Trinibad artiste: ‘Choose music over badness’

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

The Trini­bad sound­scape is of­ten de­fined by edgy, raunchy and at times out­right vi­o­lent lyrics. How­ev­er, two mu­sic in­dus­try stake­hold­ers are try­ing to change the face of the genre, as they urge some artistes to choose be­tween their mu­si­cal ca­reers and street life.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, singer and song­writer Sadi­ki De Leon said there is a need for artistes to take their en­ter­tain­ment ca­reers se­ri­ous­ly in or­der to reach their full po­ten­tial.

He, how­ev­er, stressed that this can on­ly hap­pen if they are will­ing to leave crim­i­nal­i­ty be­hind.

De Leon, who has worked with sev­er­al Trini­bad acts over the years, lament­ed that while the genre has evolved to amass sig­nif­i­cant fol­low­ing and com­mer­cial suc­cess, artistes of­ten­times did not di­rect­ly ben­e­fit from their own pop­u­lar­i­ty due to le­gal prob­lems or threats to their lives over per­ceived gang al­le­giances.

The lat­ter, he said, caus­es artistes to miss op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand their pres­ence and even per­form as freely as they should, as it lim­its their abil­i­ty to per­form in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties out of safe­ty con­cerns.

Re­fer­ring to one artiste who is cur­rent­ly in prison, De Leon said that in such a sit­u­a­tion, artistes had noth­ing to gain.

“In prison, you’re not mak­ing any mon­ey from your mu­sic un­less you have cer­tain arrange­ments in place dig­i­tal­ly.

“Due to the crime hap­pen­ing, even when they come out of prison, they can’t make mon­ey be­cause they can’t just go any­where and per­form.

“So what we want to re­mind peo­ple is we want to sep­a­rate the bad­ness from the mu­sic. It’s ei­ther you’re an artiste, or you’re a gun­man.”

De Leon says the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the art­form can al­low for artistes to prof­it from their work not on­ly from stream­ing ser­vices and live per­for­mances, but al­so po­ten­tial­ly from en­dorse­ments and ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paigns.

He, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edged that this could be a chal­lenge as large com­pa­nies would be re­luc­tant to part­ner with an artiste who has been im­pli­cat­ed in a crime.

De­spite this, he is con­fi­dent that once artistes fo­cus on their craft and ex­pand their mu­sic be­yond “gun­man songs,” there is po­ten­tial for them to achieve main­stream ac­claim.

When asked if he thought there would be chal­lenges for artistes to sev­er ties with friends who were in­volved in gangs, De Leon re­spond­ed, “At the end of the day, it’s your choice.”

“There was a cer­tain com­mu­ni­ty leader who sup­port­ed my mu­si­cal ca­reer and nev­er once put a gun in my hand; re­gard­less of what you of­fer, the choice is theirs at the end of the day.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to mu­sic pro­duc­er Khalif Greaves, al­so known by his in­dus­try moniker KG, at his Ari­ma home on Wednes­day, who agreed that there was a need for an end to vi­o­lence with­in the Trini­bad genre.

Greaves, who has worked along­side Trini­bad artistes as a video­g­ra­ph­er for mu­sic videos and even in­ter­view­ing some artistes on his YouTube pod­cast, Talks with KG, ac­knowl­edged the dif­fi­cul­ty some artistes may face in fo­cus­ing en­tire­ly on mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly if they con­tin­ue to live in a neigh­bour­hood where gang ac­tiv­i­ties are preva­lent.

He, how­ev­er, urged artistes to find their own call­ing and make a de­ci­sion with­out fol­low­ing their peers.

“If we want to grow this thing and re­al­ly de­vel­op this thing in­to some­thing worth­while, we need peo­ple who will not choose a side and that they want to work with every­body.

“I think it comes down to who you are, do you want to be a gang mem­ber or do you want to be some­one of suc­cess and dig­ni­ty?”

Greaves said the po­ten­tial for Trini­bad went be­yond songs about vi­o­lence and death, not­ing that pos­i­tive mu­sic was need­ed to ex­pand the cat­a­logue of artistes to sing about their own per­son­al jour­neys, strug­gles and the com­mu­ni­ty around them.

He, how­ev­er, lament­ed that pos­i­tive mu­sic may not be as ap­peal­ing as songs with vi­o­lent or sug­ges­tive themes, point­ing to a larg­er prob­lem not nec­es­sar­i­ly with the genre but in the type of me­dia that the pub­lic con­sumes.

“When you try to cre­ate good con­tent for peo­ple, they pass it straight, but when you cre­ate bac­cha­nal con­tent they dive in­to it im­me­di­ate­ly, so I think the pub­lic as a whole needs to change their mind­set and once that hap­pens every­thing else will change around it.

“I dis­like the nar­ra­tive that Trini­bad is the prob­lem, since I was grow­ing up Trinidad has had prob­lems. I have nev­er lived in this coun­try and felt safe, so Trini­bad has al­ways re­flect­ed what was go­ing on for a long time in this coun­try.

“I want to see the peo­ple in their own mind­set make a change, but sup­port the artistes who are try­ing to cre­ate a new, more pos­i­tive nar­ra­tive.”