Caribbean Music and Cultural Preservation

Speaker 1 0:03

Hello everyone , welcome to this special joint episode of Carry On Friends Style and Vibes and the Reels to the Rhythms . I'm always excited when we do these crossover episodes because I feel like , as Mikaela said , beer tings . So welcome my co-host , mikaela Medoops . What is going on A long time still in O'Kerry ?

Speaker 2 0:24

We never would chill out , be still as you say .

Speaker 1 0:27

Hallelujah , hallelujah . And we're even more excited because we have Jess with us . Jess , welcome to this crossover event . How are you ?

Speaker 3 0:37

I'm great . Thank you guys for having me . I'm excited . I love the name too Realism , rhythm .

Speaker 1 0:45

Love it , All right . So I mean everybody already know , Michaela and myself , so we're just going to skip to them knowing who you are . So tell the people a little bit about who you are . Caribbean country you represent , the work you do , and then we'll get into the project we are here to talk about .

Speaker 3 1:04

Sure , yeah , I'm originally from Jamaica . Actually , I was born in New York but I was never raised here , so I don't rep it the same way because I was raised in Jamaica . So I was raised in Kingston , went to Hope Field , Prep , and then Campion Shout out to all the Campion mastermen and I came back here for college , you know as about 17 . So I've been here in New York for a long time I consider both home at this point and so I've been working in TV now for over a decade , I would say since 2013 . So I've been 11 years of TVs and I've done a bunch of different positions across TV . But this doc I'm coming up is kind of like my first doc by myself . I've worked on stuff on Netflix and I do a lot of Food Network shows as a producer . I've been working on A&E stuff lately and PBS . I do like a food show for PBS every year , but I love music , so that's really why I'm happy to be doing this . So I kind of do two things food shows and music .

Speaker 1 2:09

Well , two things dear to a heart we love Rebellion and we love music . So you're right in the company of me and Michaela . So we reached out to you because you have and I'll throw it to Michaela to finish the rest you have a documentary that's coming out that's called Roots Rock Reggae , and Michaela cue you . So I was so excited when I saw this project because , as Michaela said , I've been in a chill and be still semi-sabbatical . But when I saw it I was just like this was kismet . It was meant to be , because Michaela and I talk about dancehall and the segments in dance . You have the praise and worship , you have the throwak tunes , you have the souls section . We have all these things and it's very hard for people to understand , like , why we do these things . So talk to me about the project , why you started it and all that good stuff .

Speaker 3 3:17

Okay . So I again grew up in Kingston and every night would listen to Fame FM . Every night I didn't have TV in my room , so every night , even now I still do it with , like Spotify , I listen to . You know , souls at night , which is , you know it can range . That's why it's called Souls on the R&B , because it can range from country to pop to pop , ballads to soft rock .

Speaker 3 3:44

I don't really know what the exact definition is , we'll get into that in the doc , but we know , and we hear it , what is sold right . We know certain artists are probably not sold . We're not playing them at the dance , right , and so I've always loved this part of Jamaican culture in general . I just find it so fascinating how we love artists like Marty Robbins and Patsy Cline and these really old country artists . And on a Sunday up until I think , when Zip FM maybe came on the scene , which was , I forgot which year Zip debuted in Jamaica we never played dancehall and those things on a Sunday . On a Sunday it was always you go back , right , and it was for after church and you don't play , even though I love Bushu dearly , you know , but you're not playing that kind of more , you know , even though Bushu not super hardcore , but you know what I'm saying . You're not playing an elephant man on a Sunday . You're not playing certain artists , ninja man on a Sunday , you're playing older artists , you're playing old country . So I've always thought about this and what really sparked the doc is two things .

Speaker 3 4:50

One I was in Paris a couple years ago with some friends of mine . I was playing water from the moon . We were like all playing music and , like our friends , paris laughed and they just didn't love water from the moon and I I was like what ? This is our song . I was so hurt internally . And then last year my dad got an award for his service to Jamaica , you know , on the Heroes Day . So he got one of the awards for his service as an air traffic controller .

Speaker 3 5:22

So but the night I was only there for 36 hours in Jamaica and I went to this party called I Love Souls and it's every Sunday night . Shout out to them , we're going to work with them on the dock and I was like uptown people can be a little stiff , but everybody was dancing , everybody was singing , everybody . I beat them juice and I sing out to Celine and Michael Bolt and Lady in Red was dancing . Everybody was singing , everybody . I beat them juice and I sing out to celine and michael bolt , and then lady in red , and I was like you know , I realized that some songs are songs that just we love in the caribbean , from the paris incident , right , the paris situation , and then I was like I've never gone to a place in the world and I've traveled a lot where people only play this for the entire night and then , like people love Celine all over the world , we're not unique and loving Celine .

Speaker 3 6:09

But to go to a place and you only hear soft rock and micro boats and an air supply and you know what I mean meatloaf maybe , right , that is unusual for the rest of the world . And so I was like somebody should do a doc on this and I was like , well , why don't I just do it ? Like you make television , you know . So that's really where it came from .

Speaker 2 6:33

I think what I love about what you shared is the inspiration behind it and the fact that you saw something that was missing and you said I'm capable of doing this . That was missing and you said I'm capable of doing this , let me do it . And I think that to me that is cultural preservation at its finest . And I think souls , as it is known , that section , that genre , is very unique to the Caribbean and it really goes back to what we played on radio . So even going further back , reggae wasn't even allowed on radio . So we've seen glimpses of this in other documentaries .

Speaker 2 7:14

So the one with Biggie talking about how he went back to Jamaica and his mom really talking about how her favorite artist , and then even in a past podcast episode with Miss Pat , she talked about selling R&B records on the road through her record label record store at the time . So they weren't even the label . So it just goes with the culture , essentially of how that really grew . But I'm curious , even in that party has souls transcended to this next generation ? I know that they listen to R&B and I know that they listen to other genres , but souls as we know it , of this nice little presentable box , has that transitioned to the next generation ? I don't know , so that's why I'm asking .

Speaker 3 8:11

Yeah , I mean there were some younger people there . I'm a millennial for sure . I'm probably like a geriatric millennial at this point , but yeah , there were younger people there . I would say it tended to lead probably , you know , younger millennial , but there were some people I know for sure in like probably their mid-20s because I feel like their parents music now is probably like , are like Usher and Beyonce and you know some of those .

Speaker 3 8:38

Or Keisha Cole , right , that's why it's that song love has been like all over . I feeling like in some ways we're the aunties now and so like I think for them , maybe some of the older , super old stuff might not , they might not know that stuff , but they still understand , I think , the concept of it as a like r&b . But you could also have an ed sheeran , which is in the same box , even though he's a pop artist . You know what I mean . I think that still does translate , but I don't think they maybe know unless they have their grandparents still around , like Marty Robbins , who we , you know lots of Jamaicans love Marty Robbins um , one of the things you said before and I don't know if you'll cover this , but you know , I'm I'm in the Gen generation .

Speaker 1 9:25

So I grew up when there was just one , it was just JBC , and everything else was radio and TV sign off and the radio format . You talked about it on Sunday , right Sunday morning , before church collectively starts . So most churches would start at 10 . You play your Christian music . After that that gets into the country music and by late afternoon it's some Latin type music , whether it's bossa nova or some salsa , and then as we get into the nighttime it gets to be the souls or whatever . Right . And there was a particular radio format . My favorite radio disc jockey growing up was Donovan Dakers .

Speaker 3 10:05

I loved .

Speaker 1 10:05

Donovan Dakers right . So how much has radio played a role in our love of souls , given that for a very long time we were a one channel country and multiple radio stations ? And to Michaela's point , do you think now where even though Jamaica is still a heavy radio country , but not as much with social media and stuff how does that play a role in the younger generation experiencing souls the way we experienced it ?

Speaker 3 10:42

Because I don't live there full time anymore . I don't know if they listen to it the way we do , but I think radio in a lot of ways I think radio is super important to Jamaican life . Right , I used to live my life by RJR in the mornings Like literally they had like a you know they used to have a segment for everything , like at 10 past the hour , 15 past the hour , I think , at 6.30 in the morning it was news 6.45 . So I think a lot of people listen to the radio and I think it really helps shape how we think about like even the way things should be played , I think , with souls in particular and older music like country and R&B .

Speaker 3 11:23

In a lot of ways that is the foundation , I think , of what you know in radio and I think that to that point about the radio station being the one I think that is the foundation for all radio stations did up until maybe like 15 years ago I think , up until , I think , when Zip came along and they started playing more secular music on a Sunday , most radio stations still follow that kind of tiered thing on a Sunday Morning gospel Afternoon you got your old country , your Patsy Cline and your Skeeter Davis Afternoon you might get into a little older , softer disco , right . You might play some ABBA right or something like that , and then evening time you might go a little bit more R&B , shy Lights , ojs , things like that . So I actually think radio is really really foundational in terms of how we listen to music , our palates , in a lot of ways .

Speaker 1 12:19

I love this idea of what radio has done for us musically in how we relate to souls and our love for souls . So , all right , we know souls is a miscellaneous category for anything that feels very R&B soft rock , you know , soft pop , if you want to say what else ? It's anything where we feel like it's singing to a particular , like soulful singing . Maybe that's why we call it souls . It's interesting . And you now , living in New York , all three of us , we carried that to New York because , being in Brooklyn , they used to keep dance where it was a completely souls team dance . The whole night is souls , right . So I want to ask a really fun question when we think of dancehall and dancehall parties , jamaica or the US , what is the number one soul song you think they're going to play

Jamaican Music Preferences and Influences

Speaker 1 13:24

in the dance ? In your opinion , michaela and Jess , what's the number one song you know ? So then I'm going to pull a tune here in the soul section of this dance .

Speaker 3 13:35

So my instinct , like once he said it , my instinct was Michael Bolton's Soul Provider .

Speaker 2 13:41

That's like the song , and then they rinse it with the Romy and Virgo on cover .

Speaker 3 13:46

It just came to my mind instantly . It's one of my favorite soul songs . We know Jamaicans love Michael Bolton . I guess I was going to go with my instinct and say Michael Bolton's Soul Survival .

Speaker 2 13:56

I got to go with my instinct too . First name came to mind was Celine Dion , but the song that came to mind is Like a Virgin Madonna .

Speaker 1 14:05

Interesting the song that comes to my mind is Guilty with Barbara Streisand and Barry Ginn . Then we got nothing to be guilty , oh yes .

Speaker 3 14:17

We love that song . We really do love that song , really do love that song . It's true , we also love this is one , celine um , I'm alive , let's anything .

Speaker 3 14:26

Celine just run they love ice correndo men dance to these soul songs well , that's one of the things that really is a big part of the doc for me that I want to make sure I touch on is that Jamaicans also and I can't speak for other islands , but Jamaicans in particular pick their own singles . So there are songs that are just popular in Jamaica and I say this because I've been doing a lot of research right , and artists would come to Jamaica , like Kenny Rogers the first time he came . I don't want to give too much away from the doc , but like Kenny Rogers came to Jamaica and you know , our favorite song is Write your Name Across my Heart . Right , we love that song , it's one of our favorite songs outside of the Gambler , probably . And it's not a single . It was never released .

Speaker 3 15:19

So Promoto was like listen , you have to close with this song . And so he's been interviewed by Winford Williams and he's like oh , we're not going to do that . And I know he did it because I read the article after . And so the promoter must have been like absolutely not , right , this is your , this is your gambler here . Right , and Jamaicans do that a lot . We'll pick a song I don't know what exactly . We gravitate in the song and that's our , that's our favorite song there's like this one random Celine Dion song that they play at the dance all the time , that literally nobody I've ever mentioned it in America knows it . They're like what ? And they know a lot of Celine Dion song , but they don't know this song . I think it's called called something about her mother . I forget the name of it .

Speaker 3 16:02

It's like mama , you gave me wings to fly .

Speaker 1 16:05

I know that song .

Speaker 3 16:07

It is not a single right and I think it's Goodbye is the hardest word . I think that's the name of the song and it's really a hit in Jamaica , particularly like downtown . I don't know why , I don't know where it came from , I don't know . Jamaicans like to taste , really fascinates me , like what they gravitate towards and what they kind of reject .

Speaker 1 16:29

you know it's so interesting because when I used to go back to Jamaica for vacation , I would hear songs play on the radio that I didn't hear it even on the R&B station here . Particularly there was a song with James Ingram and Anita Baker from a movie and I was just like I've never heard this song and people were like , what is this ? It wasn't even played on the black stations here and in Jamaica . I mean , almost every night it play after you're just like I had no choice but to know it .

Connections Between Country Music and Jamaica

Speaker 1 17:04

So , um , another fun question for both of you who is an artist that um ? For you , jess , that you know this artist in Jamaica but you in America they're like who is this um ? And Michaela , maybe , for you it's what's a song that you know that you went to Jamaica for the summer or for holiday or whatever , and you heard it and you came back and everyone's like what is this sort of like Biggie's experience ?

Speaker 2 17:30

yeah , I think I think it was more the group Air Supply . I'm like I don't know who Air Supply is , because I , and then they start playing . So I'm like , oh yeah , I do know air supply and I'm like , but I can't put a face to to the songs because I didn't know who they . You know what I mean , like the name of the band . It's only like probably maybe even the last 10 years that I even really did the research on who and and it was because of probably like my mother-in-law like talking about air supply and I'm like who's that ? And they're like , you know air supply , man , you know them tune , yeah , and them play the tune . And I'm like , oh , yeah , me know that song .

Speaker 2 18:08

But true , my mother was a rebel , so I be a reggae , she play , I write me a reggae and dance , so she play . So my auntie was the souls and I mean my lady . She would lock up in her room and I'd vice out every song and at that time , you know , she came here so she was listening to R&B station , so it's mostly . And then she'd make like have to , like put in tapes and all these kind of . So that's how I really got exposed to the souls . And then when I would go to Jamaica I'd hear like CDs and parties that would have those segments and it just kind of stuck . I'm like , yes , only in Jamaica . It's one of those best kept secrets of Jamaica , to be completely honest .

Speaker 2 18:53

And it's one that I think we should preserve , because it's so good I agree .

Speaker 3 18:58

The funny thing is , when I started working on this , I'm gonna answer your question . But when I started working on this , um , I looked up air supply because I was like , oh , we love so many other songs and there's all these reddit threads and stuff like , oh , air supply sucks , and like cindy on is the worst and like michael jackson is like the worst , like , like , not michael jackson , I'm so sorry michael bolton and you know they've parodied him in movies about how his music sucks and I'm just like what this is amazing , like how dare you come for Michael Bolton and Kenny G and these people , um , to your point about artists , though , I think , unless I met somebody from the south , like from the you know , who grew up in Tennessee , oressee or , um , not in florida , like you know , like deep , you know deep south tennessee and south carolina , people don't know marty robbins and my drums are really old artists that make sense , but I listened to him a lot in jamaica actually growing up like , um , the el paso song is huge in the dark . I'm gonna draw a lot of parallels and I have a whole graphics thing in mind . Um , but between like some of the lyrics and some of the songs from like like marty robbins , to some of the dancehall lyrics which I think there is a , I think there's a chain , um , you know the big iron on his hip to you know car tell , on him 9 000 guns that he named drops and and you know , I think jamaicans love an outlaw right that you hear it with a rude boy . They love an outlaw , they love our rebel and dancehall is like rebel culture in a lot of ways and so I actually think a lot of it is rooted in like country and western movies and music to where you get to dancehall and some of the same themes .

Speaker 3 20:37

I think even some lyrics in some cases overlap which I'm even the names of the artists oh yeah , josie wales , josie wales , um , johnny osborne , a lot of yeah and so and that's because we only had one station right um , growing up and he did play that on a sunday or whatever , because you have to fill the airtime when you don't have news . I mean , jamaica's a small island . Like how much content can we produce for our station ? So I I think that it's a big foundational part of like what we listen to is like really old country west .

Speaker 3 21:08

They love those themes and you even hear . It's like a wayne marshall song marshall in town and it's the whole . They love it , you know . So I think for me that's one of the things that a lot of people , even though they grew up around a lot of Caribbean people in New York , I think some of those really old school country they didn't know even that would surprise me . Um , yeah , I think it's a little bit different if you grew up in the island it's so interesting that you talk about country because I can think of .

Speaker 1 21:40

you know , of course , we know Kenny Rogers the gambler . Oh my God , even the other day my husband was singing it . Right , I even , to a certain degree I've talked to Michaela like I really think Lionel Richie is a country singer , but they just put him in R&B . But one but one country singer whose album went really pop that when I moved here no one really knew about her , is Crystal Gale .

Speaker 1 22:04

And everyone loved , and they first . They loved her because she had hair all the way down to her ankles , so that was one thing , but all everyone would sing was a long and lasting love , and they just kept singing that song over and over . So there's something there with the country music and Jamaica that is very interesting in terms of the correlation . So I can't wait to see it with your doc . So let's go back to the doc . You are doing a crowdfund right now . What's the goal of the crowdfunding ? Where are you in the the production of this documentary ? And I'm gonna add one more question because we want to know is this going to go the film festival circuit ? Is it going to be a general release ?

Speaker 3 22:54

let's know what's happening okay , great , this is two great questions . So we're still in pre-production . Actually , it's funny . I think this video , the Kickstarter video , was so strong that people are like it's like a trailer .

Speaker 3 23:06

I'm like not quite . We have a lot to film . There's a lot of people I'm trying to get to be in . The doc Celine is obviously my Mount Everest of interviews that I'd like to have . I have people , have people already on board and so I've . I've been amassing content and archival and I've had some yeses for when I go to Jamaica in October . So I have a couple of shoots already scheduled there and I've shot like a couple of small things already .

Speaker 3 23:31

But the crowdfunding is really for production , right . Um , if you work in TV and film space , um , you are aware , or if you follow the industry trends , you know that it's been on a significant downturn since last year , since the strikes , since the writer strikes last year , which has happened in last May . So I think the official numbers I saw there they were like it's like down 40% or something , which is a lot right . It employs a lot of California , a lot of New York . So we've been in a really slow season and I decided to launch the crowdfunding because I didn't want to wait to get told yes , I find in TV , just like with other trends , market trends in other spaces and I'm not a business person by any means trust me . I've learned that from this experience .

Speaker 3 24:16

But there's certain times when they're green lighting certain things right . Sports is hot right now , you know . True crime is hot . Everybody wants to do a true crime doc . So it was kind of hard for a music space and unless you're Caribbean , you don't think there's a big audience for this . If I was going to send , like , an executive somewhere , right , and I just didn't want to be waiting and waiting .

Speaker 3 24:37

I haven't worked as much as I normally work in the past year and a half , so I'm like I could either use this time to stress myself out every day and applying for new gigs and I've worked , but just not nearly as much as I normally work Normally I'm like overlapping sometimes it's so busy or I could put my energy into something that I actually want to make care about my people , my story . And then what's stopping me Money ? Right , that's the thing that's . The barrier is the money , I think even the access to people . I know enough and I think I's find money and instead of waiting for , you know , netflix or whoever to say , yes , let's raise some money on our own Right and hopefully people would either come or it gets made and like a hundred people see it and it still got made and a hundred people love it .

Speaker 3 25:35

That was where I landed , and so the month I was raising is actually significantly less than I wanted to raise . But Kickstarter is all or nothing . So if you don't get all the funding , you get no funding , and it's not about not being ambitious , but you don't want to overshoot and then miss right and then get nothing . I'd rather have $20,000 than have miss right and then get nothing . I'd rather have $20,000 than have you know . Try to raise 40 , but raise 32 and didn't get anything . You know what I'm saying . So that's where the Kickstarter came in and I can elaborate , but I won't keep going .

Speaker 1 26:12

No , no , no . And I think in terms of if just explain a little bit more when you , when you said you're in pre-production , just let the audience know specifically what that means . It's just like identifying the potential guests , etc . And then post-production , because we want the audience to support it and we want to explain to them clearly where you are in the process so they could support it cool , cool , um .

Speaker 3 26:36

So all right , so you have like four stages , essentially actually five stages , of production . Really . You have development , you have pre-production , you have production , post-production and then distribution . Right , we for a long time were in development , where I was researching and stuff like that , and then I started reaching out to people like hey , like you know , there's people who have reached out to try and be in the dark , like our I Love Souls . You know , friends , that party right , we're going to shadow them a bit and like shoot some of that party right . That's obviously something we want to showcase . That's a big part of the inspiration for the doc .

Speaker 3 27:08

So pre-production is where you're kind of you have the funds , at least you know partially right , and so you can start setting up shoots and start shooting and start setting up logistically what you're going to do . Development is where you're really just doing research and kind of like the anthropological part . Production is where you're actually shooting , you're getting the footage , you're doing the shoots , you're on set and then post-production is past , that it's done , now you're editing it and then distribution is obviously where it starts . You're going to festivals or you're going to your network or your Netflixes or wherever it's going to land . My initial plan was to just get it made right and if I could get it into festivals , amazing . But the enthusiasm and the momentum since a week and a half ago has really stunned me . Since a week and a half ago has really stunned me .

Speaker 3 28:04

And I don't say that lightly , right Stunned . So I think there is a better conversation and a bigger conversation about where it's gonna land now , possibly . So maybe it's not just these small festivals anymore , maybe it's like a bigger conversation . But I'm in talks with some people to see what can happen , and I do have a sponsor that came on board who challenged us to raise more money . Then they will kind of like match it or you know , there's going to be two ways , like you're going to . We already actually met one goal to get 50 backers . So they gave us 5,000 and then we'll do another campaign and then we'll get another 5,000 . So that's Bluma Whole Capital . They're an investment company based in Jamaica . You guys might know about them , yeah , with David Mulling , so they're great . So yeah , so that's like you know . I put it out there , at least the Kickstarter part , and people have been coming and circling and asking , which is great , I can't ask for more .

Speaker 2 29:00

Michaela jump in when you have question . What's in the meantime ? No , yeah , ask the question .

Speaker 1 29:03

So that's why I'm in that interview so you said that you are overwhelmed and surprised by the the response , and I want to know why . Because we're in media in different spaces . But the reason why I started Carry On Friends Michaela is doing Style and Vibes and I do Breadfruit Media because we think a fraction of what we represent on our culture is not necessarily out there for us to consume or interact with . So I'm not surprised by this , like I immediately like Mikaela , you see this Right , so that was how I felt

Unexpected Virality of Caribbean Culture

Speaker 1 29:42

. So what was it about the response that surprised you ? I just wanted to know .

Speaker 3 29:48

Sure , I think , what surprised me . I thought people would be excited . So , the same way , like , oh , we talk about this all the time , I talk about it all the time . Every Caribbean person I know , especially who grew up in jamaica or in haiti I know haiti feels similar . I know some of trinidad is like that . I think we all know this about it , um , about the caribbean , and that we love it .

Speaker 3 30:07

But I just , I guess I just didn't expect the such a explosion of interest , so like , so fast . Like I knew people would be interested and I was saying to myself , listen , if I can get to like a thousand views in the first day or so , that's pretty good . You know , like I knew my immediate network would care and the people in New York . But I hit , I think , 20,000 views in like 18 hours . The video is well past almost 60K or 60K at this point , just on Instagram . That's not even including facebook . I know people feel like this about souls and like that part of our culture .

Speaker 3 30:44

I guess I just didn't expect it to be so strong where people were sharing it for me . You know I have a team , a crowdfunding team , that helps me try to get the , the word out there but for the first day and a half , like people just did the work for us almost like it was shared . So if you look at my like my little icon thing , I think it's like a nine hundred and eighty times on that one video , but my film page also has a bunch more and then you know each team member there's got reshared as well . You know what I mean . So it's I mean the video is like baby viral , whatever . Like it's not viral yet I'm not on stage room , right but like it's like baby viral in like the caribbean communities and I was like whoa . I I think there's just a scale of the of the support surprised me not so much that people liked it more .

Speaker 3 31:31

It was like whoa and people were talking as if it was like already made in one coming soon yeah , and I said coming soon , like that's what you say in the kickstarters , but I , I don't know , I I'm just surprised that people latched on to it the way they did . I'm a producer , so I see so many like I don't say mistakes , but things I would change right . I've watched a video a total of maybe four times and that is to edit , right , because I hate watching myself listening to myself . I'm a producer for a reason . I like being behind the camera , um , but I was told by my crowdfunding coach that you , I need to be in front of it and my enthusiasm will radiate . And I think it did . I think so . I think that's part of why people like it . I was also like looking for like comments about , like my appearance . I was like , oh God , what are the people going to say ? But I actually have seen none zero .

Speaker 3 32:23

You look good girl , I mean those are people really focused on the content of the video , which is what I really wanted . Um , I just I think it was a scale of it so fast Like David Mullings , the from , you know , from Blue Mojo Capital . He reached out to me actually and he said that he got it sent to him four times that day , like . So I was like , really . And then I met this girl last week at um . A friend of mine had a birthday dinner . He's in New York from Jamaica and the girl was like , oh , you're the girl from the video , the souls video . I was like what ? Like , yeah , she's from , she lives here now . But like , again , I didn't know it was reaching people , people who had also one said no to being on the team Cause when I was looking for , like crowdfunding team members , two people ended up dropping out or just not ghosting me .

Speaker 3 33:17

And then one of them was like oh , somebody sent it to me on Twitter and then she sent an apology . I've had sponsors who I reached out to try and do a matching campaign or help us reach back out to me after seeing the video , even though they ignored me . That stuff has been like really interesting . I think that that part of it has surprised me , that stuff has been like really interesting .

Speaker 2 33:42

I think that part of it has surprised me . I think what truly happens is people like to see the concept and because it was executed so well in terms of it was like its own mini doc , even though it was an introduction , right , yeah , so I think conceptually we all have a connection to souls and when you describe it versus when you have this tangible asset to explain it and get excited around , it's the first time that people are seeing this type of one focus on . We see cultural content get you know , shared and distributed , but it's won by you to . You know you're Jamaican , you have a connection again , your story radiates in the video and you were able to kind of tie it into like a few minutes , like people can visualize what the entire doc would talk about . And you know all Jamaican people still would love to get excited , would love to make sure several cultures devote yes , and we are very proud to kind of when it's excellent .

Speaker 3 35:04

I always tell people like no , you're not right , I always tell people the two most obnoxious things to be like Jamaican and New Yorker , like a New Yorker Cause it's just , it's a lot . It's very true .

Speaker 1 35:16

Levels .

Speaker 2 35:18

And then only about Brooklyn and Brooklyn specifically , that's that . No , it's so true . And then if you come from Flatbush ? Absolutely no , it's so true .

Speaker 3 35:27

And then you come from flatbush absolutely no , it's so true , I think I guess from so my editor . So I had a few things about the video and I worked with her before . So my editor her name is jenny filipazzo , she's italian , I think she's italian . I worked with her on a docuseries I worked on last year for umfinity about hip house , which is like hip hop and house music . You know , that little period he had in like the early nineties and she was our editor and she's amazing . And I basically said to Jenny , I told her I was trying to do that show was very stressful because of the timeline , was very short , not stressful because of the content , but just like got a short window to make three episodes , right , three weeks essentially .

Speaker 3 36:10

So I knew she could do it , I knew she could do it fast and I was like , listen , jenny , I have no money . I was like it's a three minute video . I said there's no more than three minutes , like anything over three minutes for a Kickstarter is a death knell . You don't want more than three minutes . In fact , if I could get it down to two and a half minutes , that is the key right . The shorter the better . I'm aware of people's short attention spans . I'm convinced I have adhd , so I want it to be short . I sent her all the stuff that you see in the video . For the most part , like all the archival stuff I'd source the interview with assassin um agent sasko and , you know , the elephant man , all the stuff in there I had sourced and like we kind of talked about how I wanted it to kind of look , and that version of the video is , I guess , like the fourth cut it's . You know , the first one was like five minutes and we cut it down to three and you know what I mean . And then I had a couple things . One of the things I noticed that is , um , I hate to hear it is that the audio doesn't match for the part where I'm like a kid because I had shot this way back in February when I first had this idea .

Speaker 3 37:16

My friend shot it for free and it was before I hired my coach , justin who's I have a crowdfunding coach , and so he was like you need like a personal thing , and I was like , oh , but I thought I explained that he's like , no , you need like a personal thing and I was like , oh , but I thought I explained that he's like , no , you need something where you are talking about it in like a different way . And I was like , all right , I can't reshoot it , I have no money for that . So I didn't pay him the first time , so I definitely don't pay the second time . So I was like , okay , I'm going to find childhood pictures and then we'll just put VO .

Speaker 3 37:46

So I was on a show working , so we had like an interview room , cause that's where I do all my interviews for the show . So it was quiet enough , right , it was at the studio in Jersey and I was like , okay , I'm going to go in there and record like 10 seconds of VO . 20 seconds was my absolute max Because remember , I had like a two and a half minute like hard three minute mat . No , my max was three minutes . So I went in there and I was like these pictures , Jenny , have to fit into this like 15 seconds , um . So for me I hear it every time if I listen to it doesn't match , um , but you know people want it in the hear it and two days seem to love it anyway . So it's fine .

Speaker 1 38:26

I can relate to .

Speaker 1 38:28

You know , being an editor , you feel like , yeah , that not quite right , but I think that segment of it connected , because we were all young listening to these music .

Speaker 1 38:39

Like I would tell I mean this is not quite souls , but you know , I would talk to my husband , his sister , so my sister-in-law , her husband , brother-in-law , and we would talk to my husband , his sister , so my sister-in-law , her husband , brother-in-law , and we would talk about how Derek Harriot did sing some songs and I'm like we shouldn't have been singing these songs , you know , but because the parents were singing it and we remember , because the music it's , it's a soundtrack of our lives , right , so you remember where you are at a particular time . Like Barry G was huge for me . So I remember what it was like coming home from school and listening to Barry G . So while you , from an editing perspective , didn't like that , the , the image of the kids or as a child resonates because we are all connecting . Michaela , all of us here started connecting to music when we have no reason for saying I'm your lady , you know , none of those things are .

Speaker 3 39:38

I'm leaving on the next plane out Celine Dion , whatever it was , or If you Place to Leave your Love , all by Paul Simon , which my dad is like one of his favorite songs ever .

Speaker 1 39:46

I'm like listen , my mom would um kill songs by surface and all these people and I was just like . When I listened to them , I was like why them does love all of these hot bricks are they was just it was just like sad , oh my gosh .

Speaker 3 40:04

I love song , they do . Jamaicans are actually pretty sentimental people , I find , when it comes to music . And I read somewhere and I think I said it in the doc about there's no guilty pleasure music and I can't remember where I heard that quote from , I think it was from Diplo , actually in like a Rolling Stone article Cause , again , I've been reading up on a lot of this stuff for many months now , and it's true . Jamaicans months now , um , and it's true . Jamaicans you know the way americans are a little bit sometimes like elitist about music , like oh , this is terrible or like whatever , especially like rock fans are like that . They're very like , you know , this is not good . Um , jamaicans don't really have that gauge . Like , they love a melody , they love big kind of big melodic ballads and um , so I think that really is what it's like their foundation . They love country music , I think because of the storytelling and the outlaw theme , and then they they just love a classic song , like a classic song structure , you know what I mean . Like it's they're not on the side . It's simple , because I think those that out of the music is actually quite complex and the way they redo it in the reggae , which is another huge aspect is really interesting . Um , and one of the things I really don't want to get into in the doc where people are like see , we did this first and like I don't want any of like , who is appropriate like ? It's not about that . That's what I said in the end , because that's genuinely why I

Shared Influences Across Musical Genres

Speaker 3 41:23

want to do this .

Speaker 3 41:23

I think music in general right is so much about just like food , so much about taking things and making something your own with what you have . Like a lot of the South they claim country music , but some of that , some of those themes , are Mexican . Actually , the cowboy hat is Mexican . Um , you know some of the bands , you know the band , just from Africa . Like I'm just saying , everybody takes their own thing and it becomes your own cultural stuff , and so that's what I want to focus on , not about like you're taking this from us and like you know , or from Trinidad , because I think Deo is actually like a Trinidadian song , the original version before Harry Belafonte's version took off .

Speaker 3 42:01

Right , I have a whole grid of this stuff , and that's what I'm saying . It's not about like Trinidad getting upset . It's just like , listen , we of this stuff . Um , and that's what I'm saying . So it's not about , like trinidad getting upset . It's like , listen , we're all connected , all the diaspora , we all made something different . Soca is its own thing and calypso you know what I mean like , but it's all originated in like the same place , at least the foundation , I think , of music it's , and then you do what you can .

Speaker 1 42:25

I think we , you know , and Michaela , we talked about this in collectively and we had a music ethnocologist on the podcast and we talked about getting away from the origin story . And Michaela and I we've been talking about this a lot , particularly with Afrobeats and Dancehall , and those conversations take away from the actual music that we're trying to enjoy , Like , for instance , when Beyonce came out with the whole country music . There was a documentary that talked about the first recording of a banjo or a type of banjo is the slaves in Jamaica and I was so surprised . But Jamaica is not going to claim that they sad them create country music . It was just .

Speaker 1 43:09

You know , it's the history and um , from a creative perspective , that frees me up to not think of , not that I was , but I think it frees you up to think of myself only in boxes of dance or reggae and soca . I can be more than this because there's country and I think that's why we love the music the way we do and Michaela and I we are creative in the way we are because culturally we were never boxed in . So you talk about hip house I grew up in that generation're doing . You know they had the dance crews , so music because that was a love that I have , because after TV sign off you only had the radio . Because I had this variety of music . I was never boxed in to think of things a particular way .

Speaker 1 44:04

Again to Michaela's point we could go into a party and there's a praise and worship segment , there's the soca segment , there's the old like , there's so much because it represents how we think about music and how we communicate , and I think that's where we can free up ourselves creatively . I think make Michaela loves to talk about how we like to box artists in and artists also don't want to . You know , there's a time and place to box people in and there's a time to put your fork down and claim a genre , just because that's how the industry works and I think that trips up our artists in terms of but I like souls and I like gospel and I like don't do that really , you know so no .

Speaker 3 44:51

And that's the thing that souls because souls is not one genre Like I would love to say , it's just R and B , cause we love that . You know that Kelly price , and there's a few songs that we love like rock me tonight . You know we love some of those songs , but that's Freddie Jackson , I think , Um , but you also play like a Mariah Carey song alongside it . You'll also play Celine Dion alongside it . You'll play , you know , Ambrosia , who I posted last night . We don't even do that . It's about the . For us it's all the same kind of ballad structure . So we , you know , we never really got into that and I do find those conversations a little bit reductive . I hear this with like , you know , like Afrobeats is taking over dance hall . It's like or taking , and I'm like well , I'm happy for them . Actually , I think that's great . I think it's time for Africa and you know , Nigeria and South Africa to have their moments .

Speaker 3 45:40

You know a lot of those Afrobeats artists . A lot of their early stuff sounded like dance hall . They were heavily influenced . Whiz kid you can hear it in his early music . Burn a boy you hear it in his early music . It sounds very close to dancehall and I think they found their own . You know the more distinct sound . You know um , eventually . But like I love that . They , you know , took inspiration . And afro beats is amazing .

Speaker 3 46:01

I listen to afro beats probably you know 60 of the week , right , so it's not , it's not a time , a time upset . I don't know why we have to do that . Like for me , when I heard the Chronix and WizKids song , like this is my world in one place , Like I was so happy to hear that I don't see the need to feel like we need to be upset about it . Also , Jamaica's like 3 million people on an island and you're talking about like a whole continent . You know what I'm saying .

Speaker 3 46:29

Like I was like like that's crazy , right , we should all be , I think , a little bit more . This is just my opinion . I'm not advocating for anybody else to feel this way . Just think it's more about using what you have and the influence and what the instruments , just like with food and , you know , turning it into whatever it is that works for you , and some of it can be

Reggae Covers and Cultural Resonance

Speaker 3 46:55

really amazing . I think some of the best reggae songs are covers of a soft rock song or a country song . Like I can't even imagine Missing you by Sanchez not existing . I can't imagine it .

Speaker 1 47:02

I love that song . Or in the eighties , when they were singing , you got a fast car car that was like a whole cover of like yeah , and I love both .

Speaker 3 47:12

I love tracy chapman and I really love those versions of some of those songs , like even like country road , take me home , you know , like that is a great song . Also , bob marley's first records were covers , you know , before he found his song and he was doing more reggae , he was doing like scout music on first . So that's not what this doc is about . So if anybody's looking for like we did this first and like in like a more divisive , that's not gonna happen . It's just not what I want to focus on . It's for me , it's like and I hear haiti listen , I hear I see the comments . I hear you haiti , I hear you trinidad , we know , know , I know they feel this way too . I'm like I just don't have the resources to , to , to go all over the Caribbean to shoot , and but I know they feel , I know a lot of them feel similarly to to me .

Speaker 2 47:58

No , I think Souls is more about the tempo , and so you know the , the , the feeling that you get around the , the rock , even yacht rock .

Speaker 2 48:12

what they call it now pop , ballads , country , r&b , a certain tempo of disco , you know , like all of the the 70s souls , um , movement , like it's really about this tempo and I think , think the genres themselves aren't unique , but the way that it is packaged in Jamaica and in the Caribbean is unique and that's a cultural thing and I think , kind of tying it back to what we were talking about , I think a lot of the , the , the mis-conversations and and um , the opposite ends really comes from equity , heritage and mistreatment of culture , and so neither party is wrong in their sentiment and perception . However , the equity has been lost amongst all of us and I think that we have to do a better connective job of recognizing each other in the history , because we've seen how history gets erased right and so the conversations really get fired and passionate behind the potential erasure of collective history . We've seen it with country music and we've seen it with country music and we've seen it with hip hop music . So those consorted efforts to really say , hey , it's not just this , it is this , and then someone telling you no , it's this . And then we're like but this is all well documented in history , that it's not just this thing . Why are you not including us and you can literally hear the tempos , the this and that and to your point , the entire industry has evolved and the way that we consume music have created you know the evolution of it .

Speaker 2 50:04

But again , I think the conversations really are about us being included in the conversations around equity and inclusion of the historical references , and I think we don't need to fight about it , and I think people fight more in the comment section than they do in person . So I think , like no , no Caribbean person is really asking about whose rice is better than this one on a daily basis . Like nobody , I will eat arroz con doles . I will eat rice and peas . We'll eat the black rice . I'm going to want that jalapeño rice too , but on the internet it narrows . It can't be like that on the internet . It's just the internet . So I think we all in a party we hear Afro beats .

Speaker 3 50:50

We hear souls .

Speaker 2 50:51

We hear danza , we hear R&B , we can even do a little of the new hip hop stuff , and that is what we I think most people really in the entire Black diaspora really want to experience .

Speaker 3 51:05

By the way , I wish more parties played souls here . I do . That's not like in the . I think in flatbush it happens , but if I go to like certain parts that's not happening and I miss it . I miss it a lot .

Speaker 3 51:18

I actually have to say I have tried to create on my phone every night the same kind of playlist or same kind of stuff like that for Spotify that , like um , fame FM used to do at night , I don't know . Please add tags . Okay , I will , I will , I will share . There's actually a few of them . If you just type in souls mix , a few people have done them already and they're actually really really good . There's like songs , like 80 songs , and they're really good .

Speaker 3 51:47

So one of the tiers of the rewards for Kickstarter . At the $50 tier you get a playlist curated by me with , like , I would say , maybe like 40 or maybe not as many as that , but reggae covers of different genres . And then at the $100 mark , there is a Souls mixtape curated just for the campaign by DJ Dangles from Federation Song , and it's all the classics . He left out a few because there's some songs I want to tackle . I mean , come on , you can't have everything , yeah , in the doc itself and even some things I try not to talk about too much . I've talked a little bit about some of those things here , but I try not to talk about them too much because I want to make sure in the dark it feels fresh and not like oh , I heard her say all of this before in her social media .

Speaker 2 52:34

No , there is so much we did not even cover , yeah , but even like the Marty Robbins thing .

Speaker 3 52:39

I actually don't post that just because it's a thing I really want to explore a little bit deeper , because I see the connections being really so strong .

Speaker 2 52:47

Okay , so what we need to do is make sure that , before and after your search Marty Robbins before , like the search relevancy of Marty Robbins before and after the doc get released , because that is going to be the indicator .

Speaker 3 53:02

Yeah , that's a good idea . My hope is that in some ways labels are more friendly to docs like this . You don't have to give us the whole song to use , but I think it actually drums up interest more for those artists . I think nostalgia is a really powerful thing , I think especially with millennials and Gen X , and I have a theory about this . I think it's because there's now the internet , right , but we grew up in some ways before the internet became the way of the world . So people , these kids won't forget like what they liked . There's like a record there of their Instagram or whatever , but , like we remember a time when we couldn't , you know , I couldn't even Shazam . Like to your point about knowing Air supply , the artist's name , like I didn't know who they were . When I was seven I didn't know the name of the band . We didn't have shazam , right . I discovered that they were air supply later , right ? Um ?

Speaker 2 53:56

so I think that the nostalgia for gen x and then like milenius is really strong because we like we yearn for jay-z from an exploration perspective , because if you think about like shows , like stranger things , yeah , tap into that 80s era of nostalgia like uh , what's her name ? Something bush kate bush yeah like her inclusion , her music being included in in stranger things , yes , really amplified people discovering her and her music and her catalog and .

Speaker 3 54:27

Fleetwood Mac . Yes , yeah , I think I think it's they rediscover , I think they discover , but for us it's like pure nostalgia .

Speaker 2 54:34

Yes , yes , so for for for corporations it it equals more money , so that's why they should include it completely so .

Speaker 1 54:43

Um , we can't do this labrishing thing forever , but we just want to . Mikaela is laughing because we love music Like I want to give you my I call it my genre bending playlist , because the mix up what is in this playlist on my phone does not make sense to anybody else out here . There's no reason why Gregory Abbott and Richard Mark should be on the same playlist , but it worked for me and Jamaica . Excited about you know what creators like you are doing to present stories that mean so much to us being told in a way that just resonates . You know , because it's not gonna just resonate with me , because when dance I keep out the street .

Speaker 1 55:42

I'm not for them ears alone . I hear it , all of us are hearing it , and that's that's what radio did for us growing up . We all heard it . We all interacted with a different way . I remember when I was in grade three or grade four there was no reason why I'm singing Karen's white . I'm your super woman . There's no , there's no reason . But every Jamaican kid knows that song , right ? Every Jamaican child knows that song . So that's the power of music and that's the power of telling or interaction with music , even if it originates somewhere else . You know the way that a culture interacts with it creates a whole new story and experience , so I'm super excited about it . Mikaela and I will drop the links to the crowdfund . When does it end ?

Speaker 3 56:32

It ends on September 19th . We are about 55% funded right now . I'm just looking right now , so that's great , which is unusual .

Indie Film Crowdfunding Strategies

Speaker 3 56:46

Crowdfunding campaigns for indie films . Our coach like I said , I have a coach , justin , that I'm working with who's done this a million times , so he's been really helpful . But I put my own . You know , I have my own ideas and spins on things . Like Mondays we do Celine Me Monday right on our social media , right , so it's all Celine all day , right On a Tuesday we're doing like trivia , like reggae trivia , to see who knows which is a cover , and stuff like that . And then the rest of the week is just fun stuff . Like we do a Souls pick every day . People are welcome to give suggestions . We've taken many September 19th , but feel free to , you know , share it like it . We have some new rewards coming up this week , I think .

Speaker 2 57:33

Yeah , that's exciting .

Speaker 1 57:34

Yes , and I'm right , I got to do my donation today , so on that note , jess , you know this is not the last of us , but you know again , congrats on the project and we're super excited for you and , of course , of course , and as I love to say at the end of every episode , walk . Good . Well , michaela , what you love say it's been so long .

Speaker 2 58:00

No , but make sure you guys go out and click the link . Uh , support roots , support roots . Rock , reggae and souls documentary . Um , emphasize this .

Speaker 3 58:11

Yes .

Speaker 2 58:12

Yes , um , and share with all your friend them , please , and thanks , cause we need support . Thank you so much , jess . We appreciate being on the on the show so anytime this was fun it was .

Speaker 3 58:28

You got to do it again yeah , I mean listen , let me know I'm always around all right , all right .