Episode 256 | Kasey Phillips — From Antilles to LA: The Sound of Precision

In this episode of The Corie Sheppard Podcast, Corie sits down with Kasey Phillips, the world-renowned producer and CEO of Precision Productions, whose sound has defined a generation of soca and shaped the evolution of Caribbean music.

Kasey opens up about his journey from engineering hits for KMC and Machel Montano to crafting global soca anthems like Antilles and countless Road March winners. He reflects on his creative philosophy, the business of production, and why he refuses to compromise on ownership or fairness in the studio.

The conversation dives into the science of building a riddim, lessons from his “baptism by fire” alongside the biggest names in soca, and how his move to Los Angeles led to new collaborations — including work with Ciara and K-pop artists — while still championing the Caribbean sound.

It’s an honest, masterclass-level conversation about art, innovation, and global ambition — from one of the most influential producers of our time.

🎙️ Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

#coriesheppardpodcast #KaseyPhillips #PrecisionProductions #MachelMontano #AntillesRiddim #Ciara #Soca #CaribbeanMusic #MusicProducer #Culture

Chapters

• 0:00 Arrival, Grenada Recap, Low Sleep
• 1:05 Grenada Workshops and Jab Sound
• 5:40 Teaching Mixing, Before/After Breakthroughs
• 8:20 Antigua Program and Government Support
• 10:55 International Credits: Ciara, K‑Pop, LA Pipeline
• 15:30 Why LA: Internship, Saving, Publishing Reality
• 20:05 Growing Up in the Studio, Early Sessions at 10
• 24:10 First Hits and Finding a Soca Formula
• 28:30 Building Rhythms as a Business Model
• 33:10 Contracts, Ownership, and 50/50 Debates
• 38:00 Antilles: Strings, Structure, and Rollout
• 42:15 Writer Rooms, Demos, and Artist Fit
• 46:20 Slaughter, KMC, and Sound System DNA
• 50:05 The Marshall Era: Vocal Science and Work Ethic
• 54:30 Live Band Feel: From Hotel Demo to Classics
• 58:20 Global Play: Grammys, Categories, and Strategy
• 1:02:10 Unity, Numbers, and Future Focus
• 1:04:30 Closing Gratitude and Production Craft

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:03

Hi, my name is Corey. And today we have Casey Phillips.

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

What's up, sir?

SPEAKER_04: 0:17

Casey Baby, brother. You're gonna keep these people on their toes, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 0:21

I trying to figure out what's going on.

SPEAKER_04: 0:23

Yeah, you come and handler too. We had to keep them guests.

SPEAKER_03: 0:25

We had to keep the handlers on the edge, right? Everything, brother.

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

I cool, man. I cool, you know, running on low sleep, but we here.

SPEAKER_03: 0:32

You're accustomed to that. Yes, I know. I'm trying to be better at it. I'm sure, I'm sure. We're lucky to have you in Trinidad. You have a time zone difference too in you, right? So you gotta get accustomed to it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

We're here for a little bit, man. We're here for a while. Here to get some business stuff done, and then I go on end of the month.

SPEAKER_03: 0:47

Business stuff. That means like next year road match and then business stuff. Just checking, just checking. We now start though.

SPEAKER_04: 0:54

We now start in the street. We had to keep the handlers active. We can't ever let them stop. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 0:58

You gotta keep them busy. So listen, good place for me to start, right? Because we're coming off uh Grenada Carnaval. And I remember having a conversation with you about your own contribution and some of your work in Grenado. This year in particular, why we look at in Grenado, they always have that jab energy that everybody looking at. But Instagram and thing this year, social media is the biggest ad I ever see for Grenada Carnival, pretty much ever. But you had some influence there with some workshops that you did.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26

Yeah, we just did a workshop in May, I believe. Um myself, LG Stage Management, Dareem. We went, we did um Bring the Beat Music Masterclass. Yeah music production masterclass. Uh the government just reached out. We went and we do this workshop. It was about who I can't remember how many. How many guys were you? I can't remember the number now. LG, LG, we're gonna go to the 35 guys there, they were they were extremely enthusiastic. They asked questions from the first minute. Serious. I couldn't even go for lunch. They keep coming up to ask questions. Gabi had to like block them, like, yo, we gotta eat. But nobody had helped us guide the workshop now. It was like, oh, this is what you want to know, oh, this is what you want to know. Gotcha. Um when I was great, it's I've been gone for a while. Because I moved away about 11 years now. So I've been out of a little out of touch with what the impact is still, you know, what the impact still is. Right. So you know, I did all those songs back then. You know, time does go, it might fade off, but now when grenade and this still is like, yo, yeah, we love these songs, etc. etc. But um workshop was great. We we did her exercise at the end of the workshop where we did a before and after. Go back and mix over a song we had before, and the results were so so crazy. I had to stop and be like, Hold on, this sound is so different. How y'all learned to do this before? And they were like, We never learned. This is the first mixing class, is the first class of this series that we do.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00

And I was like, Oh, so it's kind of like figures out as they go allow.

SPEAKER_00: 3:05

So it's so funny. I was listening to the road match from Grenada a week ago. I was like, This song ain't good, boy. Who would do this, boy? I see our major league and I check back the guys who was in class, he was in the class.

SPEAKER_03: 3:17

So your class at the time the people who sign up for the workshop is current producers of the current music in Grenada. No, it's not it's not up and coming all the both, both. Oh, you had some of that too.

SPEAKER_00: 3:25

Yeah, up and coming and seasoned producers as well.

SPEAKER_03: 3:27

Well, let me talk to you about doing two things separately now. The up-and-coming guys, they come in with a masterclass, they have some basic understanding. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

You kind of have to have some. You had to know what it is to some degree because it's an advanced masterclass. It's not just uh, we're not teaching you, this is a feeder, this is how you produce how you produce. No, it's kind of like advanced, we're going into the depths of okay, this is how precision approaches producing a song, mixing a song, recording vocals, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03: 3:55

Right. And then these seasoned guys who are custom to it, they understand who you are, they understand the work you've done.

SPEAKER_00: 4:02

Well, that was the crazy part. A lot of the guys there, shout out to expert and lion pope and some of the guys, they were like, yo, precision influenced me to to want to produce. So a lot of them I connected with with the first for the first time. Oh, you didn't know this going in. I don't know them personally, I know the names, I know obviously.

SPEAKER_03: 4:18

You don't know that you inspire. No, no, no, no, like intimidating. You don't be flustered by that or anything.

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

Um, I I still process in it. Yeah, it's one of those things where my brain is be like, wait, what? Yeah, and he'd be like, Yeah, you know, the song, this one and that. And then I do this beat that song like your beat because it inspires. I was like, Oh, really? Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 4:36

So you know before and after work with them. When you say old project, it's something that they will like a current song that was released already, and I was like, okay, mix it over now.

SPEAKER_00: 4:44

Because Greenada have their own sound, they have their own style, jab jab, horn, conch shell. So I not go in there to change their sound, right? Which is a very important point. I'm just there to show the technical foundation and say, all right, this is how we make this better. And um, yeah, they they they mix over some of the stuff they have. The jab gel stuff tend to be a little noisy, right? Yeah, that's just a thing.

SPEAKER_03: 5:09

Yeah, you hear that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:10

No, but it's kind of a known thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:12

Like among you all, because actually, like some of them we talked before about them, and when I go back and listen to them, I was like, sound good to me.

SPEAKER_00: 5:18

Well, I remember the minister saying they went to was it Carikou or somewhere, and there's like we went in this fella bedroom, well bedroom studio, and he's like, Yeah, Dash and all these guys come through, come through here, right? And that that's just what it is. So they not they don't have the best facilities, so it tends to be a little noisy, a little not the best quality, right? But that used to be the sauce. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03: 5:41

I suppose that is the energy.

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

So it's just how how do we keep the sauce but make it sound better? And that was really the the goal. You're gonna laugh at this because I didn't tell you this. I won um Grenada Road match in 2006.

SPEAKER_03: 5:53

Yeah, oh, you've been doing this, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:55

So we've been doing, and I think with Tian as well in Antigua, we did probably Groovy or Power or something. So I'm familiar, and I may not know all the current trends, but I used to do the run Trinidad, St. Vincent, Barbie, that's Grenada, St. Lucia. We win in St. Lucia already. Right. Um, and just go down the line. So I know I know the different styles.

SPEAKER_03: 6:15

I gotcha, I got you. So you're coming off another, just like Grenada, another successful workshop in Antigua.

SPEAKER_01: 6:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 6:21

But I see random, just as random as the Tessanchin thing. I see a Sierra album. Yes. As far as your credits know.

SPEAKER_00: 6:29

Yeah, that just dropped in August, actually. Um, yeah, I worked on six songs. We had five on the EPB4, and she now put out the big album, which is huge. So, and both. Yeah, had five on that, now we're on six. We have a new one that added on, and yeah, we're hoping for big things to happen with this album here now.

SPEAKER_03: 6:49

Yeah, I'm sure that you said that was with Tiran as well. That was good.

SPEAKER_00: 6:53

Probably, if not all the songs, a lot of them.

SPEAKER_03: 6:55

Oh, serious, yeah, yeah, but again to write a song from us since we gain 50% these days as as well.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

You wouldn't get 50 from him, and you can't afford him. I can tell you. It was with a shot.

SPEAKER_03: 7:06

So as trainees, we could clear we could safely claim the Sierra album.

SPEAKER_00: 7:10

Yeah, all right, good. I mean, how we role played on radio here a long time.

SPEAKER_03: 7:13

Alright, perfect, perfect. I love it. So, uh but a name like precision in particular particularly, right? You I don't know, I don't know. You you tell me. The thing about it is like it feels like one of them names where there's a lot of pressure. How you come up with that?

SPEAKER_00: 7:31

It used to be. It used to be when when we in it, you know, when that reset happened on Ash Wednesday, and then you have to kind of beat last year. Right. It used to be a lot of pressure. Now I think I don't care anymore. So it's kind of like we do enough already to be like, if I feel like doing one, I could do one. If not, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03: 7:47

Serious, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:48

But it used to be pressure.

SPEAKER_03: 7:49

Uh okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00: 7:50

Because they had to top your previous year all the time.

SPEAKER_03: 7:53

Yeah, it's something I'll get into that uh in a in a bit too. Because the um the Trinidad and Tobago government, because you said that Grenada government reach out to your boys, right? And they got you on board to do this. Antigo is from is from the governmental level of it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:07

Yes, um, festivals and festivals and commissions team.

SPEAKER_02: 8:11

I think I'll be all festivals, and that's the name of the festival for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 8:15

Gotcha. So the government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, you know what I mean? In our 50, how much you have independence? I mean, you're 60 something. You usually get calls like that to do things like that here.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

No, we usually try to design our own workshops and hope to get sponsorship, which we never get. No, uh locally here. Okay, let me let me let me let me be fair. Um, we did get Napa on board and UTT back in 2018 because I did the workshops here before.

SPEAKER_01: 8:41

Really?

SPEAKER_00: 8:42

Um, yeah, we did a few workshops. We got them on board, also Music TT supported as well. Shout out to Music TT, but not like how Grenada did. Yes, they paid for every student, it was free for them.

SPEAKER_03: 8:53

But they paid for the students as well. Yes, I see.

SPEAKER_00: 8:55

They were like they they hand selected who's coming.

SPEAKER_03: 8:58

So they invest in kind of in the future of what they've got in the world.

SPEAKER_00: 9:00

Goka, shout out to Goka and that whole creative arts office, but they're doing a lot. Yeah, they well, they're doing the workshops, but not only in music, because we did one, but they also want to do all the different practitioners in the creative fields, so like stage management, um, songwriting, um, mass making, like all these things they they they're doing. Also, they're giving grants to the producers to get new equipment. So all these students were like, all right, what speakers I should get with this, and they're also doing um breaks on customs when they bring in equipment. I see, so they're really helping them out. God, it's and you see, I mean, you see how what they say, spice mask booked out completely for next year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's becoming one of them things. It's clear to see. I thought it would take a little longer to see the results, but yeah, it happened already.

SPEAKER_03: 9:45

Immediate. Yeah, David, let's reach out to the government's agreers, see if they need podcasts. And you know what I mean? It makes sense. It makes sense. Like you do it now. I did see some of the participants come after and say how you were able to help them with it with the existing equipment that they had and also to guide them along in terms of what would make the difference over there.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:05

So, how much of that influenced by what you're doing now in LA? Because when I see, when I look at your discography, I ask you, you know, we talk about the things that you've done before. I heavy into local music and so and so, but when I see the names that you've worked with before in LA, like Sierra is one, who might be some of the other international people you've worked with.

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

Um Sierra and Chris Bron was on that song together. Right. Um, we just did Aquila from Canada. She's an RB, I can't say up and coming anymore, but RB superstar in Toronto. She actually has Jamaican roots as as my friend now. Um, you know, Caribbean people we just Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We make a friend. We did Carl Thomas years ago. Whew. A Maria at a point. Oh, I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_03: 10:49

Yeah, there's some of the people who dominated.

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

We just did um we just did the K-pop song, so in hyping in Korea.

SPEAKER_03: 10:55

I see. Yeah. So those things you would record by you or this sentence or mixed masters.

SPEAKER_00: 11:00

No, a lot of a lot of those things sent out. Seriously. Yeah, sent out. I never met Sierra in person. I see. That just came back, the K-pop thing. Well, right. That was that was a song written for Usher. And one day I just got a call like K-pop group singing and it's like, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 11:13

Yeah. Alright, I'll take it. Yeah, that seems like a strange world to me when you say it like that. You know, the the the the the sort of fragmentation or the specialization industry. That's normal in in LA or abroad with global music.

SPEAKER_00: 11:26

Yeah, I mean, everybody have their teams, and then they will go out and look for the songs and bring it back, and then they work with their people. Right. Sometimes, if you get enough credits, you could start to be invited to those rooms and work with them. The K-pop thing, well, they're in a whole next side of the world. So, yeah, they'll they they kind of gain more into Western music, so they come in and getting songs from all the Western producers and writers, and then they'll take it back and change it to Korean. Um, that's just that's just how that world is a whole different world.

SPEAKER_03: 11:53

Oh, wait, yeah, yeah, whole different numbers and everything to write.

SPEAKER_00: 11:57

That I think that album went platinum on the day dropped. Yeah, it's million copies twice in Japan and Korea. Serious. I was like, what's what is happening?

SPEAKER_03: 12:07

Well, you see, and who we might know in this part of the world as very big artists, American artists, and uh 40,000. You know what I mean? When yeah, I suppose. So, what is final about you? How oh how your name gets so big? Oh, you get to be people you just want to do.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Well, no, they don't find out is it's just me and my team and colleagues and different connects you make where you just you just you're pitching, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's serious. So see what works. Anybody say, hey, you this person looking for this? Sure, I'll send something. I may not have it, but I'll send something, I'll find it. Um, and that's that's what it is, it's just hustling and working tirelessly and not letting any opportunity pass.

SPEAKER_03: 12:48

I understand, I understand. That is really the neighborly game. Yeah. So why LA when you when you initially made that move? What made you choose that?

SPEAKER_00: 12:55

So I did an internship back in 2010 under Drean Vidal. Shout out to Question Mark, Simon and Carlin. They took me and Nikolai there for the first time. Um what we went there for, boy. So long ago. I think we went there for EA games. We were trying to get on FIFA soundtrack. We went there with Kes, um, Simon at that point. And we met Drean Vidal and they're like, hey, we're doing this music house. It would be great if you all could come. We were engineers at that time. We engineered more than them. Um, so they didn't mind having engineers in the house. And um, yeah, I did a year there, kind of saw the whole system of how they run things and uh learnt a lot. Hated a lot, yeah, learnt a lot. Really? Good and bad. Um, but brought that back after the internship, and that's where the whole the whole explosion of um precision happened. I like to call it the the the songwriter, um, what I call it, the songwriter model.

SPEAKER_04: 13:54

Yeah, some writer revolution, though yeah, songwriter revolution is a lot of changes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:00

Um yeah, so that was but to answer your question, LA at the time LA was just budding to be the hub because LA always had film because of Hollywood, but music was now coming there because everything connected now. Right, musicians and and and artists acting and and doing more songs for film, so it kind of started to be this one hub. Still have Miami, still have Atlanta, um, New York to some degree, but everybody in LA.

SPEAKER_03: 14:26

I would have thought New York. So so Miami and Atlanta is bigger hubs for music than than than I wouldn't say bigger hub, it's different.

SPEAKER_00: 14:33

Atlanta have future and the trap scene and and the rap scene, um, so they're still hot for that. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03: 14:39

But yeah, I might be stuck thinking 90s hip-hop. So I still think of New York a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 14:42

LA is now the pop-up, right? So all the Katie Perry, see Dr. Luke's, the big engineers, yeah, all the big writers, the Ryan Tethers, all these guys is LA.

SPEAKER_03: 14:55

Right. So if that workshop would have been 20, when 2011, 12 is the only time you went to LA.

SPEAKER_00: 14:59

The internship, yeah. 2010. Because I know I took a year off.

SPEAKER_03: 15:03

As early as that.

SPEAKER_00: 15:04

Yeah, 2010. And then when did you move to LA? When you when you decided you were 2015, 16. So I came back, and there's a good that's a good thing to say. I came back and had to save for like five years and prepare to go back to LA. Because I was like, alright, we're moving. Right. I don't know how, but we gonna figure this out.

SPEAKER_03: 15:24

But wait, before you go, why make you decide you're moving? You just wanted to see the heart of that.

SPEAKER_00: 15:29

Um, should I give you the the real reason? Yeah, yeah. Or the or the or the censored reason. Um so I always grew up studying hip-hop, right? Studying RB, studying rap. I would sample Timberland instrumentals at the end and chop little things and make beats. And um, but of course I born into soccer, but I really liked hip-hop and RB. And um got into the soccer thing, was doing it, but it always sounded different, right? In the early years, the beats always didn't fit. Yeah, the soccer always sounded weird, right? And some of them get through, some of them is like this too strange. Um, but it was always our goal to make real publishing. So sad to say, sorry to say, but we don't make real publishing here. Uh-huh. Yes, carnival, and we at a point we were making good residuals from soccer manark and all that, but we don't really make publishing on radio here. So the goal is always to do get placements outside, make real publishing, get Grammy. So always been our goal. So I was like, you know what, elevators. So they say we don't get real publishing from the producer's standpoint, for instance, is not um from for all the songwriters, all the composers, cut only does so much. There is um compared to how mainstream publishing would be, there's no comparison. But again, market size, a lot of different factors, it just it just can't compare.

SPEAKER_03: 16:52

Yeah, seeing plenty of people who in your industry say any same thing when you're it is a is a running trend at this point because what people would say is for instance, you can't deny an artist. So, for instance, I if I have a song I like from Bungie, I would assume from the era I come from that Bungie writes it, he makes the beat. The feta don't care. When you go to hear different sology, you just sit with it and it's bungee. You don't know who else. Yeah, yeah, you don't know the whole the whole team behind it, exactly, so that the artist gets the credit. But as a surprise to hear, because I always, you know, the the barbershop talk is that the writers make all the money that is well all here, no, yeah, because the artist going out every night performing and making making a performance fee.

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

Right. We gain some mechanicals and some royalties on the radio, and maybe some royalties from the Fed from it playing in the Fed. But it's enough, it's not enough to sustain.

SPEAKER_03: 17:44

Evidently, if you had to save for five years, if you had to save for five years to move to LA, think bad if I try to produce a song, it kind of hits you with that.

SPEAKER_00: 17:50

Um there's a point I was gonna tell you. Also to living in LA. So there was a there was a point where I moved and I was still doing soccer. And quickly realized that I cannot do so and live in LA. Yeah, I can't so I can't pay my LA bills. Yeah, and that was just no, that was just the reality of it.

SPEAKER_03: 18:09

And I was like, No matter how good it does here, it's not going to No. LA no joke, expensive night. Exactly. Yeah, LA is no joke. I was there a couple years ago. I'm actually I came to LA. I think I name it here was Van Nyes. My brother lives in the year. Not Hollywood, yeah. Yeah. He's studying film scoring. He could kill me if I don't get it right, but somewhere close to right, right? So the opening for this podcast would be a rhythm section from point for he recorded it and progressed it for his album. I know the intro pan side. He did it. But um, so he was graduating from the school he went to and we went up for the graduation, and it was at the height of that Kendrick Lamarting. Oh, it's recently. Oh, it's recently okay, okay, okay. That was a nice time.

SPEAKER_00: 18:52

That was a nice time to be in LA.

SPEAKER_03: 18:54

It was different because you know, it was already done heated, right? It's not a week after the weekend when all the songs come out back to back and that kind of thing. I never hear nothing like that in my life. Every Uber in every store.

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

That one song unites that city so much, it was crazy to even see.

SPEAKER_03: 19:13

When I hear heavy rotation here, I just started taking 96.1 and then all certain artists who's getting. Well, I started to understand where heavy rotation is. American radios are different. You could not tell any radio station, it was just saying they're not like us. I can't remember the name of the four, it was about four others. Every store you're going to everywhere you go, it would play over and over and over. So I always wondered for somebody like you, when you in that environment, how you getting us feel for what we need as fetters down here.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

You know, people used to ask me all the time, it's like, well, you don't party and you don't go out, so how you know? And I was like, Well, I've been to enough fets to know. Yeah, I've been to soaker, I play mass two, three years. I mean, I'm not enough around it, around it enough to know what to do, but also I think there's beauty in not knowing as well because I wouldn't do the same thing, and I wouldn't do what everybody expects. Right. Um, so it's kind of I think it's work for for and against depending on how you use it, how you channel it. Right. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:11

So you go in based on what you what you feel and what you're hearing at the point of.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

Well, yeah, I mean you still do market research and you'd be smart, right? You say, all right, what out now? What's the BPMs? What's the tempo looking like? What happened last year? Was it more power? Was it more groovy? Was it Barbados kicking kicking the ass? Was it Grenada kicking me ass? Was it St. Lucia kicking me ass? Like, so you had to kind of watch the trends and adjust. Yeah. It's a little bit uh a little bit of um smart ones. Um, yeah, you had a you had to watch your market trends and gotcha and try to figure out your space.

SPEAKER_03: 20:45

But your starting point would have been a lot of that too, because you grew up in a place with plenty of the music that shaped the time we grew up in was being made home by you.

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:55

So how small were you when you you were around Kenny at the time? You you you seen that home?

SPEAKER_00: 21:00

Yeah, I I was crawling in the studio in Pampas, to be honest. I don't know. He gave you the story with the picture. Yeah, I think he gave it. He did. Yeah, for sure. I don't remember the set, but uh everybody's telling me it, so I guess yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:13

Yeah, and you what age you was then?

SPEAKER_00: 21:16

I wish I could tell her about the way 1995.

SPEAKER_03: 21:19

Oh 95, it could be 90.

SPEAKER_00: 21:20

95, but jump on the way it was 95. Um, 87 eight.

SPEAKER_03: 21:29

Eight years old. Yeah, eight. Yeah, eight. Oh, you've bought 87. Right. So I home still too, right? 80, 95, I'm 15.

SPEAKER_00: 21:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 21:37

So I sneaking out. But where I live and I could hear brass, right?

SPEAKER_00: 21:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 21:40

And what I was talking to Kenny about is what that particular song did. People was real feather for jumping with at that time, and they was killing super black. Any road match, yeah, matches. The whole era. Yeah, yeah. It was plenty of that and thing, and people was uh Mass had changed too. Like Mass was um heavy standard and Bass Barbarossa and them things, and yeah, yeah, that yeah, you remember them time? Well vaguely, yeah, just say yes, just say it. Let's play along. So it really shifted where the masquerade, hands-free. And I feel like one of the things that make the because before that was real wine, you like standard and wine, right? But boy, they went hard with the jump and wave, and it was about five years straight. But um, the preacher was so different. And I tell I was telling Kenny we were conkeding up road match and all his different accolades. I said, Boy, yeah, can I conk that one if Casey pull out the plug? I said that one is where Casey started, yeah. Because that stuff, just the way it stopped. It was so aggressive in the beginning and the way it stopped. Yeah, but you have early memories of being around the studio and them kind of saying who might be some of the artists you remember seeing in the studio themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 22:42

So I remember Square One and Allison Heinz being in the house. I would have to give up my bedroom for Allison and them to stay in the house, it's not just the studio. Well, the how it how it is still to this day, the studio is in the house. Right. So we have this we have the house and the kitchen, but the studio has its own little thing with its own entrance. But people used to come from all them islands to work and stay in the house. Right. So Alison Hines, all of them was there. Um well, preacher on them for sure. Oh, the memories I have, boy. Rashot, yeah, he spoke about that. I grew up around all of them. So I know I know all of them from Isaac, Marge, all of them. Um who else, boy? Yeah, everybody. I think I don't have I don't think I have much memories of Marshall working with Kenny, but I remember when he peepound him off on me. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that point.

SPEAKER_04: 23:39

Um I don't think you can say it like that. I don't think you can say it like that.

SPEAKER_00: 23:43

Pause. Pause. I think it reached I think it reached a point where um Kenny was like this this this soaker thing that you're trying to make me do, and he's like, my son. Uh-huh. Um so yeah, he can't he can't happen. I think he get fed up.

SPEAKER_03: 24:00

When he was here, he was properly fed up at that point in time. He said he say Kyle and Casey and them, them, yeah, them, them is he met.

SPEAKER_00: 24:06

And back then, you know, there was this um how to say it, this um unintentional uh disdain for the for the soaker that was coming up from the Olaheads, right? Yeah, because you know Unintentional I trying to be I trying to be PC here, okay? But they they they had this this kind of like uh on on unspoken war kind of thing, like Calypso is this, and you're coming with this forecord thing. So it was kind of like you wanna do that, go by Kenya, go by um Casey and Kyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to do this until it became what it is now, right? Um, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 24:48

So Iwa is one of them artists I hear. It's an interesting story about Iowa. I forget about Iowa. I remember no Iwa was again plenty of the things. I was talking to Kenny about this, and in in looking at your career, or at least why I feel is the beginning of your career now. You know, I mean, we're still in the early days of your career when you think about it. It's at these inflection points for the culture. Okay. So Iowa was one of them. Because Iowa, you're talking about unintentional, yeah. No, they did not like Iowa. Iowa was completely disliked. Them older Calypsonians. Yeah, well, I guess, yeah. But that's what he thrives off of. Well, I suppose, yeah. If that's how you're born, so you will live, eh? But I remember stories about people like Pretender and Kitchener and them fellas saying that is what, you know, I mean or Sparrow. There's a story my father will tell me all the time when tent used to clash. He was playing in Kitchener Tent. And he said, Iowa had bum bum time, the sparrow had no bang.

SPEAKER_00: 25:41

Was that bum bum time? Can he do?

SPEAKER_03: 25:42

Yeah, okay. And so that was the first one of the first productions. Okay. So he's saying when they do bum bum time and sparrow and kitchen or tent clash, sparrow saying, no damn bum bum time here. I will care perform. You know what I mean? So when you're hearing them things from men like that, is a big thing. But the nice thing about rebellion is this, right? If the older heads fight you, the youths will love you. Yeah. So we so we love Iowa. You know what I mean? At that point in time, like Iowa, we don't want to hear nothing else that come before I walk.

SPEAKER_00: 26:10

If it's one man who just get through, it's Iowa. You'll find you'll find a way.

SPEAKER_03: 26:13

You'll finally call him the ultimate hustler. Yes. So one of them songs that stand out for me a lot is that um tractor. And you were telling me the B side of that was one of the first things.

SPEAKER_00: 26:26

I think he did Tractor with or he brought Tractor by us. I don't know if Kenny mixed it or record vocals, because I think that was nasty producer. I believe. Maybe Nasty or Shaw Shark, I don't know. I can't remember. Um, but he wanted to do a B side on the same beat. So we took the same beat and he sang a new song, which was I run the party. And I recorded that and I was I was young. That's one of my first, first like officials. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:50

What is young? Yeah, young no.

SPEAKER_00: 26:52

I was 10. 10. Yeah. And I recorded Iowa. I will I will write my first check for 3000 TT. At 10. At 10. Plenty money back then.

SPEAKER_03: 27:00

Yeah, because when then we was really saving to go LA, you've been having money. This is why.

SPEAKER_00: 27:05

I and I don't know if I ever see that 3000, but that was the first check.

SPEAKER_03: 27:09

I wish my son get 3,000, right? And gone.

unknown: 27:12

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03: 27:14

Reparations. So at 10, you're comfortable, you're confident. What was your feeling doing that then? You're just used to it, it's just what it is.

SPEAKER_00: 27:21

So so I have this joke, right? And this used to have my lot where daddy would have sessions, and some nights he would have a client come, let's say Iowa. Right. And he's tired, and he might just be like, KC, just do that session for me now. And I would go in the session. I glad, right? I go and sit on the session and they come in and they come in and be like, Alright, where's your father? I say, Well, he's sleeping. Okay, well, he ain't coming to do the session. Now you're doing it. They'll go pause again. He's 10, eh? Yeah, it's crazy. Let me say 10, 10 to 15, because it happened, it happened for a few years. Um, and the watchman say, You doing, you run any session? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You sure you know you're doing? Yeah, and bet your bottom dollar by the end of that session, they're not going back and work with Kenny.

SPEAKER_04: 28:03

Serious, dead serious. He ain't tell me that part of this. You can tell it happened.

SPEAKER_00: 28:07

You can tell it's not. No, no. No, the only thing I'd say, of course, I had to mess up a little bit, make mistakes until we get until you lock it down. But yeah, that's how I get a lot of my clients from Kenny being tired and palming off. Trust me, I record enough Chutney band and traditional Indian songs on harmonium or harmonica and things. Right. Because he didn't want to do it. But that is that is training for me.

SPEAKER_03: 28:34

Gotcha, of course. So I wasteing time asking you about how you're gonna produce so when you wasn't even aged to go fit and you was making. I want to I always understand, right? Before we even get on to some of these songs, you cause real problems in my life. Wow, you cause somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:48

I've been waiting.

SPEAKER_03: 28:49

So I tell him, I say anytime case. See here, just tell me we're gonna make it happen. How about because of the music, the music, the music? It has some kind of music you make where it's not really for your your wife. You know, it's a married wife, it's not other wife, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 29:05

Padna, so let me go back to yours now. You can decide if you keep that in or not, right? I say other wife or stranger in the fed. Is that stranger when you bunk up somebody in a fet and them have somebody and you have somebody?

SPEAKER_03: 29:20

Somebody song designed for that. But it's a no way in my will I could ever think that somebody who is 10-15 years old is this that making that kind of music. So at that point, where you're just trusting, where you're here and where you feel, because you ain't no fit and think you must hardly listen to radio.

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

Well, well, hmm, how to answer that? Remember, I all this time I still studying hip hop, RB. So I trying to figure out how to use the things I study from hip hop and learn how to make soccer. Right? So these are the years where I trying to figure out how to sound like so. Because it never is a song like soccer, it's a song like something. Yeah, like Kalaloo. It's a song like madness. Um, like even one of these songs. Um we didn't touch on this here, Givex, but Marshall Vibes Cartel told me tonight. I don't know, I don't know what I is, right? But that was just experimenting. Yeah, I produced that because real problems and all that experimenting, it kind of dancers, it kinda something I don't even know. But that's that's how we do the song before.

SPEAKER_03: 30:26

Yeah, of course. That's early, early cartel. I'd met Cartel once in Jamaica and he was talking about our song. Oh, seriously, we were doing some sponsorship thing and we had met with him and he um he was just connecting to Trinidad by tree talking to that Trinidad.

SPEAKER_00: 30:39

No, that song that song was huge, but I think that song was bigger after. Yeah, when it came out, it was cool, but I think only like afterwards, it's really like, wait now, this is our Marshall and Cartel.

SPEAKER_03: 30:50

But it's similar to what you're saying because um the youths at the time, like for instance, uh the pace of it is Juve pace too, you know. I mean, it's about it's a real group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you might see where when I was playing 10-15 years ago, you're playing Juve, and it has some bands who just take a little chance by Princess Grong for some reason to play a dance hall. Oh, they're gonna do that since then, yeah. Long time, ever since. That never changed, yeah, since back then. But that song kind of gives us a feel of what we're looking for. That you saying that it's just let me just say different from so it's not exactly that. So maybe you know what that was. Exactly. But when you play that on the road or you play it somewhere, just give you a different feel from the from the other pull out the plug ones, because that's all we were hearing for a while.

SPEAKER_00: 31:33

Right, right constantly. And and that and you saying it as a positive, that was a negative for me because I was struggling to try and sound like so. Yeah, you know. Because a lot of things I release in and release into radio and it wouldn't play because it does it can't fit. I see. Um even um we not giving up, right? The one of Doggy Fresh is not the original, no, so take over rhythm is the original, right? And that it kinda play on radio, but it still wasn't really fully so. How different was the remix from the original? Same rhythm, very different, very different, yeah. Because Doggy Fresh, they use his beatbox, I think Shell Shock will and that rest in peace, right? Um, and kind of made this jiggy beatbox, so dance hall ish kind of beat. Right. And that's what really make the song take off, but that's not the original, so it's not that's not the same. But they change the drums.

SPEAKER_03: 32:23

Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00: 32:24

And then put Doggy Fresh on it and all that.

SPEAKER_03: 32:26

So let me ask you this you're not seeing that in a sense of like validation for you at that point because if hip hop is what's your heart and you're trying to make it fit, and then when you there's an early record for you, right? You have somebody like Dougie Fresh on it, you know, feeling that connection.

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

I but now at this time, all this time, right? Let me just paint this picture for you, right? All this time, I come home from school in my uniform, and I might watch Rogan on the studio for a little bit and be like, all right, cool, and I'll go down the road and play football, and I might come back and make a little two beat. Are you not studying all of that today?

SPEAKER_03: 32:59

All are you saying I not studying all of that?

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, well, that was Waterman's days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I not I'm not thinking about that. I just having fun. Serious?

SPEAKER_03: 33:11

Yeah, that's why you're just causing people problems for fun. School uniform. School uniform is crazy to me. School uniform, yeah. I get into the feds with music playing this was wild. So that that first recording that I will you have that done as one of your earliest recordings. Well, yeah, was he first? What's the first one?

SPEAKER_00: 33:29

First is chemistry lock up. Right. Um, you probably wouldn't know it, but as like but the funny thing is.

SPEAKER_03: 33:36

But that's a single and know it now.

SPEAKER_00: 33:38

Right, but chemistry is actually Hamid, um, Roger Alexis, who is Santana, puppet. I see. Um, I can't remember the I can't remember the other two boys. Um, because it had two different groups, like boy groups back then. So I can't remember the actual um, I think um Corbin was one, but yeah, there's it was kind of like a four guys in a group. Right. Because I think party time was big back then. That's right. So it had a lot of dancer groups who will do choreography and stuff like that. You used to watch party time? Nah, I didn't grow up on party time, but I hear about it. Um, so that was like the first, the first, first, but again, that story, these fellas just show up by the studio wanting to produce a song, and Kenya was like, Well, are they doing so car work with KC? And that'd be my first productions. Show up a Saturday or Sunday morning early to catch the studio early. Yeah, because they they they're trying to get uh a blight, and that's where they're not being.

SPEAKER_03: 34:34

Yeah, so it get traction on things again, radio play at this point, or you're still still too.

SPEAKER_00: 34:39

This was nah, this was this was early, early, early.

SPEAKER_03: 34:41

So, what's the first one you're seeing as your if you had to mark a point where you realize you have something?

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

I don't really remember the actual order, but so the I irony party happened. I don't know how big that was. Somewhere in that lineup, I would say the Michelle happen. Right. I think maybe I feel I jump in and I'm missing out. But let me say Michelle Sylvester, which was sleeping in a bed because I used to do a lot of work with Nadia and the whole gang.

SPEAKER_01: 35:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 35:09

Um, and Nadia wrote that song, and that one the first ever Groovy Sokamonark.

SPEAKER_03: 35:14

Yeah, not just first ever Groovy Soker Monarch. There was no groovy soccer monarch before that, right? The competition didn't exist. There was just it was just soccer monarch. I think it was just soccer monarch.

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

I don't want to, I don't remember. Yeah, I think it was just soccer monarch. And then they separated.

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00: 35:29

But they this they separated now and it was power and groovy. Well, it wasn't even the same thing, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:36

The debate then, the the gripe that people had, the public, was that um the groovy soca was starting to get better and more liked than power. But because of how power is performed, the groovy never really had a chance to win.

SPEAKER_00: 35:49

Yeah, you can't judge them. No, you can't judge. You can't judge them side by side, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:53

Although I find that is a waste, but they have a different discussion.

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

But um I understand the separation.

SPEAKER_03: 35:58

Well, yeah, because you could just do more as a performer on stage with a power song. Yeah, it's a different energy TV. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So a power song, them days is hand in the air days too. As wilness, as wileness, led by your partner I would judge. But um the groovy people don't remember Biggie Iriewood, and for instance. In a pocket, there's a no hand going up there. We're looking for problems, your kind of music, in effect, you know. We're looking for people, keep saying this. Yeah, we're looking for people, people, people. I'm no time to watch the performer then. We don't know who on stage, you know. But even Michelle Sylvester, who's that crew? That crew is Nadia. Who's the crew?

SPEAKER_00: 36:33

It was within then it was Nadia, um, Michelle, Miss Alicia, Mr. Vibe, Terry Seals. Am I missing anybody? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03: 36:43

Yeah, yeah, that was a kind of squad working together.

SPEAKER_00: 36:45

Yeah, and they would write songs, they would help each other, do backgrounds, different things.

SPEAKER_03: 36:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 36:49

Um, all of them were artists as well.

SPEAKER_03: 36:51

Yeah. So I one comment I get a lot from people, right? Which I'll try to remedy in this episode is it's telling me it's just about songs, and it don't give me a link to the song and thing. You see, that song is something I'll make sure to put where people sleeping in your bed. For sure. Yeah, yeah. That's on YouTube for sure. Game changing songs. Because I don't know nothing that song like that.

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

You know, I can't, you know, I can't listen to them songs now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure I just listen to cringe to be like, oh my god. Oh, the quality. What is this mix? Serious? What is this?

SPEAKER_03: 37:20

I listen to Talbot. Banging for me, I find everything songing good. But um, but nah the the the flow of this song it was different. So I wasn't surprised when I heard you're talking about your hip-hop and RB influence.

SPEAKER_00: 37:33

By then, by then I started to figure it out. Okay, okay. I started to now refine it and to be like, okay, this is what soaker is. Alright, let me let me try and I'll into the next side now. Alright, I started figure out the so the soca vibes.

SPEAKER_03: 37:44

But in your mind, then you're feeling like you're doing fusion type music or you're feeling like you're doing soaker proper. I don't think I are you sweating and coming up.

SPEAKER_00: 37:52

Yeah, I don't think I was even studying it like that to be. I was just I was just glad. I was just glad to make anything.

SPEAKER_03: 37:59

I guess, yeah, something that recognized on the the break, which is a song birdly sleep.

SPEAKER_00: 38:05

I don't know that that any other song that was brief, you know, because the chats is like yeah, that song was anti-climatic because the chorus would break down as opposed to go up, but it worked.

SPEAKER_03: 38:16

You see, it's good to talk to technical people, you know, because when you're not fit, you don't understand why what the technical people are.

SPEAKER_00: 38:20

But you see, but that that's like the that chorus and not be like the spread of your hand and Lego parts, which is where everybody's gonna sing along. Of course. Any drums drop back in four, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 38:29

It makes sense, it makes sense, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that feel again, the the taste of success. Was it at that point when you're getting that success, or before then that you decided music gonna be a career? How early you made the decision that music is for you?

SPEAKER_00: 38:43

I don't even this one sound funny.

SPEAKER_03: 38:45

Okay, they make you tell you. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00: 38:47

Well, no, no, they guided me, but they never stressed me to be like you have to do this. But I don't think I ever made that decision, and it just it just happened. I just was I was doing it, right? Yeah, I was in the studio, I was doing it, I was like, Alright, cool. Okay, I never stopped to think about hey, am I really going to do this? Well, there was one point where um this this is further down where um well my my mom and dad met in the bank, right? And um they had that banking knowledge and would always kind of advise little things and mommy was like, you know what, you should go and go and get a small loan from the bank just so that you could build credit with them so you have a good rap with the bank. So when you really need money, you already have you're already inside the system. It's like alright, cool, so I go on. And um they denied me, right? Because I had$14 in my account and none of the money I was making was passing to the bank. And with that, I was like, okay, this can't work. And that is when I made the decision to get a little more serious, to be like, okay, I need to brand one and I need to form this company to make this a little more structured. I see, I see. So that would that and I remember that decision because I was like, why is he? I have songs on the radio and you tell me I can't get alone. How about making sense? And he was like, Well, we we have no track record of you, da da da da da. And then at that point, I can't really get no job letter.

SPEAKER_03: 40:07

Yeah, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00: 40:08

So I was like, This is not making no sense.

SPEAKER_03: 40:10

Yeah, life of entrepreneur in general.

SPEAKER_00: 40:12

And I know it's funny. I think from that, I probably woke at Marshall in his studio that same night. So I'm like, how it's an adding up, you you and I it's at 5,000 TT dollars. Yeah, loan. I was trying to get just a girl alone, he's like, nah, we can't do it. Yeah, of course. Boss, I could ask Marshall for the money. Like, I just trying to do this to be anyhow.

SPEAKER_04: 40:31

Them days it's a smartphone, you should take a video going Marshall and show him in the bank.

SPEAKER_03: 40:35

Do you know who I am?

SPEAKER_00: 40:37

Nah, it it it really, I think that shaked me up because I was like, This is not making any sense. And I was like, I need to get serious, I need to buckle down and set things so that can't happen again.

SPEAKER_03: 40:46

Yeah, even now that was the business end of it. So that's when you register, and that's when precision was home. That's our business other bike. You know, I'm gonna accidentally yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 40:54

God boy, you're asking me these hard questions, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 40:59

These things.

SPEAKER_00: 41:01

I um I wanna believe probably registered for some reason. I remember in 2005. Oh, but I feel I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 41:10

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, every time I call every time you call a year, I go in from 87 and do some quick maths to that, right? So yeah, we go add up this.

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

Yeah, I think it was somewhere around there where I tried to do that, and I was like, all right, let me get serious and brand this thing and and register actual company.

SPEAKER_03: 41:26

Right. And well, like I can't actually have that workout, we see it, we see the fruits of that now, you know. I remember you bringing up though, just not to jump to that, but uh award around entrepreneurship that I wanted to talk a little bit about as well. What was your word?

SPEAKER_00: 41:39

Um, that was EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the category of Emergent, yeah, emergent small business. I want to believe.

SPEAKER_03: 41:49

Got it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:50

That's uh yes, but it was it was in partnership with Chamber of Commerce, they were giving business awards out. Yeah, um which was which was a wild ride because again, me start, yeah, mommy tell me to get a loan, but uh nobody didn't really tell me what to do, right? So we just register this company. I don't know what to do. I don't know about tax, you know, nothing about registration and BIR and all that.

SPEAKER_03: 42:16

And BIR does call everything up to date, right?

SPEAKER_00: 42:19

So all these things I now figure out and fail and make errors and come back and fix different things and and all the way up to this UI award. Um where to start on that boy. Start with the year 2018, I believe. Okay, cool. Yeah, 2018. It was a chance. I took a chance, a friend recommended it to me and be like, maybe you should apply for this. And when I saw the criteria, I was like, holy shit, they ask you everything. Yeah, you need to give taxes, you need to give a breakdown of where you do innovation, this, that, and it's pretty much you have to show your growth from starting the business, having an idea, and how do you scale this business now to sustain? Of course, and um it was a lot, it was a lot, and back then we had we spent hours, me, myself, and Misty on the team at the time writing up this text just to explain what we did to gain this this criteria for this award. Of course, again, taking our chance, right? Because again, you know, you know, the thing is the creative sector is not a real business. So we go in in already with a trip on my shoulder, just trying our thing, right? Yeah, um, and it started to look fruitful, right? And I realized a lot of people was dropping out because when they started asking your financials and your money, people was like, Oh no, we don't want to disclose this. I didn't care because we're coming up and we little soaker thing. Of course, you want to see my coins? Sure. But it was really more so just showing the growth and the structure and putting putting things in place to just go from Iowa just giving me$3,000 and it's ending up somewhere in our pile somewhere to now actually making income, have songs streaming, making residuals from iTunes, Spotify, and how we now make this build from nothing to something.

SPEAKER_03: 44:05

Um it's funny sometimes, maybe in things like these where you get to sit down and talk for a while, or things like those where you have to fill out our application. Did you get a sense when you were doing it? Like, wait, I do all this, I was able to accomplish all this over the years.

SPEAKER_00: 44:20

So it was it was uh eye-opening experience because they have their criteria innovation, um, sustainability. Uh when they start putting the the titles to it, and I'm like, oh, this could fit in this. So I never look at it like that, right? So when we put things like innovation, I was like, oh well, yeah, we pushed to get soaker music on iTunes to be able to be streamed. I guess that's innovating. Yeah, and we did this, we we licensed the song to VP and had this sync in this, I guess that's innovation. So we now have to figure these things out while we go into the criteria and fit fit fit the puzzle together now, right?

SPEAKER_03: 44:58

So who might be some of the other people who are awarded? Who are you alongside when you when you're collecting there? Remember some of the other businesses?

SPEAKER_00: 45:04

Um, yes, I actually spoke to him recently. Chris Christopher Budusing, I think he is God, and I gonna I'm gonna say the wrong term, but Coco a chocolate, right? Coco Farms or Coco something.

SPEAKER_03: 45:17

We go Google it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:18

Um, he won a different category. I remember I think Bertie's won as well. Oh, that's serious, and then also Kusals got uh equivalent of like a lifetime achievement. Yeah, the biggest so it was it was somewhat humbling because I was sharing this stage with Kusals and these conglomerates and made my little soaker thing down in Palmy.

SPEAKER_04: 45:40

I don't like when they say that at all.

SPEAKER_00: 45:42

Coco Republicans. Cooker Republic, the superbulu thing, isn't it? Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 45:45

Um I'd guitar handlers, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:48

Cooker Republic, he won a different category as well. But again, I just a pain to any perspective, right? Me trying to sell soaker thing down in Palmis and standing on stage next to these titans of businessmen. I was like, oh, I guess I do something, right? Um, so but it was an interesting process for sure. Very eye-opening.

SPEAKER_03: 46:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, congrats on that. I think it's important that um that we talk about these things, especially. I try to I tend to want to talk about it because y'all don't talk about it. Always be busy, you know. I mean, I think you you are learning that you focused on what you're doing now. You sometimes this is a opportunity for us to stop and smell the roses. I I agree. Somebody now trying to figure it out like what you were doing, and so somebody pull notified a plug. Hopefully it'll work out for them as good as it did for you.

SPEAKER_00: 46:39

Well, the the the thing is, even for myself, right? Yeah, we're doing all these things and we be pushing and we really looking back, but when India would actually give me validation to be like, oh, you felt that way. This this actually making sense. Kind of making sense somehow. Um it's it's funny too. I think when I you talk about LA earlier, when I moved, when I saved and moved to LA, my plan was to move and never come back. Yeah, I was gone. Yeah, right. It was there we go, we may be doing this thing. I gonna do hip-hop and I gonna do foreign music. Right. That was my plan. Yeah, but right, you would love this in the five years of saving to also building the company up to have well to be self-sustainable. And what I mean by that is we started was this Antilles? I think we started with Antilles, figured out how to do this contract, this distribution contract. It wasn't common back then with um Orchard to get music on iTunes, started making 1500 a quarter US. And by the time the end of that five years happened, it it kept growing, and I was like, wait, I think somewhere in between like two years, and I was like, wait, this actually could make sense from the same Antilles or from things like that.

SPEAKER_03: 47:58

Just from from projects, total, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:00

Because we start with Antilles, and then also too, you would like this too. At that point, how to say this? The original model was I will come with his song, hey our idea, jump and wave, blah blah blah, rag flag water, sure, and he pays us money. We do the BT go is where he put it out. He owned that song, he pay her much of our money. Thank you, goodbye. Right? So we'll do 15, 20 of that for the season. Yeah, and I go, right? I just call him random numbers. But in between, in between that dynamic, Antilles happen and little rhythms and stuff happen before. Whereas I was like, okay, if I could do Antilles and own Antilles and make residuals from Streaminess and I own it, and now I have a prod a product that I own that I make residuals and royalties from forever. Yeah, perpetuity. Now the now the model started to change. So now all the Iowa songs was here. Started to say, oh, this is making more sense here. Because whereas this is a one-time fee, of course, this is a lifetime of royalties, right?

SPEAKER_03: 49:01

And it started to do this, and that is that is pretty much what happened. So you could focus your energy on that now. There's more early potential for you and well, for anybody who comes after you, too. Yeah, that's why the rhythm thing started to make more sense for producers. So the rhythm, a lot of the producers who were here before credit you as one of the people who started it, they have you as one of the innovators. So assuming that was on the EY thing, right? I tell you what they say. I ain't telling you, I ain't buying it. So hold on.

SPEAKER_00: 49:26

Let me let me just clear this up. Clear it up. Rhythm's been around. Rhythm's been around since bookshelf rhythm, all the dance or rhythms. Rhythm rhythms have been a thing.

SPEAKER_03: 49:36

Yeah, here. The earliest I know about rhythms, one one of the people who I know was at the forefront of it here was um KMC and the crew. Even before that.

SPEAKER_00: 49:45

Yeah. Pigtail rhythm.

SPEAKER_03: 49:47

Um Pigtail is local. Oh, yeah, is he one with Capleton too? Remember this pigtail, and he didn't like pigtail as harassing. I don't even know that story. Apparently, apparently he wasn't too happy about it after.

SPEAKER_00: 49:57

That song, like it makes sense. Pigtail was um big fat fish hunting. What was that? That would that was dancehole fireball. No, pigtail had a um I thought they tell me that they had a man already.

SPEAKER_02: 50:08

Um Madame Pump.

SPEAKER_00: 50:10

Um was like was that either it was Cook Mitchell, rest in peace, or Ken Holder. But I know it was around that time. So let me ask you when they're doing rhythms then, the model you're talking about was that 99.

SPEAKER_02: 50:27

Yeah, 99.

SPEAKER_00: 50:28

Pigtail 99, right. So I did not start rhythms in so yeah. Just want to make that very clear.

SPEAKER_03: 50:34

Yeah, so let me ask you this we revolutionize it. That's what I mean, the business side of it. Right. When people are doing rhythms before, the focus, it was not structured the way you're talking about. It was structured the same way I was song would work. So the the the producers. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00: 50:49

I have no idea. I don't know what they did back then. Uh I know when we did Antilles, um, because I had to sit down with my lawyer at the time and figure out how to make this work, because it's a different model, yeah, right? Um, oh, you're gonna love this. At that time, there was no rhythm contracts, it did not exist, right? So so so in the Jamaican model, you pay conscience or you pay Capleton his his fee, he sings on a rhythm. Thank you, goodbye 100% is mine, right? You guys publishing, but this is mine. They don't even look back, right? You had to pay them again to come and shoot the video or do any marketing. Um, so it was always kind of this thank you, goodbye, let me just make my fee and go on. In Soka we didn't charge a fee here. We would just jump on your rhythms. But in jumping on your rhythms, I think what happened was oh yes, I remember this. Our copyright act is dated, it's it was written in however long ago, and there's a loophole, or I mean I say a loophole, but there's a clause that could be that could work for and against you, which is if there is no presence of a written contract between me and you, and we have a piece of music, if there is no contract, it's automatically half. I see. I see, right? Yeah, what's it? Automatically half. So if I do my rhythm and I put I own it on I or I put whoever, and I have no contract, but I own it and spend all my money, it's half. But if you put 10 people, you know, it'll be half on everyone. Half on each one, okay. So when we were doing rhythms, we were like, nah, we we we can't fall to that loophole because that will end up in trouble. Also, to the whole point of doing a rhythm and owning a rhythm is to be able to exploit it, license it to soak a goal back then, or put it in this, yeah, exactly, or put it in this TV show or in this video game or whatever. So we had to create the contract when we had to figure out the template. Um, at that point, we had no idea what to do. So we started at 5%. Okay, 5% of the artists, we do the rhythm, we start there, yeah, because we had to make something, of course. Um now, yeah. I know who if anybody else talked about that yet, but now them numbers change drastically, and we kind of back to where the copyright law is. Yes, 50-50. Yeah, so which to me, and there's always give me um shit for this, which which this would be as interesting, um, which to me doesn't make sense on a rhythm. If we're doing a single together and we're gonna have half-half great, we both spend on expenses equally great. Right. If I do no rhythm and I own and I own six songs on this, but then one artist wants to come and own 50%.

SPEAKER_03: 53:28

Like, it just can't work. I get it.

SPEAKER_00: 53:30

I'm not gonna back on with two wheels like that, make no sense.

SPEAKER_03: 53:33

I got you. But I can see why you're getting the credit for it, starting it all as you say, revolutionizing it might be a better word because um think of it. If you had to figure out the business model for it, then it probably wasn't there before.

SPEAKER_00: 53:45

And I again, again, the um IZ Bubbly for it now, too.

SPEAKER_03: 53:48

Yeah, it's all good. Well, the audience was complaining at the time. We talked about that in the beginning because it was seen as okay, we Jamaicanizing the thing by making all these sets of rhythms, and so was never that I had his style, and this one had this style. Um my father and them complaining that everybody on the rhythm song in the exact same. They can't tell one artist from the mix. You was feeling that at the time, you was getting uh that complaints all.

SPEAKER_00: 54:10

I think Dyser Um, and for lack of a better term, I think Dyser saw old god versus new god thing where yeah, it's a good old guy. No, but I I born in a new guard, so I wouldn't see it from there. I suppose you know see it. So, like how I might complain about mumble rap now, it's kind of like how they would complain about rhythms, then it's like that's not making no sense, yeah. Um, it's just different lens, different POVs.

SPEAKER_03: 54:34

But you see any success from it? The takeover came before us. You said I did some work on that too.

SPEAKER_00: 54:39

Yeah, so so yeah, take over and trample and oh yeah, the trample by the way. I don't know if that came up in it. Take over trample teardrops was like my early rhythms before the structure and Actalies. Um, but then we were just having fun, I suppose. Yeah, having fun. I had no contracts, nothing signed for them, them older rhythms back then.

SPEAKER_03: 55:02

So then you just collect what you collect up front and there's that.

SPEAKER_00: 55:05

No, you're not collecting nothing.

SPEAKER_03: 55:06

So how are you making money?

SPEAKER_00: 55:07

Then you split well, then was pre pre-ITunes, then it was just royalties. And if one song girl license was soccer goal, then you make a whole 1500 US and you're happy.

SPEAKER_03: 55:19

Got it, got it, got it. Yeah, well, I see why I see why you had to make the move to shift it. Yeah, so at that point in time you're deliberately because you would have I mean, at that time you have an enormous amount of experience at a really young age, right? Uh going into rhythms deliberate because it was a better business decision.

SPEAKER_00: 55:35

Well, we're doing all these songs every year for the season, and when I say all these songs, like for Canada, we could do hundreds of songs, yeah. Yeah, I have a list of hundreds of songs, but go ahead. So imagine we're doing hundreds of songs that we're selling for a one-time fee and it's gone, right? When our money done, it's done. You pay your rent, they pay some bills, it's gone. But then we have these rhythms here where you're investing and you could kind of get residuals. It may not be a lot, but it's a better investment. Um, that just started to make more sense. Yeah, I suppose better investments are your time and your resources. Yeah, for sure. And and and and it's not like I stopped doing this, you know. It's just it's just now let's have both. Yeah, both, let both strategies at play.

SPEAKER_03: 56:13

So what's before I get into some of these songs? Um artists at the time still come into you and say, I have an idea and I have this and I have a song, or is it shifting? Again, some of that too. Yeah, for sure. Because I remember you talking about deliberately working to change, like we talked, we talk about in the beginning, LA and how specialized the music industry is. Right. Somebody who do it mix with it. And trying that and I heard they say it in the workshop too, where in the Caribbean. No, I think it was an interview I saw where he was saying that in the Caribbean, he's kind of learned to do everything.

SPEAKER_00: 56:43

Yes, versus in the states where that's the first thing I learned in LA, which was like we are the engineers. Let's say we engineer, the producer, produce, the songwriter, come on, right, the mixing engineer, mix, the manager, manage. Whereas here we have to do everything, right? We had to do the graphics, we had to figure out marketing, the rollout, everything. Um you said something earlier there, too. So with the rhythms, that's what I guess that's why we call it revolutionize, right? Because we started to say, alright, let's get writers to write. I have this beat, let me get songs on this. And I started to send to writers and get back songs, and we'd choose songs and be like, okay, this is the rhythm. I have 12 songs I get from writers that are like these six, and I'll start to send them to the artists.

SPEAKER_01: 57:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 57:29

Also, to on the side of that, we started to do singles that way as well, which was we would build beats and get writers to write these songs and then package this as a song to sell. Right. So, aside from the rhythm, which which we would own, we selling these singles. Gotcha. But how we how we presented it was this is now Precision as a production house, and we selling the whole vision. So we'll do your artwork, we'll do your email blast, we're selling you the song, you're getting a demo, you could hear the song before. Um I don't think anybody was presenting a whole recording. Yeah, yeah. Um, and also too, I mean, Iowa could come and write a song, whoever else could come and wake up with an idea, but it it's not always going to be the best song, right? Right, yeah. But when we start using writers who this is their profession and is what they're doing all the time, it kind of guarantees a little more success to get a hit. Um, because everybody specializes in their own field. Yeah, so that's that's that's where the revolutionized side starts coming from. That was under the innovation category.

SPEAKER_03: 58:37

Of course, of course, because like that was a big debate, yeah. Another one of those debates where okay, the rhythm thing kill anything, but the writer versus thing, that specialization that you're talking about for for you by partying at the time, and it f it felt different. So I could just kind of compare it to a time where the music was getting a similarity to the jump and wave, the Bajan Invasion came. I think 2010 that space was a space like that too, and hence the reason the groove with competition kind of starts to take place.

SPEAKER_00: 59:08

Oh, yes, because I think 2010 was where Marshall had a lot of songs with Dwayne, which was like um whining season, and a lot of Bajan songs because Dwayne had a run.

SPEAKER_03: 59:18

Well, I would imagine I guess I guess, I guess, I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 59:21

That's around around there somewhere, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 59:23

Yeah, the feel, the bong status is about the same now that you say that. And uh while as you say, the old guard was complaining about it, as for for people who are partying like myself at the time, you get a better party experience because them days feds still long like hell, brass might be going to Lily more than daytime, and you're getting a feel that okay, the music actually changing the feel of the music can have more days.

SPEAKER_00: 59:48

One point I just thought about and realized so with LA and the experience also came songwriting and song structure, right? And learning the formula behind songs, right? If it's pop or RB formula, it's a formula, right? Verse, pre-chorus, hook, bridge, whatever it might be. So coming from that and learning the science and putting it back into soccer now is why we would say it sounded different. Because now we have formula.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:17

So the formula was the soccer mafia, isn't it? Right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:23

I thought that was the formula mental lightment.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:27

Who knows who and say, but now that I say the formula, because you hear people talk about it a lot, so it's just the structure of the song.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:33

Yeah, just look just learning the science. So learning the hooks, right? We need this to be hooky. The pre-chorus need to be catchy as well. The verse needed this, your song needs to your cat your first 30 seconds need to be short because you need to get into the song. It can't be too long. Like starting to really drill into this science. And I remember being in LA and watching it and being like, wait, there's kind of water down on this assembly line. But I respected it for what it is, right? Of course. They were just churning out songs. And some people could complain and be like, oh, there's water in on the thing and thing, but I used that's how you get great at something, right? You refine the art and and and you get it a science now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:11

Well, just to add to what you were saying earlier, that's how you make a business out of things too. Exactly. Exactly. If it dep if I depend on writing a song, marketing the song, doing the artwork, which we do a lot, you're never gonna get a scale in business. You really are the not just delegate but but specialise in a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:29

So so so Ellie would have taught me a lot about songs and song structure. So writers um used to give me plenty of talk because I would not like anything. So they'll send me songs and be like, ah, change the voice, nah, change it, do over this chorus, give me a better hook. This hook not sketchy enough. Like I started to learn how to dissect the songs and build them back together, just basing it off a pop formula, pop formula or RB formula.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:53

Understood.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:54

So a lot of these songs, I think I tell you this on Nicole. A lot of these songs is pop songs and RB songs. Yeah, bottle of rum is an RB song.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:00

Yeah, I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:01

I mean, let me take a you hear we sing in a bottle of rum. Who just sing like that? That's RB songs.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:07

I suppose we say in this bottle and party and think long time you start that, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:13

But yeah, it's it's it's it's RB songs, vibes got on RB song.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:16

So when you're talking about that specialization, who were some of the early writers you started aligned with?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:22

So the early set would have been Earth Run, Earth Run Al's, full blown vibe, Mr. Vibe was around. Yeah, he was writing around then. Whoo, who F again boy back pretty was as early as that. Pready came after one one set after. Right. Um there were some other writers as well. Nadia was around too. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:44

Um, Nadia was writing some of them you call it the writing and singing at the time, or they're just writing like Ufron and Nadia and them they they was singing because he was that's when Ufron was winning all the junior soccer monarchs and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:59

Oh, yeah. And um he was, yeah. Because I think I worked with Ufron doing junior soccer monarch songs. And um In Your Eyes was a demo he wrote. Uh he was doing well, actually he was yeah, no, he was right. Yeah, he was he was more so writing. I'm trying to I really trying to remember. But funny story where he did In Your Eyes and Patrice tried to sing it, and the key was in right in between her range, and she couldn't do it. Yeah, and I was down to the wire until he's had it coming out. I was like, uh run. I feel you're just gonna sing this. I say, but change lies to eyes. I was believing in your lies too long, let's change it to eyes, and he did it, and that is the song that started his career.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it also that was the only big song, too, like up to now, like again, real problems and cool effects.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:48

He was he was a writer, of course, a writer in that capacity, but he was trying to break out as an artist. I understand coming from Junior Sokomonark and trying to release things here and there, similar to voice to um Chester Life versus Break as well. Well, Vibescadon was full-blown break as well. Vibescadon fed fog that whole run.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:09

And at that point, you you're already getting your model in place where you have specialist writers, artists buying into it clearly because you have you have artists who come in, and I guess it for the for the top tier artists particularly, they will immediately see how it's increasing their range or the things that they the topics that they will sing about, the types of songs they do, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:27

Yes and no, but not everybody has vision. So we'll send a demo and a man may be like, I like it, but it don't song like me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:35

I want to come back to how that in your eyes was a man bashing songful, right? But before as you bring this up, I want to know who refused bottle of rum and them things. They have a story, yeah. Let me hear. I cannot believe an artist would hear that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:49

I don't care how the reference track songs. I wish no the reference track sounded exactly like it. Serious, not exactly like it. Yeah, both songs bottle of rum and um people champion. Yeah, exactly they didn't so these. I know for people champion, nothing changed, but that had to be written for Benji initially. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:11

So who refused butler rum? Let me get it. I'm gonna put that some more notes on top you gotta get me in trouble.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:18

I want to know so who's actually actually there's a great story.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:21

Um getting trouble for this. Bottle of rum, no, it's bottle of rum, yeah. Bottle of rum was sent to Black Swiss, yeah, near SNPs, but again, it it probably wouldn't have fit him in in hindsight now. Looking back, and I remember when it came out. It's two two parts happened to this, right? Black Swing are down. You say, boy, because again it's an RB song. How is Black Swing to sing in a bottle of rum with a kind of twang, right? He's like Dana song like me. Okay, got it. No problem, black's cool, but we had a running, we had a running joke. Everybody, all the writers that any song we play for Marshall, he just takes it. Right. And we say, Oh god, we gonna play the same and he gonna say it for you. So we played for him and he's like What do you mean whether it's for him or not? He just taking his songs, and he might take it and it'll sit down, and eventually it will come out, but we just say like, oh god, he go take a song again. We played for him, and he say, I sing in that. And we just we watch each other and laugh, right? But he said, Oh, he ain't gonna understand yet, but I sing in that. Trust me. This time we don't know nothing mono three zero, we don't know anything, right? But he can't talk about it because it's still in the works, right? He say, Well, yeah, trust me, I sing in that and it unfolds, unfold the bottle, the rum, and the thing, thing, thing, and that's that's what really helped that song get so big as well. There's a big song, but there's everything around it. Of course, of course, of course. Then it comes out and I see blacks, yeah. Wait till him, boy. Well, blacks pull me aside, he said, but he said, Boy, I just get a pain in my heart every time I hear this song. Man vexed. I say, Well, what do you want me to tell him? Actually, I think somebody else turned it on too, though. Yeah, who so?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:07

Oh god, why you so? I need to know, I need to know, but again, not every not every song is for everybody. That's always work, that's always work. Like when he it's interesting to hear some of these stories from you all because people generally wouldn't know. Yeah, and um as a fan, it's can't help but going back to this song now and say, Oh no, black souls. It would not work, but boy, black smites are working. Because you never know, like fan feel to it, you know, and black souls so good. I remember, for instance, right, that time we playing in humor and we leave in, and all the little play mass and a little drink and a little fetter science a little nuts too, right? So let me tell you what's happening kind of about Tuesday, right? When you finish the lunch stock, I know all the lunch, I'm sure you're playing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:47

Let me tell you what I play mass in spice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:49

You play mass and spice, you was under age for sure. You know about spice on the age. That's a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:55

Now I was not underage. When was spice? I don't know the year, but I wasn't under age for sure. Play Mars and Spice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:00

So tell you how long I play Mass. I'll take your word for it. Yeah, spice with Spice in LA. Yeah, so we stuck by their non-stop was in Marriage Grounds. So you're coming out by Roxy. But you know how Roxy's. Oh, yeah. Well, Humor is one of the few bands. We were talking about this yesterday, too. The band era on the road might have ended just before your heyday. Uh where it was more You know, I don't think I ever experienced that. Bands on the road. Yeah, it's a sad thing. Maybe it is the way it is. I've seen it up the islands. I don't think I ever see it here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:43

Uh huh. Nah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:45

Yeah, yeah. Things about we are cycling in and out, so maybe you might see it come back. But Marshall on the road is a special thing to see. And I think he ended. I'll edit it to make it sound like useless, but he ended that time where the bands was on the road because he was just so popular, he was mega sad at time. So band security could not control it. At one point, it was um meaning the whole ban, right? The full ban on the whole country, yeah. The full band. Yeah, but also Marshall. The last year I saw it was Marshall KMC at a clan. KMC just had um show me alright, and yeah, oh wow, that's old KMC. Okay, Klan had flood on the main road, right? Shaggy was on the truck with Toro Toro. It was main road, they could not control the crowd. That's a nice year, boy. And finish. I think it would be poison, car control poison. It was a nice yeah. So you know bands are section out nice now that finish if Marshall and a truck. Right, because everybody, everybody here, but it was a vibe, yeah. Even when you remember Jay-Z coming through money and things. No, no, no, that's same, but that even around that time. But blacks uh again, DJs have a hard time, I find sometimes when the people now eat and they're now coming across the bill.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:53

Yeah, that's how start slow and kind of come back, but come back. A ban is a ban.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:57

And blacks and them special. Okay. So I see blacks we get stick though. So the energy done low and it's getting lower. And blacks had to sing bites up shilling. It could be for two hours, they never change the song. Because the song boom, doom, doom, boom, I don't know. Yeah, I know. You don't live in there. I ain't shame to say a bite up shilling, and have everybody in a grip though. So when I see things like that, and then I hear blacks refuse butler, if he had that. I mean, it is what it is, eh? But maybe he did it. So, where did lifeband feel come from? Because I was telling you that I remember panorama here in that so I panzeries, the knees is on the go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:36

I don't know if I ever see this. I don't even think I said this on the other podcast. So I remember randomly. Well, two things I went to Jamaica for a Red Bull event, and um Jeremy Harding was there, and I always used to try to understand reggae used to be live, and I used to try to figure out how they're doing it. Are you building the beat on your computer first and then getting the band to play it over, or are you going and jam in the studio? So I remember asking them a day. I was like, yo, let's do these reggae beats where you just come up with it live, or you produce it first, and then they play's like, nah, we just jam in the studio. I say, Oh, back. Okay, cool. So I I called my musicians at the time, and you know the story with that full church band. Yeah, call the musicians and say, Yo, I need a day. Okay, my day, let me know your price. We just go down jam. I have some ideas of what I want to do, but let me try something. They say, Okay, cool, they give me the price for your day. And I had reference tracks. One of the reference tracks was I don't know if you know the song, you know, Buffy had a song called Soak It. I think Mastermind produced it. It was kind of like this fake pseudo-live band thing, and I liked it. And I was like, I feel I want to do something like that. So bottle of rum was patterned after that. Um, and that is where it came from. And the band just jammed. And these guys, the church band who got in trouble, but these guys used to play together all the time. So one man started idea, them done going because they know they they locked in. And um, it started with Jeremy with the guitar thing, which was the thing in the top, which was a song like Um Ain't Nobody, and um and they just going down the road. And I was just there as the conductor. I never realized that's what I sung like, see, and I was just the conductor, like, all right, give me this, this voice, this chorus, like give me to give me the break here, da da da da da. And I was kind of just structuring it and making sense of the ideas, and I saw all those things. Serious, was was born. Yeah, who's the right also?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:25

Them two songs, no more.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:26

Which which ones?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:28

That um Benjamin Benjamin full blown right both. Oh, full blown right both, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:31

Bottle of Rum and People Champion. Yeah, I wonder sometimes and I know this gonna be drama, which he turned down.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:39

Who turned down?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:40

Benji turned it down. People champion. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:43

Tell me why what's happening right now? We need to call you Benjamin. We had against the number of bigger.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:48

No, no, I know I don't want his number actually. Um what happened? Oh so there was this, it still happens to this day, but there was this thing in the game going around where some writers, some artists wouldn't take songs from writers because they want to write their own songs. So I remember calling them and saying, Yo, I have this idea, they write this thing for you. Song like you, we think it's gonna be great. And um, they write this song. I remember this going a real specific way back. I remember the full story, but he was like, Nah, I'd really take I see I don't really um we are not falling out in this conversation, too. Yeah, pretty much it was like I'd really take songs from writers or them men can write for me, or some some kind, some kind of thing. I was like, well, alright, I say, well, you know, I just come back from LA and I kind of study the writing science and the thing think thing thing. So I kinda know a little bit about songwriting because he was kind of saying a do song like me, I don't think it will work. So I was just trying to say um, well, I I kinda I kinda know what I'm doing all better. I went LA alone the writer's side. He said, Why don't you get somebody from LA to sing it? I say, Alright, thank you, sir, goodbye. Yeah, and it that was it, right? Of course, I'm simplifying the story, right? Yeah, fallout. And after Marshall decide to, by the way, I'm my phone is going to ring for giving this story. I just hope all of y'all know that because I gave them your numbers. Because I don't want to hear no drama. So after Marshall decides to do bottle of rum, we say, by the way, we send Jai the song, but he don't want to sing it, and we play it. And he said, Jai, don't want to sing this. He said, I'll call him and I'll talk to him. And I don't know what happened and the thing, and he called my back, you say, Hard luck there, sorry, dog. And he do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:31

Maybe he was in LA, maybe he was in LA. I get somebody from LA to sing it. You never know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:37

Yeah, what crazy. So wait, out of here. Just sorry, yeah, but you say any reference track was exactly people calling Benjamin and Adlibs, everything.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:46

So you say, Ah, everything. I probably have it somewhere. Yeah, I wish I could play it for you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:52

Yeah, that that that that is interesting to hear. Because well, firstly, because a lot of people think full blown come out this year.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:58

No, full blown.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:00

Long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Industry would know him for a long time. And that is is wild to think that somebody could write a song for somebody in that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:08

But again, that's why we're using professionals at there at who have the art and the skill for that. They could know your style and channel a song for you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:16

So this is why I want to ask you, like, well, you you from what you would have learned and what you know at that point in time, you're not you're not doubting, you're not guessing at this point in time in terms of the formula and the structure, you know, you know where you're approaching it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:28

For the most part, but you know, things you'll always have the little wild cards and anomalies that happen, but now we we have a pretty okay idea of what was going on. A lot of it was luck. As would everybody just throwing things out, but yeah, it was working.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:41

Yeah, and they like precision, you can see, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:43

Yeah, but precision and start with the name. It was plenty of luck, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:46

I'm sure all of us Antelease, Antilles.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:48

I didn't like Antilles. Antilles was a beat I was just doing on the laptop, and I put it down and come back. I was like, you know, song kind of cool. Yeah, it's sung kind of cool. It's alright. Let me, you know, this kind of vibes. Let me let me try this and see, and that's when you get his songs back and start to science it out, alright. This song and this song, which is some we talk about too, which is type of songs on rhythms.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:07

So Antilles, for instance, you're you're feeling the rhythm, you don't like it at the time. You send it to your writing crew already supposed to come back with ideas.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:13

I think when I pull it back up and I listen and I was like, hey, you know what? This have some vibes. Then I send it out. Okay, because and I do that now too, actually. I'll have a beat, I'll have an idea, and it could be the shittiest little shell, shittiest sketch, and I'll send it to writers. Because sometimes they will write something, and I'd be like, ah, this makes sense. Let me finish a song. Okay. So sometimes I don't get too strong upon what I think. I'll let a writer write a song, and they might come back with some something magical. Right. And that is what happened.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:41

So the writers, by the time you get back, I saw how I get back songs. This song ain't cool. So as a reminder, right? Tell me if I wrong. Nadia bats and shivel. Right. Nadia wrote a song. Marshall vibes care though. Full blown wrote that. Fun, believing in it. Well, we know as a man bashing, believing in your damn lies too long, and we know that. Couldn't we back canal? Couldn't do the song. And at the time, the name alternative quartet was Publin. They were on it as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:08

Yeah, so Andre's a personal friend went to school together, actually. And he always tried to get in the soccer space. Because I think he did um alternative concept for Marshall years ago. Nice. And that's where the quartet kind of stemmed from, I believe. I hope, I hope I seen the writing. But um, he was trying to find a way to get to penetrate the soccer market, and he said, Send me something that sends man. I send him that, and he write that song on it. When I say write the song for the strings, and we had it, and I was like, Alright, let me do this. Yeah. Strings on soaker again, while in Diamond Regrend, we just trying that thing, not knowing that it's going to be something revolutionary. And um at that time was when Miami Carnival was popping, and everybody would wait for the Miami Carnival mixtapes to come out to hear what's coming out. So we tease Antilles on a Miami mixtape, but it's nowhere else. And they start with the strings, and people lost their shit. Yeah, like what just happened, and then you hear these songs coming back and all these things, and it was nowhere to be found. Only on that mix for weeks, men was getting upset because it kind of was like the elite magnet, and people sat a while out, and that the rest was history with that rhythm.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:29

Yeah, that rhythm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:30

But but you know, I get plenty backlash, I was telling you. Because um, I mean, it's my partner, I ain't gonna call the names, but my pad, one of my partners, was like, eh, I don't know if I like it, it it's a little too samey. The same thing, it doesn't change as just four chords going on the road. I was like, Well, I'm trying something. I like it. I like it, I like it. Um, but no, it it it I I get a good bit of backlash for that. Because it was it's the same, it's a loop. Yeah, it doesn't really change much, you know. It doesn't really have no grand displays of musicality. It's it's it's simple.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:05

Yeah, I can tell you where the grandness has come from, cooler fet, you know. I mean, you see a cooler fett and you drink a few minutes, and nothing like back and all and shit today. Not that I don't talk about when it comes out, I talk about now. They have a they have a a style of music, right? And plenty of it is yours, yeah. Where you see when you're going to fit and it's cool, them cool it's cold. So let me give you an example like you go soaker in the morning, it's still cold. Right. So you go rise and roast, it's cold still, or even fetting in the night where you just come in, you're sober then. Right. You know what I mean? And people need to warm up and start fetting up to now, them rhythms and then hello and greet when you're walking in a cooler fit.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:45

No, it I I I think that sound and and those sonics, I don't know what to really call it, but it's so synonymous with carnival and fetted now. From the time it starts, it's just you just have a happiness and I'm with it. It's just you just smile. That's what I mean. Um, I know exactly what you mean. The funny thing is Antilles, and I didn't know it at the time. Antilles started a trend, it started a style of soccer that I didn't know until everybody started copying it. To this day, men still copy it, which is the chidn-chin-chen-chin-chin chin. Chidn it, you know what songs still have that to this day. I can't wish I could call names, but we'll get in trouble. But plenty people patterned their songs after that for a while, probably to this day still.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It works, it works, it works. It can't fail. So at that point in time, your business model set, you have your split the way you want it, and you have ownership of the city.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:38

Well, we've we're figuring it out, we're refining it. We we now launch, we now do the contract, now starting this process.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:47

Um artists buying into it at that point in time, for the most part, yeah. Yeah, like one of the things I never understood, just business wise, right? Is if I um let's use a random name, right? Or somebody who's already exists. If I'm Marshall Montano, right? If I if I'm if I'm that level, right? I don't want to call no names, but I am solidified, several years any business. In other words, I always wonder about this thing where you make a rhythm, a man writes it, you you all do your work and you're sure about what you have. But I feel like if I score, you need me. So I don't care what the split is, I don't care what you're gonna talk about. I want 100%. Let's say.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:23

But that's what's happening in the game now and been happening, yeah. Um, how do you address that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:29

Because you had to live.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:31

Um no no, I mean trust me. This is this is uh this is an ongoing debate and will always be an ongoing debate. But I think it depends on where you stand in the game, right? So the same way Marshall could call that, is the same way I could call certain numbers, but another producer can't call the numbers I would call. So it's really what works for that person. No, that situation, I guess. I wouldn't do it, right? I just wouldn't do 50% because I just ain't doing it. Um but somebody else could do it and it'll be fine. Uh but it it is an ongoing debate. Because I remember artists tell my dad does like, well, I have a brand and and and I I doing 50 50%. What's my brand? I say, well, what's my brand? Yeah, and the and the funny thing was, right? And we always go back here with this. This is you don't know how much debates this is be causing. The funny thing is the problem I have, and we we could talk this now. I know you I know you'd love this. The problem I have is the artists ask for more and do less. So they ask for 50%, but we really see songs, we send it to the radio as a producer, we do the graphics, we do all of these things. Yes, they voice on it, and and and we respect that the brand, the whatever, but they're not performing that song until it gets big. They're not working that song, they're not marketing that song. If I get a post on social media, I am lucky. I understand. They might post one teaser, I understand. So it's like you're asking for money, you're doing less.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:00

Yeah, from here, see.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:02

You know what I mean? We from here. So it it I it I just have a problem with that. And then when I ready to do rollout or marketing campaign, I had to beg you to come and shoot a video or come to this the radio station. Like, nah, man, that can't make sense. I understand, yeah. So, but it's always pain me as a bad guy because I just stick to my guns. I'm not doing no 50%. Yeah, you're not doing that. But I think some of the producers started to be like, well, all right, if you want 50 days, these are my stipulations. I need three posts, I need this on your Instagram, I need that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:30

Because Yeah, the contractual.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:32

You know what song I do with people, and they just never post it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:35

I never really thought of that. Why putting you on my rhythm if you're not even gonna post my song once? Nah, man. Come now. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:45

And then somebody we design and all the marketing campaign, everything behind the scenes, and when it gets big, then all of a sudden you're gonna jump on. Like, nah, man. I like that model a lot. I want to be an artist.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:55

I must listen to everything rhythms, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:58

It makes perfect sense. So that that's my gripe with it now. Again, it it doesn't take one hand to clap, and I understand and respect that. Yes, they have to sing, yeah, they brand, yeah, they're vocals on it, but here they kick off for me, right? Sure. And you tell me if this makes sense. If that's the case, cool, then give me a price, right? Yeah, let me let me pay you to sing on this rhythm. Then they'll be like, nah, boy, we I don't really do that because you know it's my vo But you wanna buy my master. Yeah, so how this fair? How this fair? It's not fair, of course, of course. Give me a price. How about this? Give me a price for one rhythm, and then I will let you get 50 or 100. That's what you said to doing in Jamaica, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:38

It's closer to that. We just paid that. Which is why I asked.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:40

I say, Well, give me a price then. I don't care if you tell me 10,000 years, at least give me a price. They can even give my price, yeah. So you just want my thing, yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:49

Okay, I like it a lot, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:51

Okay, so and and that and that's why I draw the line and be like, nah, this ain't making no sense. It's not fair. Of course, yeah. Suppose from our business, there's a creative side on it. It's very important. No, of course, of course, they could come and argue for the other side and the other points. And again, I don't know. I'm not I'm not neglecting their input on their side. Of course, it takes a lot to do what they do, but like it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:09

I understand, yeah, is it it will benefit both, so exactly which 100%. Now, talking about Jamaica, randomly, I hear people say let's talk about Tessanchin and Kess. It's the most random thing I've heard when you're talking with people because again, you're known and in the name known for certain things by this point here in sort of a golden era, if I could call it that, right? I call it the era of six million dollars worth of soccer monarch wins and so on, two million at a time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:34

But no, I still had a goal, man. I I I'm not trying to get kidnapped, so you see them numbers you're calling it, they will set me up.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:42

A lot of soccer monarch wins, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:44

Which I did not get all of that, explain that would just ask go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:49

But yeah, that song with with such a curry, it turned out to be such a Caribbean staple. You were saying that you were involved from the beginning of that with Kess. It was in something all went to Hill.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:58

Yeah, we went. Kess and myself, he was on the question mark at the time, had the opportunity to work with Tasan, and we flew to Jamaica together. And again, this is when Kes he wasn't big like Kess now. Um, and we get a hotel room double bed, we rough it out. We say, We're gonna see the sand tomorrow. Let me knock up someone's laptop here quick. And he sang that melody, and we went in our house. Hotel room in Jamaica, also they didn't do it before they leave home, or they do it just figure it out. And um, and this probably would have been around the same time when we did the LA stuff. Um, it would have been just trying different things because your mark was very instrumental in that. Shout out to Simon and Carolyn. Um, and yeah, we knocked up something, went by her, she says she loves it, and they started write the song together. And I think we went to the studio the next day and put on drums and bass and bring everything back. She do her vocals and bring everything back and finish it. Yeah, yeah, not knowing what it was. I I I'm not even my reggae producer, but I could do anything, I could try, yeah, try anything. And but we got somebody real authentic reggae guys to play bass and drums, so that helped a lot.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:10

And um, yeah, we just try this thing and yeah, get out of it you're trusting your ears because even when you're a lot of people don't know I do that song too. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Again, that I think the interview did the fingle is great, like it's just bring it's like what that's as random as it gets, and nobody saw that coming. But it's it's funny, and even to go back to rhythms and kind of like the correlation between them two things, the the idea of coming up putting live music into the thing was missing here for a while. And what you would see in Jamaica, right, is the rhythm thing been around for a long time there. So, yes, the band room is create rhythms, right? A lot of them, right? A lot of the most iconic rhythms was band room rhythms, yeah. But even when people build your rhythms as producers, the bands do rhythm real selves. Because when you're on a stage and bouncy kill on the city, you just call no rhythm name. How the hell you gonna remember all that? Yeah, they had to they had to be able to pull, they had to be able to pull. And I feel like if I I wonder how you feel about it as somebody who was doing rhythms early. Because sometimes when I say a rhythm, I had to say, Whoa's on that again. Like, you know what, but but when I say joyride rhythm, you know exactly where it was and where it was when they play and stuff. You you feel anyway about that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:15

Like we well, if you really look at it right, and again, this is not to knock anything, but if you really look at the design of let's say the Antilles, when I say Antilles, all those songs are staples, they're different in each regard, but they're huge. Right. But you remember them. A lot of the rhythms now don't have very memorable songs, and they either they're just I don't want to say sub bar, but they're not designed right. We spoke about this. Like, you need to design a rhythm properly. You want one wine song, one girl's song, one love song. You don't want six wine songs, right? Yeah, um, and that helps because it's rhythm juggling. A DJ will be creating arguments and bringing the song, this song will now make this song big, and it's it's it's a science. Yeah, gotcha. Um, but we kind of lost the art with some rhythms now where people just flinging anything on it. Yeah. So it's not memorable at all. Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:11

So we talk a little bit about takeover the takeover rhythm and some of the early days with that. We talk about Antilles. That era of our run that I don't talk about with doggy slaughter. We either go kill me if we leave that out. You only had a relationship before what was that caused all it just clicked so easily.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:26

Um, you know, I don't know how I even meet Slaughterboy. I probably would have met so I don't know if you know this. I a lot of my um trial by fire aside from Marshall, before Marshall was KMC, I engineered for a lot of KMC songs. Not necessarily produce, but engineer. So Soul on Fire. Well, not Soul on Fire, but um is this three miles, yeah, concubine rhythm.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:54

Oh, you caused problems in my life early.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:57

Like just engineering, because he would produce, but I would. Run this um Madman, he produced Madman for Marshall. Um, it has so much experience, yeah. I engineering recording all his vocals, all that all that comes out from KMP Music Lab. So my dad used to work with him, daddy did Soul on Fire with him, but it was a run of of things. Um was the thing party something rhythm with our multi-symptom girl? I like to lie, yeah, all that. Yeah, all I'm thinking I engineer for. So I I that was like my my training days. Yeah, students of it all in like every night, and then it was Marshall. So I get I get trained by the biggest dragons, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:37

Sure, dragons is right. That is my fire.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:41

So that's Slaughter run only on only just I believe I met Slaughter, I want to believe it's true, KMC, or probably some connect there, maybe I could be wrong. Um yeah, and we just I think Slaughter would travel all over the Caribbean and get beats from people, and he was very enthusiastic and just wanted to try different songs. Yeah, and at that point, you know, I experimented, so we wilding out, of course, and yeah, all those songs come out from then. He was on Takeover Rhythm, he had the West Indies song, yeah, Pokey was Kobe and Stefan. Um, then we did In My Blood, which was so Carnival I Love You, which was kid and them. Some of those off again.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:27

So the thing with him, right? It was unique because again, he again, you you you always show up at these kind of inflection points for me in my life, right? Because the song system thing was on fire then.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:37

It was radioactive, excalible, maxi miller, and that's what he used that as an advantage. Yeah, because he he had sound man culture, so you know how to do it. He designed the songs, I suppose, how to write the songs, what topics to write advantage, yeah. Slaughter's right, yeah. Actually, Slaughter writing everything at that point.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:57

Yeah, yeah, I remember, and where you say is exactly right, right? That might be the reason he wasn't on 96.1 no more, you know, because he used to travel all the time and Lisa to work, and they didn't like that too much in 96.1, and then you hear no longer have Excalibur 96.1, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I'll make it song like you say that part. I take it myself out all this. But it's almost a unique one because of that. He was over.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:20

He would go and get beats from the most random producer in Belize or this one or somewhere and bring it back and do this random song, and I would take the files and fix it up or mix it or record vocals. So yeah, yeah, and he was unique too because uh all of them, oh yeah, trample.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:35

Yeah, you do. I mean, there's a try and the whole rhythm, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sharpy everybody was singing, right? But then he at the time, even before Shal was the one who everybody just says, like, alright, he has something different, you know, doing things that that stick, and again, a lot of forever music. At the time you're working on them things, you have a sense of 20-year-long hits on them kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:59

I don't think I don't I mean, for me, I don't think anybody, yeah, we will say, Yeah, I want to make a classic, but we'd rather have a song and be like, This can't be a classic, it just happens, yeah. And sometimes it's not the one you think that's gonna be the hit. So you're feeling it with him at them times because that song in like if it uh some of them we would like. Some of them like spread the love was was was one that we really like. Pokey, I did not like. Uh me and Kenny actually followed for Pokey. Um, but Pokey I didn't like, but I end up being huge to this day. Yeah, um, yeah, or like yeah, I mean TikTok he did on Peter Cup and Rhythm. Right, so he was going everywhere and just going on rhythms. I guess, I guess, I guess, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:40

Yeah, real Caribbean, man. Yeah, yeah. So outside of that, six million dollar man. Let me talk about that now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:46

Padna. Padna.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:48

It wasn't two million dollars.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:49

Guys, I live in Los Angeles. As soon as you leave your door, memory, but as soon as you step outside, as soon as you step outside in LA, you spend 100 US. So don't listen to this guy. I um LA's a hard city. Do you see that talk you setting me up David?

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:07

So, where do you work start with you and Marshall? Because only you, you Marshall has done a ton in Calypso and Soka music or whatever you want to call it, and probably will do more. Uh, but there's an era, that era, Marshall.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:22

I can't answer that, but I could give you some of my memories. I want to believe we started or somewhere in the early with one more wine. Yeah, I didn't produce it, but I engineered on it, recorded vocals, probably did some additional production and mixed it. It's one of my early, early songs with him. We loved it from the start. Really? This crazy. Even the thing in the top, call me anytime you want was a random sample. I think be fine. And he's like, put it in it up. I was like, Why are you putting this random Mexican man saying? But at that point, I was like, This man is crazy, or yeah, he's good. So that's so it would have been that holy tonight. But a big part that I think I probably don't say enough is I was also one of his main vocal engineers and vocal producers. So I recorded vocals from Epic Temperature. Um I I think I recorded him on Family, a lot of the power stuff Showtime, um, Happiest Man Alive. I mixed and recorded Dance With You. I think I recorded his vocals. Fast Wine. Fast Wine we produce with Jolani. So the whole tiny desk because you do the whole tiny desk. Half of it. Alright, okay. If I didn't produce it, I'd probably mix or record the vocals. So that's why we have so many songs. I might produce some, but a lot of them I was just recording the vocals. Um, so that we just we were locked in for a while. Right, right. Because I was the only crazy one enough to keep up with his craziness.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:47

How bad it was? I heard about like 12 and 15 hour studio sessions and 24 hour rehearsals is really like that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:55

It's a lot, yeah, it's a lot. But I think, as you say before, baptism by fire. But I also am a perfectionist as well, so I would keep up with the tracks, and we'll have sessions, a hundred and something tracks, but you had to be able to read our language, and a lot of guys would tap out. Right. And I would I go in strong, and you'd be like, I'm gonna get our vocal, I know exactly where it is because I'm a nude, so I know this stuff. So yeah, like who could out nerd who?

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:19

Yeah, this studio. It just reminds me when you come in and you're saying you ain't sleep and you're tired, and I'm guaranteed.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:25

I know it's not true. That's all I know. You're accustomed to these marathons. No, no, no, no, I stop that. You done with that we ain't getting younger. I need more sleep. So it would have been advantage. That era where he was winning, because that point he was might be the most winningest part of his career. Winningest. Winningest, you know what I mean? Very good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:45

10 points, a plus on your scorecard.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:50

That's the most wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:53

Most trendy word you ever invented.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:56

Double superlative, especially cannot be that. But double supertime, you know. There was there was a big trap time and them things, and big wins then and that kind of thing, too. But that's when he was really just hard to beat in every competition that you went in.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:09

But and and and I remember this this story clearly, he would outwork everybody, no disrespect to anybody else, but he's crazy when it comes to that. You can't beat him. Uh I think when I rem when I realized like, yeah, nobody ain't doing this was god, I can't call names. But vibes got done. We were doing vibes get done, it was so easy and had to come long before SOE and leave after, right? And we spent our whole night on Adlib track, only the Adlibs, nothing else for the whole night. And I was like, nobody else not doing this. And and the proof was any putting is like that's why that's why you're great. Yeah, no, no, do I think it's overdone? Yeah, we don't need to work that hard. Yeah, right. We need to work that hard.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:57

Well, I mean, like I have one experience, right? Completely layman and fan and that kind of thing. I don't know by no means understand it. But I remember going on there was a um there was a studio on RPT Avenue at the time where he was doing some work. It's one of the ugliest rooms I ever went in. But the whole thing is red, white, and black.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:15

It's very, very not um, that wasn't engine room. I can't remember, but I didn't know. I don't know who ended up there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:22

I was a salt man, I saw you know. Yeah, you can coming up there. Yeah, but it was just random, and the guy was working on a Marshall song and he played, and instantly as a feta, I know, hey, that bad. Let me get a no. And he said, nah, Marshall, I'll do your ad libs. And I was like, for what? Is that nothing to change here? Is that nothing to do? I was like, this release now. Good to go. Yeah, but then I heard it after he took the ad libs for that. Yeah, no, no, you know, you know what you're doing. Yeah, it's not it's not guessing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:49

I gave him that, but at the same time, I'll still say it over done. But I could say that now, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:54

Uh so they had a good relationship throughout that we're good relationship. Yeah, yeah. When you when you were in LA, some of those things we were done when you were already over there, you weren't here the time. He was there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:04

He lived in L. So a lot of songs recorded in Libes. Yeah, done recording LA, family recording LA, his vocals, right? Um, the Ariana Grande recording LA, his vocals all my life, songbang recording LA.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:16

So you're doing his vocals even then over there. I see.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:19

I was one of his main engineers at that time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:22

Random question, right? How much soccer artists will have a specific engineer for vocals in your experiences. A lot of them do that, not really.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:30

No, they'll go by different people and record. I mean, have a few of them who will stick to like voice, will record with Nikolai. Right. Um Kingston will do a lot of Travis stuff. Okay, got it. So it'll have a few dynamics, but it wasn't like set like that. Yeah. So at that time, you and L and both only working together together on one.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:50

And then being fresh in LA too. I was still doing soccer a lot. I see, okay, okay, okay. So you lost touch of the culture. Nah, nah. You lost touch of the culture, no? I will leave that comment alone, but let's let's continue. Uh so that yeah, that that that that's that 2010 to 2020, even when I pull up some of the rhythms and I show it, even the ones we didn't touch on, it's really a special time. So congrats on that. And we we even say how it's just a part of your career or a part of your legacy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:18

One of the things I found that was interesting, and I wanted to talk about it before they put me out was um your business approach to the music. I sort of led you into becoming a voting member for things like Grammys. You said before that you had that in mind when you were going to LA. How important was that for you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:33

So, yes, I became a voting member, but aside from voting member, I'm also a screening member on global, global music. At a point, I was I was on Afro as well. But I've always been trying to figure out. I mean, aside from yes, I don't do so that much anymore, we're still trying to figure out how to make inroads to get so recognized or get more producers to be in, um, voting members, get more guys submitting their songs. Because we still have to build numbers and it's it's a it's uh we're far from it. Yeah, but the more people who get in every year and become members and vote and have a voice and give so a voice in there, it's just gonna get better. Um, so I've always been on that mission and trying to figure out the system to be like, alright, how could we let me learn the system to know that already? When is the time for Soka to get a category? Or if I want to submit something to try and win something or be nominated, let me learn the system and get in the mix. Um, so that's what I've been doing. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:31

Now, Kenny, when he was here brought up his Dexter Simmons, is it? And he would have gone on to be a part of a Grammy winning project, no? Yeah, a few. A few.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:41

Well, no, one that I know one for sure, but I'm sure there were there were others. Right. He won with Outcast. Oh, yeah. Speaker box, love below.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:50

No, you you said that you're mentored by him very early, yeah, and it came up through that. A question I have is that we tend to we like our own awards. I do. I like the Calypso Monarch winners and the road match. I I love that argument, right? And who will win this and who win Panorama. Right. But the global awards matter to you. You you you you think it's important for us to do overall. I wonder sometimes if you were to get that Grammy and the genre of music is not so calypso, how how well you feel it will be received here? Because when he said the word Dexter Simmons, not like he widely celebrated here, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:23

You know, um, how would it be received? I I don't care. But I I I say it like that because I don't care because it would only help my side and my track record to now open more doors, right? So even if I win a Grammy for mixing what a rock song, yeah, it's just going to open more doors for me to get in more doors, right? Which could only help our culture and what we're doing. Of course. So I don't I don't watch it that way. I'll be probably watching it because I can't. Yeah, if I sit down and study that, we'll do nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:59

Yeah, that's for me to focus on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:02

We will do nothing. Yeah, we'll be arguing about a flagner in a video. Yeah, we're going to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't we can't sit down and do that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:08

Hell of our argument. Hell of our argument if you ask me. I don't have time for that. So you would say no, your focus today is more on other genres of music than it is in soccer. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:20

Um, I do believe there are other versions of soca or different twists on it that could work and probably cross more. Um, but I also believe that the current form could work too. It's just we need the numbers, we need the support, we need the unity as well. Yeah, yeah. There's our next podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:41

So you're talking about unity. I have a hundred questions around that. But what I will say as we close is uh I want to I I hope I had to talk to Kenny. No, I can talk to you direct, right? Because I say Kenny, anytime you hear, tell me we're doing it because when when you just look at some of the things you've done, it's amazing to talk just to get to talk to you and for you to tell some of these stories. I was telling you when we were talking last night that I watched Teron from BVI talk about his stories behind some of these stories. They are wild. It's crazy, but yeah, but even his story, have I hear his story? No, game to come now. Crazy. Uh yeah, that's a yes. I think that's a yes. It's possible, it's possible. Yeah, you do it a Caribbean man, man. It's possible. Yeah, I just had a game and trend, but it's possible. But I appreciate the fact that you take the time to come and do some of it too. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, a pleasure, a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:28

To be honest, and I'll and I'll give you a five minutes. I know you're begging me a pretty old podcast, but I'll give you a five minutes of praise. Um when I saw I I knew I had no idea what the podcast was. Even before Kenny and I saw you doing it, I was like, Yeah, this look good. The lighting good, it looked good, the sound good, it looked like a real podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:45

So I was like, okay, this looks cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:47

If you see the song good, then great, but it looked again. But nah nah nah, it it was it was really done properly. And I was like, okay, I don't know who Corey is, but it looked good. And then I saw Kenny was the one, Mevon was one. I was like, all right, cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:00

This makes sense.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:02

Good job, Steve. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'm gonna talk about it. I was glad you come through a lot, and I hope that it continues to come track it properly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:10

That's easy for me to do it.