the point that it is new and it is ours, and I think we need, as soca artists or soca producers and all these different things, to take it in a direction where we start to own it again, instead of like a new genre, come on, so let's change soca to song more.

Corie: 21:40

Like that, like like come on, we need to stop that of course, of course it is, and it comes from me going to Berkeley for a course guitar as well. Okay, and them men is telling okay, this is what Zeppelin do, this is what this one do. They tell you, these people who develop their own style, whether it's blues or jazz, right, so you might learn blues, the grades would have done, but we let our grades fade away. What you're saying is why the youths don't know your father. If we connect them dots, they will start to understand.

Kit: 22:11

But you have to be fair to her. The grades fade in a way isn't their fault or our fault, it's a combination of both. If I was a youth now, I feel like a youth. But if I was younger now, I just I feel like a youth. But if I was younger now, I just wouldn't be interested in it. Like, how do you get me interested in this? And you're trying to teach me all of this, of course. So we have to find clever ways of making it interesting again, and I don't think we've put enough attention to it.

Corie: 22:36

That is exactly it. I think it's crazy in these spaces I two things throughout to me, because when only fellas get focused in front of the computer, it's something to see, because as soon as only reaching from the board, man is there dog, that board, that studio, that studio is amazing yeah and Anguilla is small, yeah, but you also, the children, response to you all.

Corie: 22:56

I see, only do a song with them and they come out singing the song and they response to you all because you say and you feel like a uti, are you? Because it will be easier for them to connect with you than it is for them to connect. Let me use rudder as an example.

Kit: 23:07

This is very, very distant well, I have three children, so I kind of know what to interact with children.

Kit: 23:12

So that part you could figure out. But what we realized when we reach in anguilla, the, the format of what they wanted is to teach a course like sexual, right. So I find us too little bit right. We decided when we got there, we teach the course of et cetera, right? Sure, I find that's too little bit right. We decided when we got there, we'll teach a course.

Kit: 23:25

Of course that's what they bring us across for, but we give them an experience from the beginning of making a song to reaching on the radio, to reaching on the stage. So we end up releasing the song on radio and they end up performing for the opening of Carnival and they get so much experience from just that one song alone. The song is up on iTunes, on Spotify. In one of the cases, we did our artwork. We showed them how to do every single thing and it shows them that they could do it for themselves and they actually get the experience instead of sitting down in front of a TV or screen or take the notes. This is copyright or this is master. Yeah, that's hard, no-transcript. Like we have too many workshops. We have at least a workshop every month in Canada A talk show, a talk show, and it's like how much more workshops you're going to have?

Corie: 24:16

Put them in the actual competitions, put them, make them do songs, release the songs put them on radio, like take that same money and invest in the actual product itself, like. Anyway, before I get too passionate, because all the greats including yourself.

Speaker 3: 24:34

So many people say they learn it by doing it, but we like.

Corie: 24:35

We like classrooms as you say we like little workshops. So you, at 11, deciding that you're getting into this thing. What was the steps you're taking to another direction. You're feeling like you're going in at that point in terms of so we went into DJing from there. Yeah, yeah, as early as that. So I started making the beats, right, oh, so you started doing the refixes as early as that yeah, so I started making the beats and then we started doing the refixes.

Kit: 25:00

This was primary school.

Corie: 25:01

This was who's this Fatima? Oh, it's good people.

Kit: 25:03

Yeah, fatima, boys are good boys. Yes, Fatima, boys are good boys yes, brother, yes, brother, yes yes, yes, yes, yes he looks exactly the same and he remembers. He remembers every body when I went.

Corie: 25:18

Fatima, he was brother, gregory he was not priest. He was not priest, no he came into Fatima as brother Gregory nah, he's one of the greatest.

Kit: 25:23

Yeah, for sure, for sure, you're going to come on top, yeah. And then, when it went from the dj, me and um I don't know if you know, anson, he manages nylon, so forth we, we started our rap group, yeah, so we actually was rapping and performing and stuff, and we actually almost got a deal on the table. That was when we was like 16, um, but that rapping wasn't nice, it's not my thing now. And then from there we started um, I, I went to university, um, so I did my degree in maths in Coppins City University in Baltimore, okay, um. And then from there I was trying to figure out okay, uh, should I go back home on? You know, should I go back home and settle down or whatever? Or continue doing my master's or my PhD in actual science or whatever, right? And I decided you know what, let me take the risk and go home and try it, and if it doesn't work, I'll just go back.

Corie: 26:14

So, even though you're there, you're doing your maths and singing music. It's still on your mind, oh yeah.

Kit: 26:20

They used to have dorm room parties and stuff and I used to be in my room and set up a little studio in my closet and sing. I was singing in my room while they partied. Yeah, yeah, I was. I was totally obsessed. I think that's the number one thing that still has me feeling so passionate about it. No matter what happens, music has always been there and music will always like be my obsession. I mean gal too, you know, but I mean in terms, in terms of you know. I think my purpose is like. That's why I call myself advocate as well. I think my purpose is to help those that can't help themselves, but I think the vessel or the vehicle is true music so then, how come you end up in maths?

Corie: 26:58

what caused you to study maths?

Kit: 26:59

it was easy for me, like I ain't even gonna lie maths and the logic of maths, and especially when they reach a point where they remove numbers and it's only about oh, you like that I like it, yeah, yeah, the numbers part was annoying. The numbers part was more like accounts for me, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, so I didn't. I don't really like accounts.

Kit: 27:17

I mean, money is one thing, but accounts is yeah but, um, but the reason and the reason and that, yeah, yeah, the proofs, and why you have to prove one is not equal to zero. I find out super interesting and it was easy for me, so I did it right and then it was either that or uh, I wasn't very good in english, to be honest yes yeah, yeah, I hated english.

Kit: 27:42

So languages and thing, normiting history. Normiting History, not my thing, no, but the maths, but the maths was it. And I kind of realized, if the music didn't work, let me take the chance, because I wouldn't get this chance again at this age, because at that point I was getting married and my first son was about to be born and I was working and I decided to leave my job when he was born. Well, that caused drama, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was like you have a steady job, a child coming, and what are you doing? What kind of work are you doing there? I was working amalgamated security, not as a security guard, but I was a manager there doing geographic information systems. So it's like tracking vehicles and tracking Got it. You said that where your master's was in, that's what I did my post-grad in after, got it.

Corie: 28:24

Right or after then, after I did my After Amalgamated time or after the?

Speaker 3: 28:26

course.

Corie: 28:27

During.

Kit: 28:27

Amalgamated. I started and I finished. Right Got it so doing the geographic information systems. That was interesting, but it was also easy too. No, it was just like maps layers.

Corie: 28:40

You say it and make it so easy to make it easy I just want to put that out there. When you say maths and logic and things because you say it casually it's hard, right, but go ahead.

Kit: 28:47

No, no, but some things, like language, is easy for some people yeah yeah but, it's not easy for me, but, but in terms of of the maths, it was just like I got it quickly. Once you get, once you get for the rest of your life english. It was like there's five different meanings for the word bat, like give my break now. Yeah, it's like yes, it doesn't. It doesn't sound like how it's spelled. No, I hated that. Like like they didn't. There was no formula behind it, though. Sorry if you know, the english that I learned later on in life is that each part actually has a meaning. So like like in has a meaning, de has a meaning, des has a meaning, ing has a meaning, but I didn't learn.

Corie: 29:29

English that way.

Kit: 29:30

And if I learned it that way, I would have done way better on SATs.

Corie: 29:33

But we learn by rote. It's the same thing you say about music. We repeat things in our mind which I don't know if it's the best way. Yeah.

Kit: 29:45

But yeah, so you're firing the work. Yeah, so I, if you say she or she wasn't impressed, she wasn't impressed at all and mother-in-law wasn't impressed, neither. No, no, no, not impressed, because I was making good money at that point. But it's two factors, right? So while I was working there, I was eating my lunch for breakfast, I was eating lunch in the mall, and then I was eating dinner as well. So I put on like 40 bucks. So you're talking about stretch marks and all that. I was like nah brother, that can't continue.

Kit: 30:07

It's not going to work. So just the eating habit was bad, right, I worked around the corner, literally like five minutes drive, and I used to reach to work late. That doesn't make me seem like positive about life. The second thing, too, I was kind of bored. It wasn't really pushing me, and then it's only so far I could grow in the industry. The industry it's because it was a family-owned business. I can't own the business, at the end of the day, and no disrespect to anybody but if I have to work there 40 years, I should be able to own it at some point, right? Um? So I decided save up six months of savings and then I left and she was pissed. Boy, oh my goodness, she was pissed. But you know what ended up happening I woke, I woke, I woke, I woke and then, a year and a half after I think, we went to kamana with ola tunji ola serious yeah and they just the discussion totally changed.

Corie: 30:56

I would imagine yeah, I would have changed the discussion I don't pretend. None of them think they're about me, mother-in-law.

Kit: 31:01

Everybody could know everybody was like, oh, and my father pick up and say, well, no, you could take the studio. He tells everybody I kick him out of the studio. So he decides to leave the studio on his own, you know.

Kit: 31:12

This is your part of the story, yeah, and then he builds a studio on the side for himself. But after that moment it was like they saw that the music could generate the kind of income and provide for the family, like they saw that the music could generate the kind of income and provide for the family, of course. And then after kes, hello, oh gosh, yeah, it's gone clear. Yeah, it is ridiculous. Now and now I'm being taxed by the family.

Corie: 31:32

I'm saying it publicly, oh wow oh yes yes, yes, yes, I'm being taxed, yes, I get taxed at home.

Kit: 31:39

But you know as a son you know, it's my responsibility. That's what we're here for.

Corie: 31:43

Yes so have I encountered you? Or selling it before we start? Yes, when you come into my life. A lot has happened. I'm very worried. I don't know if this is coincidence and, uh, I'm going to make sure that when I encounter you again, not going to happen again I'm going to take all precautions, right, yes, but um photography where that fits into your journey, ah okay, when I started learning something, I just kind of get obsessive with it, right.

Kit: 32:08

So I ended up taking pictures with my phone. On one of the cases I was like this is kind of interesting. And then I took pictures and then I went into Photoshop so like retouching, like putting on makeup and plastic surgery and things on Photoshop. I used to really like it. I was like this real fun, yeah. And then I bought a proper camera and I was like, hey, maybe I could do this as a business. And then I started and I started to work. So I ended up taking pictures for humor.

Kit: 32:31

I did some weddings, I did some pregnancy pictures and so forth yes, yes and um, that's fun and and from there it just kind of just grew into this love and I end up loving like lighting, so like how to light like characters like I. I wanted to get into more like building photography and and food photography and all these different things, but then I realized it's a lot of money that to buy all this equipment and the amount of money people were paying me for some of the jobs. It didn't really make sense. It started to feel kind of like slavery now, like it would have people this is honest, it would have people that I would go to jobs with.

Kit: 33:13

So like I get hired, maybe from the ministry or whatever the case is at a certain rate and some of the brethren that I do photography with would show up. They get hired from somebody private and they get paid like 10 times the amount of money and they stayed for like an hour or two and I have to stay there whole day and I get way less money and I'm like that not making any sense. And then every single time we do pictures for people every year, each year, the budget getting less and less. I'm like if, but all you're making more, so why is my budget getting less and less, and then I have to make do with what I have, and then I was like you know what? It's not making any sense anymore. I love photography still and I would love to get back into it, but it's not making sense as a business yeah, because when I first heard your name, of course your name is unique, you can't forget it, right?

Corie: 33:55

so when you hear, kids is right now my wife, we are. And she said that I find you. I said, but you tell me you was pregnant. I didn't know what a pregnancy photo should be, or a pregnancy for that matter. And she said and I remember her saying she want Israel to do the thing. I said, right, cool. So I was surprised years after when I started hearing the name in production, in music production I was like is it can't be two different people? Yeah, same person. So the photography came when you first came back to Trinidad, before you went back into music or you're doing all of the same stuff.

Kit: 34:27

I never stopped doing music, so it was happening simultaneously. It's just, you know, the photography was making more at that point, so I pushed a little more attention into the photography. But as soon as we went to Okamana, I tell you that no-transcript work.

Corie: 34:56

You did what artists you're starting with what? What you did when you first get into music?

Kit: 35:00

it was what back in prehistoric age.

Corie: 35:03

No, in terms of getting into Soka now and making music.

Kit: 35:06

Yeah, the first artist, the first, the first artist I started working with was K Rich and Second Star. Those were the first two because we had a big team. It was me, second Star, k Rich and probably about two or three other people. Second Star, fatima man too, second Star, a Fatima man 2? Second and a Fatima man 2.

Kit: 35:23

And we started off but K Rich had, gosh, what was the song boy, nothing Less. So he had gotten some popularity around that time. We didn't do that, I think it was Red Boys or one of the. I did that song but he was getting some popularity from that. And they got me into Soka, because I really was not in Soka, was totally on the hip-hop and thing, and we did a song for second star called wine on the truck. No, actually we did stick it first. So the drum pattern was that was that was like a real kind of beach boys, almost sofa dude kind of thing, right, and that was very interesting for him. He went and performed. He ended up reaching in soka monarch um finals or something like that, and I was interested in him and I was like, hey, this soka thing kind of making sense. Then I ended up selling one or two beats and it didn't make a little bit of money.

Kit: 36:07

And then the year after we did our song for Second Star called Wine on the Truck. You know what it's supposed to mean, right, we had wine on the truck but then a chicken on top of it. Right, a male chicken on top of it was like a kind of swappy, kind of beat now, and that was very interesting. But then the next year was the can-can rhythm, and second star was part of it. The whole team was part of it. But unfortunately, after that can-can rhythm come out, whole team mash up, yeah, whole team mash up, I think, with success.

Kit: 36:42

A lot of us don't know how to handle it, myself included. We don't know how to have the right discussions. We don't know how to to treat everybody with respect and give everybody their value. Everybody believes that their value is equal to everybody else's value, so of course everybody believes that they should all get equal shit across the board. And then there's some people who believe they should get more than others and me and second side is still very close. So it's not like any problems there, it's just I think success changes the conversation and we're not taught to do it. So after can can problems, after folklore problems.

Kit: 37:15

Yes, after, yeah, like almost every major success I've had, it's just always be like why we can't make this work now, you know, I mean, let's just kumbaya and, you know, live nice, but it's just always reach a point. But a lot of artists don't understand that. Producers, we spend hours, days, weeks crafting and massaging this music and then when they go on stage and they get performances, they get money. We don't get really paid now. So when we're having discussions of master ownership and copyright and all these different things, there's always a fight because we don't get properly paid. On the other end, we don't get no endorsement deals, we don't get none of that stuff, Of course people wouldn't know.

Kit: 37:53

We don't even know, right, and then the only money we would get is whatever upfront cash we may get or whatever streaming cash we may get, right, and it's starting to get less and less by the years. But if we don't own certain things, we're not gonna make any money, and if we're not making any money, it's very hard to continue giving people songs.

Kit: 38:10

Yeah, go back to photography yeah, exactly, and we, I want to do all these songs for everybody, sure, but if I didn't make the kind of money I made, like, it would be very difficult to sit down here and just be like, yeah, I'm gonna reinvent cal, to reinvent Calypso. Of course it's going to be hard because I have to feed my children, so I'm going to have to find a job and I'm going to have to think. So I mean, part of the Calypso vision as well is to really establish some kind of formality of business in the music industry, because too many musicians, particularly musicians, everybody has a day job and they have to survive and the music is a passion thing. We can't continue to.

Corie: 38:46

Yeah, the foodie culture thing, yeah.

Kit: 38:48

People need to be fed and people need to treat this as a business. You wake up in the morning eight to four. You go to work now, but they can't afford to do it because they have responsibilities, yeah, so it's just unfortunate that it happens.

Corie: 38:59

Yeah, judicial, about the decisions we make. Every cost that will be covered. The business must pay for itself. Let me put it that way I have brothers and sisters who are in the business too, and they have to earn, they have to eat it, otherwise what we're doing it for. We discuss it all the time, but that for the culture thing you hear it in almost every aspect of our culture. Whether it could be soccer and calypso, it could be stick fight it. Whether it could be sook and calypso, it could be stick fight. It could be the arts or performing arts, like plays and theatre and so on. People is outright saying hey, if you're in this, it's a free culture thing. So I want to ask you some things about the money. When you say money upfront for production, what does that look like? Is the artist paying you for a beat, or how does that work right?

Kit: 39:46

so originally it it used to work as the artist used to pay for the song, right, they will pay the writer their fee, and then they'll pay the producer or the beat maker their fee, right, and then they'll get the song recorded. They'll pay the engineer, they'll pay the studio, they'll pay for everything, sure, and then, in paying for everything, they become the executive producer of the project, which is the owner of the master.

Corie: 40:07

Right now, it has changed so much where so they become the owner of the master, even though you make a beat yeah, but they paid you for it, so there's some clear clear.

Kit: 40:16

There's some documentation behind. But rhythms became super popular so it's very difficult for one artist to come and pay you for a beat and then another artist come and pay you for the same beat, and then who really owns the beat? Because it's the same beat across it. So what ended up happening is producers end up owning more material and say yo, I'm doing a rhythm, have these artists, we get a piece on the master, but the producer owns the master, so the artists no longer start paying for stuff.

Corie: 40:42

Okay, so the upfront money is less or gone or gone Okay gotcha.

Kit: 40:49

I mean, if it's a single, you know you could have that discussion, but then it ended up reaching to a point where the upfront money is not enough. So the average cost of a song is like 1500 us for writing and that's like base, right, and then like 20, 20, 2000 or maybe about 15 production right. So about 3000 us you're gonna pay for a song. That's like normal price. I mean, it could be less and it could be way more, um, but in terms of the cost of it, it imagine you sell a song for 1500 us and then that song makes a million dollars to the artist.

Kit: 41:17

That kind of had to stomach, you know, feel good, yeah, yeah. So the the model starts to change where people stand in the barter okay, don't pay me, let me get a percentage on the master, or let me get a percentage of x, y and z or whatever the case is. So the model that has been trending now is usually no pay, so the artist doesn't pay for any like a lot. I'm not saying all got it like. There are some of the upper artists that actually pay for this stuff and own this stuff, but a lot of them.

Kit: 41:40

They get a lot of free songs and when they get a free song, they're going on stage and they get to perform and they get paid and you left out yeah but when the song works and you own the master as a producer, it it definitely puts you in a perspective like it's streaming on iTunes, it's streaming on Spotify and you own it. It starts to look different. You start to get paid in the US and the money starts to look good. But if the song is that big and it's making all those streams, the artist is getting that big and getting those performances. So they're going to make the same amount or even more money in performances, regardless of the success of the song the same amount or even more money in performances, regardless of the success of the song.

Corie: 42:15

Oh, it's you. Uh, pure ignorance. But when you say make money from the streams, there's cut money coming in from all played, or that's from the platforms right.

Kit: 42:20

So I I used to be on the, the border cut and that was a whole experience for itself I.

Kit: 42:25

I wish I could just go in and just change everything, but I think I'm tired of that. But, but anyway, CUT is a collection organization, a royalty collection organization. Cut is actually not and TTC and all these other organizations they're actually not copyright organizations. Though the name says copyright, it's actually a royalty collection agency, meaning they get permission to collect money on the artist's behalf Artist meaning musician, writer, all these different things, right? So they get permission to collect it from the radio stations, from the parties, from the venues, from all these things. So they collect the royalties and then they pay out after taking the admin fees or whatever the case is. So that's royalties on copyright. But royalties on master is from streams and sales online and distribution, which is very different.

Corie: 43:11

Like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube music and those places.

Kit: 43:13

Though there's still a copyright fee and a mechanical rights money that comes in on that regard, but the master rights is who's the person that owns it and this is who I'm paying whenever it's sold.

Corie: 43:24

Okay, so who gain when cut, collect and they pay somebody? Who gain? The artist, the producer? Is it split or it's split?

Kit: 43:30

it's yeah. So you're supposed to have an agreement saying these are the splits. Like how we split in the song, like if three ways, artist, writer, producer. We split in three ways when cut pays out. So this song made 10 000 tt, they pay it out and everybody gets one right. But that's from collecting in parties, collecting on the road, collecting um from the radio, that's those things. But in terms of streams and Spotify, kata has nothing to do with that.

Corie: 43:54

Okay, yeah, that's separate from that. That's totally separate. Yeah, so you're saying that from a business standpoint somebody young who wants to get into this thing you could take care of your family if the business done right from that standpoint, oh for sure.

Kit: 44:13

You could do well to stand up on what you deserve. And if you pick up and say, no, I'm not selling my song and I own it, and the artists say, well, the song not coming out, then you don't have any songs.

Corie: 44:19

Oh shit, so you have to be careful with how you're about it.

Kit: 44:21

So the artists kind of have the final say on what they release, more or less yeah, I understand, and that's why you end up seeing a lot of writers and producers singing their own songs, because it's reaching to a point where it doesn't work in everybody's favor. And if we don't, if we continue at this, we are going to have more producer writers coming out and we're not going to give the bigger artists the big songs that we want to give them yeah, I had that so backward in my mind, because I always just so wonder okay, so if I am, if I'm kit, I'm mevon, I'm full blown, I have talent.

Corie: 44:50

Yeah, the ball like me too. Yeah it always works.

Speaker 3: 44:53

You know what I mean.

Corie: 44:53

I should try, if I write a song, or I could produce a song, and so I would think that what I must have a good feel for what go work, right, I say, alright, this go work. And the more experience, like you experience, with this, I'm know, okay, this go win.

Kit: 45:09

I ain't gonna lie. No, you never know what would work. You're serious, but you have a feeling.

Corie: 45:13

As to what is it? You have a feeling and you said this no nope, I've never felt it.

Kit: 45:18

It always feels like I love it or I don't love it. I see, yeah, but I have no idea, because some of these stuff that I totally love nobody cares about. I will fall short, right, yeah. And then some of these stuff uses like you're just straight out, like I mean, let me be real, like the folklore rhythm, that's what kes hello. I did it as a project with kenny phillips, right. So I made the beat as a fusion between afro and calypso and we were gonna get some older calypsonians to sing on it. And then kenny, kinda, he stick on me, I seen it, he stick on me. And um, and, and from there Choppy, not Choppy, kess end up hearing it, nadia end up hearing it, after Tuna end up hearing it. And I was like, you know, let me make it into a rhythm, and if I still get the older Calypso unions, I'll be vibes, right, we'll mix and match. We didn't end up getting it.

Kit: 46:07

And then that came out, and then that song but that's the biggest grossing song that I have. Really. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, and I'm glad I own it. If I didn't know that boy pressure pressure, pressure, pressure.

Corie: 46:17

You're griping you boy, you guys I'll be bitter. I'll be bitter, of course. I think in that. Okay. So if I have a incline that uh, that that rhythm go with our folklore, or even as a song, I am going to mash her kiss. You know the list, yeah, yeah, there's a list and a finite list, and I was wondering if that's one of the reasons, like people complaining about younger artists and opportunities, but if I'm a producer, I had to make money as a business me and my father.

Corie: 46:38

Again, we had to make money on every product. I would think that if I had to shop a song, I am only shopping it. So the guys who I know will make it successful, because the truth is hello is a I mean, I've heard them as big songs bombs but give me a to signal that same exact hello. It was going no, no, you understand, it's not a damn place how much is that from youtube? 0.2 cents, and you can't afford pregnancy no, no no, no.

Corie: 47:10

so yeah, I, I, I would. I would think that dies away, but I appreciate you going into detail in terms of owning some of it, because it's probably your only way and then to make sure that you earn. How in perpetuity is forever. Yeah, it's mine, it's yours.

Kit: 47:23

The thing about it, I would say, because a lot of people feel like approaching the bigger artists or the list of top 10 artists that you know Nadia, lyrical, skinny there's a list, right, as you say is the answer. I actually don't believe it's the answer. I made a career of busting young artists and every single time that it busts, it gave the artists a bigger opportunity to have a career as well as it gave me opportunity to showcase that I don't need a bigger artist to prove that we can make good songs, and I think most of my career has been established. I've done like even aaron duncan can you feel it right? He was 12 at that point, yeah, and that was a huge song. He went on performing in anguilla.

Corie: 48:05

Yeah, one of the political parties wanted to use these.

Kit: 48:06

I see, yeah, and that's, that's a big song film, so I don't think you would make all your money from the big artists. I actually think you'll make your money from building other people up. That's how I've always seen business. Building and creating opportunities for others will make your business better.

Corie: 48:18

I understand, you know.

Kit: 48:19

The complaint now is that nobody don't build young soca artists right, I always every single year, make sure I have a certain amount of young artists that I work with. Nobody knows them and I do these songs because they sound good. I mean, if it sounds like crap, yeah, yeah, go back to the joint board.

Corie: 48:35

And my one face has changed. When he say things sound like crap, it is one of the funnier things I've seen on this table. It's crazy, it's crazy. He's always say well, if he don't like it. I just want more questions on this. I suppose it's easier to negotiate or manage that split when it comes to masters with artists that you help correct.

Kit: 48:58

Yes, that's true. You can control the business a lot better when it's somebody that isn't super established, so you have more bargaining power. But I always believe in building a team and start with somebody and build and grow with them, because you will definitely have the opportunity to earn more, because with the bigger artists they might just pay out and you might just get a few thousands and then that's it.

Kit: 49:18

So even the payouts, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Okay, I understand it's not worth it. The whole industry needs to revamp and the cost of production and writing, all of those stuff, needs to change totally.

Corie: 49:28

Well, interesting when you say it was uncut, and it's something that I've heard. Many people who were uncut talk about the issues there. But, like I'm telling somebody the other day, we as grown ups, you know when we say thing had to change, all of a sudden we become the adults we had to change it, yeah so. So in a way you're doing everybody doing their part to change it, so hoping that when, um, when you reach, uh, kenny phillips stage, was there some young fella coming to interview people and watching you like a lord, like we're watching Kenny. Hopefully it changed by then.

Kit: 49:54

You know, that's the most well, let me say on air as well too, that my dad expressed that we are going through the same problems he went through, so it hasn't changed yeah, that's it.

Corie: 50:05

It's just a different way yeah, of course, of course.

Kit: 50:07

So my, my philosophy is, or what I'm learning is I need to stop begging for change and I need to become the change that I need to be. So the Calypso venture is the change. Yes, I have to jump out a set of money and I have to do it, but when it works they'll realize. But if I went to the government for support on this, they might be like, maybe, thing, thing, thing, but they might give somebody else the budget instead of give me the budget for it, because I didn't do anything like that. So, establishing myself and establishing what we're going forward, where we have control of the actual product and the vision, I think that's the start. And yes, back to CUT. Cut definitely needs a lot of change, but it's not just change. You need a lot of help and I need to be in a position where it is I could help instead of just I appreciate you saying that that's important.

Kit: 50:51

They need a lot of people to be judging them, but they're not understanding what's really going on and they want to say no cut, not paying this, I'm cutting out this, but the environment is hostile and it's not accommodating. Cut to do the work properly, that they could do the work. So my aim is to see if I could gain some of that authority or influence to actually make the change now, because sitting down in your studio and just building beats it didn't make any change at all to me you're very reminiscent of a fellow named Roger Hinchner.

Corie: 51:17

He's also surreal here in some of this, you know. So, going to that rhythm, the first big one he says is Can, can, can, can was the that was my first rhythm so second star, that was Ayo, that was the one, yeah, so how are you coming up with that? Because before then he trying, he doing things and stuff. What was it like creating the first hit for somebody who?

Kit: 51:35

Well, second Side is a big writer you know, he actually is one of the greatest writers I know. And his ideas I think he has a pool of ideas that all sound culturally appropriate and that could work right sound culturally appropriate and that could work right. And him as an artist was still developing at that point. So he was helping me in certain regards in terms of he knew a lot of djs, so we would have make some connections and we could get some stuff played and then I would have had a studio and I would have been able to produce him. So while he was learning and learning his artistry, he was helping me get into the industry more. So it was definitely a symbiotic relationship and it worked in our favor, so I didn't really make a boss. Second style, it's the teamwork that created the environment for both of us to reach, because I bought same year. So that was the first rhythm I've ever done and that was the major, major success. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to thank him for that that's good, that's good, you know.

Kit: 52:28

And it's, when you say symbiotic relationship, you know, when you think of your parents who could write that script, you know that's so many years after the children, true, true, true true, but when you really look at it, I think it's inevitable, like naturally, if you keep going on a road of music or creativity, you will bounce up more people in creativity and music. It's just natural. But if I decided, you know what I gonna do this maths and I gonna work I would never meet second star, I would never be where I am now today. I mean, I would not be vexed. But you know, I had to take the opportunity and try and leave my job at that point when my son was born and, yeah, it wasn't the traditional decision to make. But it's the best decision of my life. Got it never, regret it.

Corie: 53:12

I'll never regret that so what's your feeling when that rhythm you're seeing it gain legs and it go in?

Kit: 53:16

now. Oh, it's a nice feeling, yeah, it's a nice, it's one of the nicest feelings. But you know what feeling came right after? Wait, boy, I had to do this again oh, the pressure of repeating it serious I know, I know, but that's a human reaction, is?

Kit: 53:31

It's like, as soon as you get, it's like way boy, people loving you, People saying way congratulations and things. But then it's like what am I going to do next year? And then, boy, Trinidad and Real, Unforgiven to the point where last year was, last year, we don't care. And then the year after I didn't do as well. The year after that I didn't do as well. It was, I was surviving and I was still doing, but then folklore came out and then, ah, the acclaim come back.

Kit: 53:56

And then the year after I didn't do that well and then, yeah, yeah, so it's. And then I found a way where I've collaborated with so many people that every year Kyle and everyone on them but said was with Keegan and so forth. So I learned how to spread it out so that you have more eggs in the basket and not to just put everything on yourself but at the same time not take it so personally. When something doesn't work, it's a lot of pressure, and I can imagine for the artists too, because the artist is in the forefront. You can imagine you have a huge year and then nobody calling you for shows the next year.

Corie: 54:31

That's pressure you know, I never really thought about that from a producer's standpoint. My assumption is that artists go through that, so that I look at nadia this year, for instance. I can't understand it. It's not something I could understand because I feel like if in any career you could reach a point where you're so established in what you do that people call you for that, except Sokka and Calypso if you don't have a song.

Corie: 54:55

People like that's it, that's it. And I always used to think like, in the background, at least you still sell any rhythms. You know you're consistent every year, regardless and the artist so Nadia might be there, but Kitt Israel, every single year that is not the case, the average person don't know me.

Kit: 55:10

The average person doesn't care of who. Kit is realist, like people think.

Speaker 3: 55:13

The artist produce the rhythms yeah, and write the songs and sing all the art like like dog, I could tell you honestly.

Kit: 55:21

And, um, when we was doing kesalo, he came by me. I think it was like 10 in the night. We end up finished recording 3, 4 in the morning. He fall asleep on the couch and I record him back, wrongs while it is. He's sleeping and he and I wrote the song right and I mix that song over and over and over. Case casey phillips helped me at that point mixing the song and the amount of energy and work goes into it. I'm sure people think yes, wrote the song for himself and produce it and play the guitar and people would think that yeah yeah, I mean, it's a fan, you kind of thing, though you connect with the artists yeah, yeah, you don't can, and at the end of the day, they might see my name on our credits, but my name isn't.

Kit: 55:53

Is in next to Kess when he goes on to perform, so they're not gonna know. Yeah, but the pressure is still there. It's still there because I've released four or five rhythms a season. None worked. Yeah, and that is not a great feeling. Oh, my goodness, I'm almost Samox and.

Corie: 56:10

Ababa, it is not a great feeling so let me ask you just random question, right? But you say you know, you're never sure when you have something, because this, this thing about holding back. So you hear artists or producers sometimes say you have a song here and you say, boy, I will hold back that for next year, this season. After that hold back is about what is about.

Kit: 56:28

From my interpretation of it, people usually hold back songs when they already have one for the season, right meaning the artists, if they they already have one for the season. Right Meaning the artists if they have a big song for the season or something not getting them bookings, it doesn't make sense releasing a second one because it's going to conflict with the first one and they might actually conflict to the point where they might actually lose attention from the first song. So like when Te song.

Kit: 56:53

So like when teja released dna if he should he didn't have to release any other song, I think that song just, and it just like never stopped yeah, yeah, um, so that's. So he probably had songs that he could have released, but he held it back. So in that regard, I understand. Releasing too many songs is going to be convoluted to a point where the radio can't play all of your songs, right. So having two or three songs is sufficient for most artists oh yeah.

Corie: 57:14

So is that marketing thing more? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So from a producer standpoint, you ain't doing too much of that. If you build five rhythms, you're shopping that, because my one say, when he put out five rhythms because you have five toes and he working on every day, well, my one does have too much rhythms.

Kit: 57:26

He does build beats every, every day. You don't? You're not working on that I? I see it as music is usually meant for now and the energy I have now needs to come out now. So if I finish, it's coming out, and if I don't finish it, then it goes on to next year. But if I finish it, it had to come out, because the song of today isn't necessarily the song of tomorrow and the way I would produce stuff isn't going to be it now. I'm with you.

Corie: 57:48

I'm with you so you're working on second standard. Can can read them? Who else on the rhythm?

Kit: 57:52

uh, flippo was on our rhythm. Uh, danella, she was a young artist at that point and she got real good season from that. Um, well, flippo is now azaria. Right, because of azaria. Now, benji was on that, so phenomenal was on. That was a huge fat song. Um, actually, destra was supposed to be on it, you know, but daniel ended up singing that song. I, I see.

Corie: 58:13

So how are you connecting with people at that point in time?

Kit: 58:16

so you're known in the industry message and hope for the best. Even to this day, you send a message and you're not sure to get a response. Yeah, same with me and I know people busy like I know people busy like I know people busy. Yeah, of course, in this way too right. But come on, I messaged you three, four times in the space of four months. At least say yo, I'm not interested. You know what I mean so we we just had to throw our pride out the window like if I was to say, nah, that person didn't message me, so I ain'm messaging them now.

Kit: 58:50

I get no songs, yeah, but then some songs, you're right. And then it sounds so much like the person I have to get it like it's not even about me anymore, it's about the song. And if this person does sing the song, nobody is going to be able to pull off the song. So actually I have one song like that now that I'm running behind an artist trying to get, because only one artist could pull it off. This is 2026 for 26.

Corie: 59:09

Yeah, got it so kes folkland thing, that was like that is it that you have it written and you want him, or how did I come up?

Kit: 59:15

no, he, he and I wrote that together. He, I sent him the beat, he got some ideas. I had some ideas. We merged the ideas together. So that was actually easy process with kes. It wasn't bad. Tuna, I just met tuna. I love tuna because he just come out of shiba, adam and them kind of thing and I just love his voice and I was just like yo, yeah, cool, he on the rhythm one time. That was super easy as well. Um, second star he was around, so like family, so he was on the rhythm. So the three of them came out on the rhythm. Nadia, however, we released the rhythm the same night. Nadia called me and said kid, send me the rhythm. She got idea. She recorded it the next day send me the vocals. This the the following day. We released song right after the same, two days after. So Nadia got in contact with me for that because she loved it so much and I love her song on that, catching feelings. That was a really nice song on that.

Corie: 1:00:01

But Hello, runaway, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it's funny Like when I hear you talk about Calypso and what you're doing now with Calypso Hearing, doing now with calypso here in hello, the first time we are all parents sides are on the side. We just play music and we always complain in that modern music is difficult to play acoustic and box bass on them kind of thing. Whether it's lyrically though some of some of it don't have a lot lyrically, yeah, yeah, some of it musically it boring to play, it's fine a lot. We went through an era where music is stick on one chord. It was a rhythm and and it's not. There's no chord changes or anything. So a couple of things there, like both that can-can and that folklore reminiscent again of that tambo period of music, but also that beige and invasion, yeah, yeah, the swing and the feel and the groove Deliberate for you in terms of how you approach music.

Kit: 1:00:45

Nah, it wasn't. I didn't think about music when I did music. I just didn't think about music when I did music, I just kind of did whatever felt right. And because I grew up on r&b and these kind of things, I love pretty melodies, I love like nice fat chords, that, and then harmonies oh, I love to like I talk about like five, six different types of harmonies on on each part. So that was just part of me. I didn't really think about it. Like most of what I do with music is in a conscious thing. Like I actually try to remove thought out of music as soon as somebody comes in the studio and say we need to make a hit, please leave Like I wouldn't say it that way but it's just like yo like come on, your focus is in the music.

Kit: 1:01:24

Your focus is your success. And and that throws me off to a point where a lot of people do that because of course, there's a pressure of having to repeat the success they would have had. But when I'm in the studio by myself and I'm working on projects, I don't think I think I stop thinking. Like you know, when you're getting a state of flow, it just happens, and those are usually the best projects I've ever had, and once I keep that consistency of it, I'll keep doing it, regardless of how successful it is. Yeah, and so far it seems to be working it's weird working because that rhythm is forever music.

Corie: 1:01:54

Yeah, uncanny, we are making classics. Everything on the rhythm is that classic you know when you hear turn I had a turner here and we were talking about that and turn off voices something else boy is what I? I don't know what he. He's different, so the elements of the thing. And again, people who know different, so the elements of the thing.

Corie: 1:02:16

And again people who know kaiso, that, that, that, that the strum pattern as well as the, the chord structure, for that is a real old calypso written there, you know, so you could play. I like that, because now, when I go and practice somewhere in valencia and I played, then I did bury my clothes up and higher, then come and play a little something.

Kit: 1:02:29

Yeah, david, we have opportunities. No, the next conversation we have, we talk about our own rhythm, that we release oh beautiful David, we're getting somewhere you know what I mean money making well, we don't know how much money we're going to make.

Corie: 1:02:42

Oh shit, I forgot. I'm not supposed to say the money part, no, the music, the music making. Music making, yeah, but the thing about it is like I could drop a hello in the mix there, because that was a 145 chord pattern, 145.

Kit: 1:02:53

I can't even speak that language. Yeah, I don't know 145, so should I bring?

Corie: 1:02:56

the chord through because it's plenty old. That's one of the most like a staple. It's one of the first things you will learn when you play and I didn't know that and I didn.

Kit: 1:03:09

I really think I was put to calculate like I'm a catalyst of change, and though I didn't grow up on Calypso like a lot of people did, it doesn't mean I can't influence the change that Calypso needs, and I think the position I'm in now is giving me the opportunity to teach how we could enhance Calypso. So what you're talking about I wish I knew, but I think if I knew it I wouldn't have approached it.

Corie: 1:03:34

Yeah, no, I feel like I shouldn't know.

Speaker 3: 1:03:37

You just keep doing what you're doing. Don't tell me nothing.

Corie: 1:03:40

In my mind you had to connect them things and maybe it's not conscious.

Kit: 1:03:43

It's not conscious Because, yeah, that is amazing to hear, like when I actually got a beat yesterday, yesterday to write a song for artists, right, sure, when I hear the beat, I don't think about it, I just take a more watch and I just record the first idea. I come to it, I end up recording the whole thing. The artist take the song already. Yeah, that was yesterday. Yeah, yeah, and the song is actually a real good song. Like the song actually is vibes, um.

Kit: 1:04:06

But if I thought about it like, if I thought, no, this artist needs to sing it this way and this artist needs to present herself this way, I wouldn't get the same song. And then when I sit down and I demo the song, I'd even write I just kind of freestyle, line by line or two lines and say exactly what it is I need to. And I think that process is the spiritual process of it and we remove in that because, like, when we bill a beat, we send it to artists, they say, not, it needs to go in this direction, because it needs to hit this way and it needs to think. And you're removing the spirit out of the music. And now I think, as AI and all this technology, people are really trying to reconnect with humanity and spirituality, where it feels right.

Kit: 1:04:44

Again, nothing to me like a lot of music coming out. It'll feel right like, unless it's organic, unless it's starting to have a little human error in it, it don't feel right. It feel like a game and it's laminated kind of piece of plastic and tell me eat that. Yeah, yeah, you would die if I keep eating plastic. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Corie: 1:05:01

I mean literally, but of course, of course, of course. I appreciate you for saying that, because it's something that I think. As somebody who played music, I feel it sometimes. I wonder sometimes if this is, yeah, not fully written, but I was almost like, if you take all the human elements, you take all the spirit out of it. You know, once the first thing has happened, is you like this song and you may, you may, connect it, but you can't remember it. There's nothing that you hold on to, there's no story, there's no connection, there's no true line it's like music, is vibration right?

Kit: 1:05:31

and I don't want to get too technical because I know we're here for that To be technical.

Kit: 1:05:34

Yeah, man, the vibration of music and even the mixing right, how the bass and the sub hits, or the top end hits, or the harshness or whatever the case is, the vibration in music moves our cells and the cells itself moves our entire being right. If it is, you do an ai song and it have these calculations where it's so exact a point it's not going to have the randomness of human and I think we have to get back to the point where we start to love music, to get back the human in it, and people might be like you're talking madness. I could just think chat gpt and it could give me a whole beat and I could think and I could be a millionaire if your focus has been a millionaire and it's not about the music.

Kit: 1:06:12

God bless, yeah, god bless. I can't see that surviving, because everybody could do that and if you could create, if you could bring back spirituality into music, you would separate yourself from the rest of the people immediately, and I think that's the best investment we should go into. Yeah.

Corie: 1:06:29

Everybody wins. You see me. Everybody wins. Now you go, even when yellow. The thing about this is when I, david, tried to set me up like after the last Calypso Monarch, I had the last Calypso Monarch as one of the better ones in some years and a couple of these songs when I hear them, the song usually with plastic.

Corie: 1:06:49

I like that word. It's song very plastic and deep theories and good reasoning. Use the word plastic, I like that word. It's sung, very plastic and deep theories and good reasoning and nice words, but very plastic. It's not connected and I say you know what, let me try something. Let me go and chat GPT and ask it to write my Calypso Monarch and I went through it. It's one of my favourite monarchs. I'll do a lot of prompting to figure this out and listen the song it could and it give me chord structures and how to thing and a little bridge and everything. And I say, but wait, why wouldn't I do that if I am a writer? Why wouldn't I? Just exactly, and I feel I feel like a lot of it happening, but you still staying grounded in what you do is feel for you first it's feel.

Kit: 1:07:23

Before anything, I think the the spirituality of everything comes, the energy and the universe. It comes before everything. Right, technology gonna evolve and it's going to be a part of our life, like no, no doubt about it. But we can't become dependent on it where it is. We lose humanity from it. Because if it's as easy as just plugging another prompt again, a full song, I would not be interested in music anymore. I would not be interested. But music is not only just a business. For me, it's life. It's like after my children is music, actually maybe before my children.

Corie: 1:07:54

This is getting wild.

Kit: 1:07:56

They're going to look back and they're going to say yeah, daddy, I was in the studio.

Corie: 1:08:01

I guess, yeah, they might say that they would say that.

Kit: 1:08:04

I mean, if one of them get into music, oh good, I'm going to be glad, but I would never force them into it and they would find their own passion. And I know people they say, kit, you get lucky because you found your passion early. I don't think I had a choice, it was just. It was the direction of where my love went. And I think a lot of us start to focus on the responsibilities of life where we lose the passion and then that's why we have a lot of grumpy people walking around. We have a lot of hurt people hurting people.

Kit: 1:08:34

So it's really about not just changing calypso, but it's changing life. Like I think if we could get back and love ourselves, not just as ourselves personally, but ourselves as a country, we could start to treat people better and we could start to actually dominate. Like every time a trinidadian goes anywhere, we dominate, but we become tricky dadians where we take advantage of people and it becomes a situation where nobody wants trinidadians. Of course we build a brand for that. Yeah, like I've been in rooms in the states where they don't want to work with trinnies.

Kit: 1:09:02

Yes, yeah, and this is in the music industry and it's a little unfortunate that I have to sell something different than because they meet me and it's like, oh wait, you're so helpful and you saw this and you think the thing and just send me over. And it's like they don't have that experience with most chindanias because chindanias is good and they think that we could take advantage or we could manipulate or we could, and it's like dog, let me just help others and they would help us as well. And what I've realized the best way for you to make money is to make somebody else money. If I bring in money to you, you don't think you'll call me every single day if I'm bringing money to you, like that makes sense to me, it's just logic, it's math, right. But if I'm thinking, let me go by you and let me get money from you, extract, you're extracting.

Corie: 1:09:42

Yeah, you're not putting anything into anybody get you from a society extraction and no, we're going down there because we just take all the oil out of the ground, sell it for peanuts yeah, but we could extract in a way where it's mutually beneficial.

Kit: 1:09:53

Yeah, and replenish, yeah. Like I'm telling you, if I can make money for you from this podcast, boom, a million views. They're putting out a million views. Right, you make a little money from this podcast.

Kit: 1:10:02

You're gonna call me back, of course right and I'll call me back, yeah, on our song, and we might actually sing and build a relationship from that. We don't know what could happen. But if we just pick up and say, well, I could just use kit for an interview, I could just use thing, and then we never talk again until the next pregnancy photo shoot congrats, by the way, congrats, and it would it would be every man for itself, for themselves, and then it doesn't really cultivate a culture of unity and growth. We can't grow by ourselves. We could reach far by ourselves, but we never reach far.

Corie: 1:10:37

Yeah, you should say that because you are the center of one of them songs that describe that perfectly. Because we had two. We had a pinnacle of Soka and we had a man who come up through a whole different part and become another pinnacle, become another pinnacle. We had our twin peaks at a time. There's bungee and marshall and, um, I think the fans the fans wanted it you've seen it in the instagram comments because they had teased the idea of working together and that, but they were seen as enemies. They were seen as two people who had loggerheads. Yeah, and then, almost on social media too, it was announced that they're going to work together. What was the original bus head? How you get involved in the project, all right.

Kit: 1:11:13

Um, I actually went down by kenny phillips studio and I knew keegan at that point, right, and he's like, wait, but he wanted to work with marshall and do a song. The funny part of it. He said he wanted to do a song with marshall. That's what he wanted to do and my response was okay, um, I want to become a friend of marshall because I feel like nobody's come to him and want to help him. Everybody's come and want to extract from him. I told him I say I'll go do this song with you and we go ting it, but I want to be around him and help him. Right, I know it's very corny, but you could ask keegan, right, and we end up sitting down making the song and building the beat and I'm getting, oh, yeah, right. So and he was like boy, just have a kind of dark feel, boy, make him feel like.

Kit: 1:12:02

And keegan wasn't stick fighting. So then he started to go down the, the route in terms of your writing of like we do it like a stick fighting song, and he ended up coming up with the idea of busset and all these different things and then we wrote it together and, strangely enough, we wrote the whole thing and we pitched it to him and he sat down on it for a couple of days and he's like just saying something. He's like it's not like a big fat song, but it's a cultural moment and he's stick fighting and he could see the visuals and all this. But he said something missing and he and he said hold on, I'll get back to you. And when he was in Barbados he said I just get a call. Gallen, say he on. The song is he gone.

Kit: 1:12:37

Yeah, no, this was Marshall.

Corie: 1:12:38

Marshall said. So you didn't know that he was going to approach Gallen we didn't know, we didn't know.

Kit: 1:12:42

Well, from my memory, you know again also. You know, and when he said that we thought Gallen would write over his parts, gallen actually sing the parts that we gave him, which is rare, because Gallen though he's right, all this stuff, he don't take nothing from anybody and it became this cultural staple. It wasn't like massive, massive, like a boss or one of these things, but it was a moment where stick fighting, which was very cultural to us, the two of them coming together was a big moment. The aggression and the realness of the song was saying what it needed to say and we're missing songs like that overall. But the whole project was a serious opportunity. Like I learned a lot from Marshall, I helped as much as I could. Keegan got this song. You know everybody went from it and I think it put all of us in a better position. You know the hope would be to do more culturally appropriate songs like I don't really care about, like big, big, big songs. I want songs that say in something more than anything, because those songs would last longer as well as it would inspire people to take more risk with the music, because if all of us sing like a boss, like we're just singing like a boss over and over and over and over and you enjoy the carnival the same I mean people would still, you know, drink and party yeah, well, I guess the drinking will help

Corie: 1:13:58

yeah I suppose that is what is helping us solve a lot of problems.

Corie: 1:14:00

Don't put that out there right, but yeah, I think what you say is is the way I saw it as well. I think it was a kind of iconic moment that will be looked up forever. It's forever and nothing better than a stick fighting kind of theme because of the energy between two of them was the kind of rivalry which stick fighting is competition, and Busset and his love. You know, if you go to a stick fighting competition, keegan and I are deeply rooted in it.

Kit: 1:14:24

Well, we went. One or two that was the first time is aggressive yeah, it's a lot for me to digest. I was like yo, these fellas are trying to kill each other.

Corie: 1:14:33

I thought it was a game, yeah.

Kit: 1:14:34

I thought it was like wrestling, yeah exactly.

Corie: 1:14:38

No, no, man, leave it up. It's a lot, david, you know, in here it's real cool. You know I feel like I got dead, but we good David is trying to let me freeze, yeah, tell me.

Speaker 3: 1:14:53

I just wanted to go back. If you're buying it with it is, are you having with soca signals every number of your lifespan? Are you talking about with soca? I definitely know right, okay alright, I'll get back to it, instead of having a flow of international hits and getting along to the traction okay, alright, I'll get back to it.

Corie: 1:15:15

Okay, I was just when you were talking about it. It was a good question, okay, but you're talking about maybe talk about real things.

Speaker 3: 1:15:22

Yeah, talk about real things. That's the idea, that's the question, I think could be.

Speaker 3: 1:15:27

Yeah, I'll get to it because how you're surviving every game, I'll get to it I don't know, because how you'll survive in an Indian. It was when you were talking about what comes next here, yeah, yeah. And number two you have a good hit and you don't have. You can don't hold a power based on this hit and you can have other songs that would help drive from the get. You have other songs that could become subtle hits. You understand that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Circle hits.

Corie: 1:15:52

You're in a chamber, yeah, and we will sell.

Speaker 3: 1:15:53

We will sell hits welcome back to it.

Corie: 1:15:57

So another song I have in mind to get to is is Ola Tunji, ola Tunji. For a long time for me, a very significant cultural moment to me, because Ola, again from like, from you, you know good stock, good parents, you know come from it and it was somebody who you see doing a lot and then all of a sudden you ain't hearing from Ola, you ain't sure where he is and what he's doing and what he's up to from a fan perspective. And then he kind of altered the blue. He just said that Ola, and it almost felt like a signature moment, maybe because his song was he's saying his name, name, but but it felt like a moment where he just stamped himself and just he's just established.

Kit: 1:16:34

From that point, you know, he didn't. He didn't write that song at all. No, it was me and two, two of my other brethren so you have it in mind?

Corie: 1:16:40

well, obviously it's for him.

Speaker 3: 1:16:41

Nobody else could sing it.

Kit: 1:16:42

Yeah, nobody unless it's a spanish artist and you put an h in front of it.

Corie: 1:16:46

Maybe, but it was definitely for him. So how? Why? Why all the time? Why? Why you felt like he's the right person and why you wanted?

Kit: 1:16:53

to approach him. That's just where the idea came. The idea just came out. You know what this song is about. I have to ask you, do you know? No, listen to the actual lyrics, right? This song is actually a sex song.

Kit: 1:17:06

It's really about the girl climaxing and saying, oh my goodness and she bawled out hola to grab on the thing, like and she bawled hola, hola, hola, I could get a korean, that's it. So the context was very risky, but we played it off in a very you know, very playful way, where the hola is like hello in spanish, of course it's a very easy word to say, as well too is his name. So a lot of context kind of came into it. But yeah, that's Exo, yeah how do people know this?

Corie: 1:17:36

I don't know, but they're going to know they're going to know, when you approach him with it, he go in.

Kit: 1:17:42

Yeah, he went through that was the first time I worked with Ola as well, too, and he went through a hundred, and Ola I is probably one of the most talented artists and he should be accredited a little more. But I know Ola is going through his stuff and then he's have his year, and then he don't have his year and he's have his year, and Ola needs a proper team that would always be there to defend him personally and business wise, and I think that's what's you know.

Corie: 1:18:06

It keeps changing, so, but Ola himself, one of the greatest a phenomenal talent once in a generation kind of talent, yeah, in terms of the way he's carried a song, the way he's performed it like. Most recently I was watching Ingenue and I was in a fetish oval boy and that's when I understood. I mean, when you hear this song, you know you're gonna win right. When I see him come on that stage I think it was a people fit and you see young people and the way they latch on to engine room and thing. It's something else to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah audiences you have a azatiness.

Kit: 1:18:36

That's what he just say you have azatiness among what with him, and like his presence he could just you know what it is like you see the, the character or the caricature you, you, there's like this. It is not average human on stage anymore. Like you could see the entertainment flowing out of him now and I wish like things could streamline a little bit of him. But nah, ola is one of the greatest.

Corie: 1:19:00

Yeah, for sure, life, life. But the thing about him is, even when you see him in the streets, as you say, he's like ta-da, ta-da, yeah, yeah, he's answering the phone, ta-da. Now I answer the phone when he calls Ta-da, that's influence?

Corie: 1:19:16

right, they can't be that. That's branding dog. The same thing you're saying about the look. When you start here talking about the look of a calypso, he has it. He has it For sure. Another man who stamped his name and you tell me how you're involved in it and how much work you contribute to it is Ding.

Kit: 1:19:29

Dong. Oh okay, on how much work you contribute, says ding dong. Oh okay, ding dong is an interesting one. Oh god, he might get back to the story, but I won't bossy file anyway ding dong. I didn't really know ding dong before jink and patchy right. The song itself was actually written to give to marshall right. Marshall sit on it for a few months. He's like he's not sure, ting, ting, ting, and who you gonna give it to. I said well, I never worked with ding, worked with Ding Dong, so I wanted to.

Corie: 1:19:51

Oh, he not sure, but he want to know who you're going to give it to. Yeah, yeah.

Kit: 1:19:55

I said I'm going to give it to Ding Dong. He said, all right, all right, it's a serious song. You know it's a serious song and I end up giving Ding Dong, ding Dong sing it and I think it mesh. We change lyrics and we make it match the mood. And Ding Dong had hits before like he had, like hits where he was an artist, like people start to believe he's an artist, right, because, remember, he came from the DJing and whatever, and he had some hits with Teja and whatever the case is. And when that song come out, that changes Kareem, the amount of shows he gets. And though it wasn't like the major streaming song, but in terms of every part Ding Dong was in it was like I could cuss on this. Yeah, it was like dog shit in the rain. He was everywhere now. He was everywhere now and that totally changed how people viewed Ding ding dong. That's the first time I ever woken and, strange enough, every time I work with somebody for the first time, it usually gives them a, a one-up, which is really weird.

Kit: 1:20:59

um, so I've woken with voice for the first time, so let me see how that one go right and um the song itself amazing, like it totally took a different um direction for his performances, for his image, for all of these different things. But the strange thing about it was going back to organizing the song. Ding Dong wasn't registered with Cut at the moment. I know people in Cut and I think, in whatever cases Ding Dong is such a lovable character, he's just so easygoing and you just think I had to go and register this man Forms in, I write up his forms, I pay for his registration. So he's still a man.

Corie: 1:21:35

Jolo, when I get him here, we'll see if I can collect on your behalf or play a little. Av Knowles. Role for him no.

Kit: 1:21:40

I register him, I ting him out, cut because he wasn so carefree, and that's what's pleasant about his attitude and his persona. But we have to get serious at some point, of course. And, yeah, I kind of help him out and I take care of certain things, and, boy, it was a good relationship. We're going to work on more songs, of course, but I don't know if we'll get another drink and party. But the aim is always to be as open and keep the good energy within and the song will come out, however we need it to come on. But, yeah, boy, ding dong.

Corie: 1:22:18

Ding dong is a, he's a, he's a really good soul, but you need a little the thing is like you, you saying this right and again, I'm going back to where we start when you're talking about the brand, the look and what the calypso name is, and Ding Dong is another one who is. All of them have it, you know.

Kit: 1:22:33

But we're not paying attention to it. All we're paying attention to is how do I get on stage and how do I get bookings.

Corie: 1:22:40

Well, we could understand why you break it down before you know you could understand what they're doing.

Kit: 1:22:52

What we're trying to figure out is the why. Once we get the why we can fix some of the things. It's just we're going to have to change the point of view a little bit and the direction so that we can get a better result. Right now, the result is okay and people are surviving, but in order to change, you have to scrap everything and start over, and I wouldn't want to change so. Soca for what it is. Soca is festival music. That's keep that as carnival music and wherever we need soca. But we need something to establish us on a level that shows our royalty. Sure, it shows our talent and it shows our ability outside of just bikinis and whining in the street and drinking I'll wait you.

Corie: 1:23:23

And when you say festival music like in mid-80s or that time I talk about drinking party, would be a calypso.

Kit: 1:23:29

That would have never been defined as soca we use a lot of modern words, phrases, melodies and that shouting. Well, it would have been modern.

Corie: 1:23:38

When them fellas sing it. We listen to it as we listen to calypso. When I was old it would have been up to date when they. So you don't drink and party right? No, no. So where the hell you getting this energy to you?

Kit: 1:23:51

write it. I wrote it with Jelani, and Ding Dong was there too, and one of my other friends.

Corie: 1:23:55

Where you finding the spirit that drink and party spirit? Because Ding Dong that drink and party. In particular, you see, when Kool Afet ain't pick up yet and everybody's still feeling like they have on their clothes and the Adam and Eve thing, when you don't know you're naked yet and everything. That is one of them that's just tipped the party over the head. So where you getting that vibe?

Kit: 1:24:13

from tip to right. I hear that on a big truck at times. That thing's so amazing. I was like, I was proud of myself. I was like yo when you hear party, party and the boy that was be honest.

Kit: 1:24:29

I used to drink and party all right, but I realize I I need to keep myself open as a vessel of like. I believe ideas come from the universe and all of us get ideas. Like ever realizes how some years that people think about the same topics and they they haven't communicated with each other? I think we all get ideas, but whoever acts upon it will win right. So we could, like I, get so much ideas, business ideas and creative ideas, but I never act on it. And then you Google something and then you realize somebody just invented this. So I think we are vessels for information by the muse, the ultimate muse, which is the universe, and it is up to you to act upon it. So if drink and party fall into my lap, you're working on it.

Corie: 1:25:10

I'm working on it. Thanks for working on that.

Kit: 1:25:13

I go pick up the slack where you're leaving back with the drink and party. Another good example is I never play mass Like I used to take pictures and stuff on the road but never play mass. And an idea came to me to make a song called Won't Cry, right? You would understand. What I mean is the first time I touch the stage again. It's such an experience that it makes me cry. I promise I won't cry the first time I touch the stage. That song end up being come home. Oh. So I started that song as a small demo the demo and I sent it to my phone and I'll say I want people to cry when it is they touch the stage again, but I want them to say it in a way where I'm so strong I won't cry, but they're crying at the same time. You know that feeling like I promise I won't cry but they're crying, right?

Kit: 1:25:55

so the song actually started off I promise I won't cry the first time I touch the stage that actually is at the end of the song. But then, formulating the song, and then jeff was getting included in writing it and so forth, all the pieces start to come together and it starts to tell the story. So that was one of the ideas that just kind of came to me. I wanted to make a song in that direction and it hey.

Corie: 1:26:19

You see the comments on that, because Mervon spoke about it and you saw the comments on that. You also will check them comments. You know when people say they're crying.

Kit: 1:26:28

Well, it wasn't me, it was the muse. So that's what I say. It's like there's no way I could say I want people to cry and I'm going to make this and I'm going to be successful and all I just I just welcome the. I know people might say boy Kit, is that energy man and is that? Some things work for me and it's a pattern of working and I realized me being open to certain things has proven to work in my favor. So why would I close off myself? Right, I didn't go into the intention of making the whole world cry. I went into the feeling that what if we did a song that could make people feel this way? That's it. I didn't expect the song to get so big. I really didn't know where it would have gone. It was real, plenty R&B melodies and real thing, and it was like people saying the song song in two white or it's song in two R&B.

Corie: 1:27:19

I hear so many references Thanks to Mervon. It's crazy where you all start with the way I know it. Yeah, I was asking Merv, I would ask my friend this if he was here as well, but how he's getting this one done, because my friend spoke about sending it to this one, this one, this one, this one and not working. Yeah, I do.

Kit: 1:27:33

Yeah, I do, but I think I've learned where I don't take it personally anymore. Now Send it All right, it's not for them. The song does always find a home Drink and Party. I started working on a song with Free Tongue two years back or so and we have it and it was okay. It's our vibe, our every case is. But then we end up coming back and we end up doing Take Me Home. The right moments always happen. But if we are so forceful in our action where we decide when is the right moment, we throw off the right moment. We just have to let it flow, we just have to let it become its right moment. And a lot of people don't understand that. So men might tune down songs that's for them and then not realize that could have been their song and then come back and say, boy, I gave one, you know I don't have the humility for that.

Corie: 1:28:22

Okay, I don't be waiting for men next year no, no, no, I would still work with them.

Kit: 1:28:28

I don don't have a problem, it's just they miss the opportunity. And people think it's me saying you know, I giving you this up. It's not me, dog, it's the universe saying this is an opportunity. If you want it, you can be part of the mission, or you could be part of it. If you don't, then that's okay too. Somebody else will get it. If these new, smallest artists come and boss now offer the song that I give to the biggest artists, I'm glad. I'm glad the song came to life. It gave somebody a career, it made sense. But a lot of people. So they're just scared. They're really just scared of. They're not sure if it will work.

Speaker 3: 1:29:00

They're not sure if people will take it.

Kit: 1:29:01

They're not sure they're taking a risk, yeah, but the number one thing I would say is next year nobody gonna care. Dog Trinidad after a week they just forget. So release your crap song and then release our next one. Yeah, see what happens. And see what happens if nine of them is crap and one woke. Nobody gonna remember the night yeah, of course, of course.

Corie: 1:29:19

So you're talking about the festival music as well, and the whole soap is that. But Anxiety is unique from that standpoint because it's in the now. It's forever music too. But the the, the story behind that and what happened, you know, with ricardo drew at the time and that song it we talk about making people cry, that was one of them moments too. So what, how that came about, what was the story there?

Kit: 1:29:45

that song was totally patrice, meaning we came for a session and we had different ideas on one of the cases and then Mill beat and I'm playing these chords and Patrice was like, oh, I like this. So he's like okay, let me follow. She was sipping on a little drink or whatever and she was talking. So she was a little talkative because of the drink and she started to express what she was going through and anxiety came up and she started to see how she was suffering from certain things.

Kit: 1:30:10

And I didn't even realise that she felt that way, because I just work with Patrice on a professional level, so it's just and that's it and then understanding it and everybody in the room could have felt, wow, this is important, this is very important and this is very important, not just for her. But a lot of people go through this but never speak about it, right? So we just end up start a freestyle some melodies. So I went in the booth and I freestyle some melodies. We end up getting the song for anxiety it was totally on patrice's energy and then we try and paint it in a way where you know, soca and carnival save us. You know, I mean anxiety. We suffer from this, but then when we get on the road and we party and we enjoy it, it helps us feel a little better. So that was the whole concept of it and the video came out amazing. Everything came out amazing.

Kit: 1:30:51

But nobody could have predicted what happened with Drew and that was like I don't know what happened, but it happened. And then that gave the song a different meaning and people would say we're in Jumbie thing, because it's like how you could sing a song about that a few months before. And then this happened and it's just like yo, nobody could have planned that and nobody would have wanted it. It's just, it happened and that's how it happened and the universe made it happen that way. Yeah, and that boy. Every time I think about it, I just get chills.

Corie: 1:31:21

I get chills about it yeah, it speaks to just what you're saying in terms of the universe or you being a vessel. Because, again, I was telling my friend this if you ask fans, they are going to think you made the song about him personally. How, how, how, like, like think about just like when you tell them you made it before. What will happen over the years? When you tell them it happened?

Corie: 1:31:41

the song was before people would say, oh, they're lying for sure for sure for sure, for sure, because it's just too much of a coincidence, and I remember seeing her performing it at her show Tough year boy. Yeah, I would imagine, I would imagine. So what are you going through as an individual and dealing with that and seeing what the song does? Is it feeling that same good feeling as Can, can or Folklore and you're feeling that in terms of the song taking off at that point in time?

Kit: 1:32:18

But it's sort of a terms of the song taking off at that point in time anxiety. I think we were just trying to be there for patrice. So, once again, it didn't matter about the success. I didn't see what it would have done or what it would have become or is more of being present for somebody that you care about and you know, I know I sound cheesy when I speak, but I'm being very, very serious and with it, and because that, I think it gave us the success, because it was about she taking care of us and we taking care of her. Sure, sure, yeah, it was not about the song becoming success, okay.

Corie: 1:32:41

I don't find it sound cheesy at all. Let's just tell it because I expected I always be shocked as hell when I get answers here. I be honest, because when you do songs so deliberate, I would have thought that when I come to talk to kids, this is what I have in my mind the first time I see it. I say, kid, listen to real old Kaiso and real old thing. And he's just connecting dots here and making a modern version of it. So to hear I was going to send you a whole set. I haven't sent you nothing again. You just continue, continue channeling who you're channeling.

Kit: 1:33:08

You don't need to send a comment to your quattro.

Corie: 1:33:10

I'm going to learn to play between now and then. Yes, so Calypso is coming up. There are two questions I want to close on. I appreciate you talking about the name advocate and what the meaning behind it is and so much of what you do, especially when you're talking casually about being there, pivot, especially when you're talking casually about being there, pivotal moments in several artists' career and how it switches. What next year and thing looking like, because we're in a space where, as you said, you're only as good as your last hit. You're not sure that you have anything next year. I hope the residuals or whatever you call it, between your royalties, your Spotify money. I hope you're doing good for you in perpetuity.

Kit: 1:33:55

But how are you feeling about next year and your chances? All right, next. Next year is a big one, right in many regards, and I have no idea what's gonna work, what's not gonna work. But I'm turning 40 just now, so it's a big year for me personally and I said I wanted to take more risk, right, get out there a little, more, do expand, you know, do all these different things. Uh, with the calypso brand and with the calypso vision, that's one of the ideas that I had for a few years and it just reached a point. You know I'm reaching 40 and let me do it because I know nobody gonna do it for me, so let me do. In terms of the calypso event, we're getting a lot of attention like real positive.

Kit: 1:34:29

Yeah, like I ain't even gonna lie, I am shocked, um, and I think that's gonna become us. It could become a staple, where we could repeat it and bring culture back into it in a different way, instead of just drinking and partying right through purpose, purposely, but without purpose right, um, so that one I'm proud of already right, although the event isn't isn't until well next week, um, I'm proud of it already. So that one I I feel pretty good and success successful and there's something you intend to evolve.

Corie: 1:35:00

You say, starting with the fashion. It goes somewhere else after that like, yeah, well, aspect of it.

Kit: 1:35:04

The, the genre of establishing the genre of what calypso is, is another part of it, as well as in setting the culture of it, and even not just the culture but the standardization of the culture as well too, because business-wise, we don't want Calypso to fall into what Soca Wild Wild West is.

Kit: 1:35:21

We don't want it to just be this kind of rare, rare, rare kind of thing. So, in terms of the fashion show, I'm really really, like, excited about it and I feel successful already. In terms of the music, I know it's going to be a little harder push, but when you hear these songs, I think people would understand and I think people would jump on board, because it speaks more than just Carnival and it speaks more than just us. It speaks of where we should have been now us it speaks. It speaks of where we should have been there right, like if you had take calypso at a different level, calypso could have been our grammy, you know what I mean. Like, but we let it slip and I don't think we could afford to let slip anymore. So the, the aim going forward is to make it work, of course, but, as I say, I leave everything up to the universe and we'll see.

Corie: 1:36:07

We can have another conversation for voice here. We don't tell me his voice already, you know. So we're waiting to hear when that comes, you know we'll be excited about that.

Kit: 1:36:13

I have a voice, one very special as fans.

Corie: 1:36:15

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the collaboration between the great producers and the, that's great now the mood of it is.

Kit: 1:36:28

It's different and it might take a few songs for people to get it, but I'm confident that something will change. Even if I am the catalyst and somebody else does something that inspires something else, then inspire something else. At least the change happens, because I cast it on here and just be like all right, let me just try and get hit next year and then so you don't do that roadmatch thing chasing your road.

Corie: 1:36:51

You're a groovy man by design. You're not 100 percent group.

Kit: 1:36:54

You know, I made one power rhythm long time ago. Failure, it's a failure. I, I, um, I. I don't think I understand power soaker, the way that it needs to be understood. And then, because I sing so much pretty melodies, I don't have like that jump and wave kind of back and hand in some of my stuff now. So to put a set of pretty melodies is not going to work alone. So when Jeffers came in he would come home. The pretty melodies work with the aggressive, so the Nile and the skinny work together. But if I was to do a power rhythm it would sound like love and butterflies. To be honest, it's something like mash up the stage.

Kit: 1:37:30

Yeah yeah, yeah so let me stick in my pocket. I'm proud of my little bpm me too.

Corie: 1:37:38

So with advocate meaning what it means, you're clearly living that. What's he meaning?

Kit: 1:37:42

uh kitwana, from what I understand, means last son of the tribe last son of the tribe, yeah um, and weirdly enough, it happened to be so right my sister, my younger sister, was the last and.

Kit: 1:37:54

I have two older siblings and I'm the last son, right, right, but the name Advocate it was really a vision of helping to speak on behalf of and to protect and to defend. Yeah, and I didn't expect it to reach to this level. But you really should be careful what you name your stuff. So, because it does happen. But I've always, I've always appreciated and always been like glad that I've. My childhood was a little interesting to the point where I felt like I appreciated, like Batman, right. So Batman, yes, he's a vigilante, but he would help people right, might be a billionaire junior I'm not a billionaire, not yet we get into right right but help people right and do it in a way where he stands by his morals and so forth. And I always felt like, because certain things happen to me, I don't want things to happen to other people like that. So that's kind of where it came from. So I kind of a superhero, kind of complex when it comes to I like that I like, that we need saving, I, I know.

Kit: 1:38:51

But sometimes you know people take advantage of it and you know it is helped too much and then they come and spit on you and then it just feel like but I can't help, but help, yeah, and yeah, when bad things happen, the universe is fine away and bless me always, always. So whenever I bless somebody, there's always come back around. So I cool, I cool it is, and the name advocate I. I I wanted to survive and even for my kids to pick it up, because we want to develop a culture of helping and I think we're missing that a lot in the industry. Yeah, trinidad and zobago need that.

Corie: 1:39:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I appreciate your blessing us with your presence. I appreciate you coming through today's, one of the deeper conversations I've had here. You know, take a mathematician. You know, david, we had to get more mathematicians up here.

Kit: 1:39:30

I don't think you'll find any more mathematicians doing what we're doing now.

Corie: 1:39:34

And the Soka producer, who is a borderline actuarial scientist. It's hard to find. How do you replicate that? I don't know.

Kit: 1:39:41

I don't know, but what I would say is everybody bringing their own flavor. I don't think you want any more me.

Corie: 1:39:50

You say he's the last, everybody bringing their own flavor. I don't think you want any more me. You don't want no more me.

Kit: 1:39:53

Last in the tribe you say it yeah, you don't want no more me in this industry. You need other things like uh, mevon akaila, nikolai akisi. They need to spread out, but we need to spread out in a way where we could come together and wait.

Corie: 1:40:04

Seeing us, though. You're doing that, you're coming together. All these stories are here.

Kit: 1:40:07

Yeah, you have some of it, so it's a real pressure them fellas because, like even before we had set up like a producer's group and then we're trying to do a producer's union and do all these different things I realized I kind of did everything and maybe let's bring it down to who interested, and then, well, mevon and I and all of them, we work closely together anyway.

Kit: 1:40:27

Yeah, so we actually have a meeting just now, um, and to kind of figure out what songs we're doing for the season, who we pitch into and what are the cases. But we need to develop a habit of it. We don't because all of us are individuals at the end of the day, everybody doing their own business, however they want to do it. And if we could create the habit of it, we could create business out of it, we could create standards from it and then we could teach the next generation of how it should be done advocacy.

Corie: 1:40:50

Yeah, I appreciate it, brother, so I don't go on. David, we had to eat because kid do it and he make me eat at all before we start this thing, so we could eat.