The Style & Vibes Podcast
The Style & Vibes Podcast
Roots, Rock, Reggae,Souls: Jessica Shaw Talks New Music Documentary in the Works
Ever wondered how Jamaica's eclectic musical tastes? TV/Film producer Jessica Shaw, explores this in her music documentary in the works, Roots, Rock, Reggae, Souls. A filmmaker with deep Jamaican roots, Jessica shares her fascinating journey growing up in Kingston and how it inspired this latest project. Souls as it is know cultural tapestry of Jamaican music, is an eclectic sub genre of pop ballads, country, r&b, and more, driven by the influential role of Jamaican radio and how it has uniquely embraced and even influenced international artists.
We'll explore how traditional Sunday radio programming in Jamaica, transitioning from gospel to R&B and country, has shaped a diverse musical appreciation among Jamaicans. Hear nostalgic memories of artist like Patsy Cline and Marty Robbins and soulful tracks like Michael Bolton's "Soul Provider" and Celine Dion's "I'm Alive" that have become dancehall favorites. We also celebrate music's global nature, highlighting the interconnectedness of genres and the importance of recognizing the shared history within the Black diaspora.
Get an insider’s look at the crowdfunding journey for Jessica’s "Roots Rock Reggae & Souls " documentary, from setting realistic Kickstarter goals to the creative challenges of editing. With the project's momentum, there's potential for broader festival reach and distribution channels. The documentary's goal is to share the exploration of music's power to connect us all, enriched with insights about the cultural nuance and heritage that shape our favorite tunes.
Support Roots, Rock, Reggae, Souls Crowdfunding
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Produced by Breadfruit Media
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 Mikayla said, beer tings. So welcome my co-host, mikayla. My dupes. What is going on A long time still in O'Kerry?
Speaker 2:We live on Wichita Beach still, as you say.
Speaker 1: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:I'm great. Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited. I love the name too Realism, rhythm.
Speaker 1: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: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 I 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 lot of 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:Well, two things dear to her 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.
Speaker 2:Swools, swools, swools.
Speaker 1: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 show back 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 okay.
Speaker 3: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 and every night would listen to fame fm. Every night I didn't have tv in my room. So every night, even though 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 soul and I sold on the r? B because it can range from country to pop to pop, ballads to soft. 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 souls, right? We know certain artists are probably not souls. We're not playing them at the dance, right? And so I've always loved this part of Jamaican culture in general.
Speaker 3: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 bujo, even though I love bujo dearly, you know, but you're not playing that kind of more.
Speaker 3:You know, even though bujo 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. 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 was like what? This is our song. I was so hurt internally. And then last year my dad got an award for um his service to jamaica, you know on the heroes day. So he got one of the awards for um his service as an air traffic controller.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3: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 beat them juice and sing out to Celine and Michael Bolt and 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, paris situation.
Speaker 3: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 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 but to go to a place and you only hear soft rock and Michael Bolton and 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 why don't I just do it like you make television, you know? So that's really where it came from.
Speaker 2: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, 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.
Speaker 2: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. So the one with Biggie talking about how he went back to Jamaica and his mom really talking about how her favorite artist, um, and then even in a past um podcast episode with miss pat, she talked about um selling r&b records on the road through her record label uh, a record store at the time, so they weren't even the label. So it 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 look of presentable box, has that transitioned to the next generation? I don't know. So that's why I'm asking.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3: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 or Keisha Cole right, that's why it's that song love has been like all over. I feel like in some ways we're the aunties now and so 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 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.
Speaker 1: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 will cover this, but you know, I'm I'm in the gen x generation, 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. After that they get 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 dacres I loved donovan dacres right, um.
Speaker 1: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, 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:because I don't live there um full time anymore. I don't know if they listen to it the way we experienced it, 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.
Speaker 3: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. 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.
Speaker 3: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 Klein and your Skeeter Davis. Afternoon you might get into a little older, softer disco, right, you might play some, you know, ABBA, right, or something like that. And then in the evening time, you know 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:I love this idea of what radio has done for us musically, um, in how we relate to souls and um our love for souls. So, all right, we, we know souls is a miscellaneous category for anything that feels very r&b, soft rock, um, you know, soft pop, if you want to say, um, 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.
Speaker 1: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 swills 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 gonna play in the dance? In your opinion, michaela and jess? What's the number one soul song you think they're going to play 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:So my instinct, like once he said it, my instinct was Michael Bolton's Soul Provider. That's like the song.
Speaker 2:And then they rinse it with the Remy and Virgo on cover.
Speaker 3: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: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:Interesting. The song that comes to my mind is Guilty, with Barbara Streisand and Barry Ginn. Then we got nothing to be guilty.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, we love that song we really do love that song, we really do love that song it's true, we also love. This is one, celine um, I'm alive.
Speaker 3:Let's anything, 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: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.
Speaker 2:I forget the name of it.
Speaker 3:It's like mama, you gave me wings to fly.
Speaker 1:I know that song.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, I don't know where it came from, I don't know Jamaicans, like the taste really fascinates me, like what they gravitate towards and what they kind of reject 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.
Speaker 1: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? Like 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. 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: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 time 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 what air supply man? You know what? Them tune, yeah, and them play the tune. Oh yeah, me know that song.
Speaker 2:But true, my mother was a rebel, so I be a reggae, she play, I be 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 buy 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, to the souls. 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:And it's one that I think we should preserve, because it's so good.
Speaker 3:I agree. The funny thing is, when I started working on this, I'm going to 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 for 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, and you know they've parodied him in movies about how his music sucks and I'm just like what?
Speaker 3:This is amazing, like how dare you come for Michael Bolton and Kenny G and these people 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 or not, in Florida, like deep, you know, deep South Tennessee and South Carolina, people don't know Marty Robbins. And Marty Robbins is a really old artist. That makes sense. But I listened to him a lot in Jamaica actually growing up, like the El Paso song is huge In the dark. I'm gonna draw lot of parallels and I have a whole graphics thing in mind.
Speaker 3: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. 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.
Speaker 3: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. They love those themes and you even hear it in 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 I would surprise me.
Speaker 1: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 you know, of course we know, kenny. Rogers the gambler. Oh my God.
Speaker 1: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, and everyone loved, and at 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: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 like it's like, it's like a trailer. I'm like not quite. You know, we have a lot to film. There's a lot of people I'm trying to get to be in.
Speaker 3:The doc saline is obviously my mount everest of of interviews that I'd like to have. I have people already on board and so 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. But the crowdfunding is really for production, right.
Speaker 3:If you work in TV and film space, 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 the other day 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 but there's certain times when they're green lighting certain things right.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3:I just didn't want to be waiting and waiting. 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'm work, but just not nearly as much as I normally work.
Speaker 3: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: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:No, no, no, and I think in terms of just explain a little bit more. 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: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 gonna shadow them a bit bit and 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. So pre-production is where you're kind of you have the funds, at least partially right, and so you can start setting up shoots and start shooting and start setting up logistically what you're going to do.
Speaker 3: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 you know, your network or your Netflix's or wherever it's gonna land. Um, 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 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.
Speaker 3:But I'm in talks with some people to see what can happen and I do have a sponsor that came on board who get, who challenged us to raise more money. Um, then they will kind of like match it or you know, there's going to be two ways. Like they're gonna. We already actually met one goal to get 50 backers, so they gave us 5 000 and then, um, 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. Micha, great, I can't ask for more.
Speaker 1:Michaela, jump in when you have a question, but in the meantime, no, yeah, ask the question.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm in that interview.
Speaker 1: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 Mikaela 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. I immediately like Mikaela. You see this Right, so that was how I felt. So what was it about the response that surprised you? I just wanted to know.
Speaker 3: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: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 media 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. I guess I just didn't expect it to be so strong where people were sharing it for me.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3:So if you look at my like my little icon thing, I think it's like a 980 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 Shaderoo, right but like it's like mean the video is like baby viral whatever, like it's not viral yet I'm not on shade 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, 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 oh, that's what you say in the kickstarters, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: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 people gonna say?
Speaker 3:but I actually have seen none, zero 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 a 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. So when I was looking for, like crowdfunding team members, two people- ended up dropping out or just not ghosting me.
Speaker 3: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. So that stuff has been like really interesting. I think that that part of it has surprised me.
Speaker 2:That stuff has been like really interesting. 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 one by you to. You know you're Jamaican, you have a connection again, your, 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. I would love to make sure several cultures devote yes, and we are very proud to kind of when it's excellent.
Speaker 3:I always tell people like no, you're not wrong, I always tell people the two most obnoxious things to be like Jamaican and New Yorker. Like a New Yorker, because it's just, it's a lot, it's very true levels yeah and then only by Brooklyn, yeah and Brooklyn specifically, that's that no, it's so true.
Speaker 3:And then, if you come from flatbush, absolutely no, it's so true I think I guess from. So my editor said 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. So I knew she could do it. I knew she could do it fast and I was like listen, jenny, I have no money. So I was like it's a three minute video, so there's no more than three minutes, like anything over three minutes for our 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.
Speaker 3: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, because I had shot this way back in february when I first had this idea, my friend shot it for free and it's before I hired my coach, justin who's I have a crowdfunding coach, um, 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 something where you are talking about it in like a different way, and 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 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: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. So for me I hear it every time If I listen to it I'm like it doesn't match. But you know, people want it in the hearers and two days seem to love it anyway. So it's fine.
Speaker 1:I can relate to, to. 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, 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 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 Raleigh copied me. When we have no reason to sing, I'm your lady. You know. None of those things are.
Speaker 3:I'm leaving on the next plane out Celine Dion, whatever it was, or, if you taste to leave your level, by Paul Simon, which my dad is like one of his favorite songs ever.
Speaker 1: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 just love all of these heartbreak songs?
Speaker 2:they was just it was just like sad, oh my gosh I love song they do.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3:Because, again, I've been reading up on a lot of this stuff for many months now 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. I just say 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 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 want to do this.
Speaker 3: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 band, you know the band just from africa. Like I'm just saying, everybody takes their own thing and it becomes their 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 if I'm trinidad, because, um, I think dale is actually like a trinidadian song, the original version before harry belafonte's version took off, right, I have a whole grid of this stuff, um, and that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:And so it's not about like trinidad getting upset. It's just like listen, we're all connected, all the diaspora, we all made something different. Soca, it's 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 I think we, you know, and michela, we talked about this collectively and we had a music ethnocologist on the podcast and we talked about getting away from the origin story.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:Like, for instance, there was a when, 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 in is the slaves in Jamaica and I was so surprised and but Jamaica is not going gonna claim sad them create country music. It was just, 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 where we were like dancing hip hop and yes, yes, like now that you're doing you know they had the dance crews.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, like now that you'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. Um, as 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.
Speaker 1:I think make Michaela loves to talk about how we like to box artists in and artists don't 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, I like don't do that really, you know so no and that's the thing, the souls, because souls is not one genre like I would love to say, it's just r&b, because we love that.
Speaker 3: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 Ambrosia, who I posted last night. We don't even do that. For us it's all the same kind of ballad structure, so we never really got into that, and I do find those conversations a little bit reductive. I hear this with Afro beats is taking over dance and all that, and I'm 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, you know a lot of those Afrobeats artists.
Speaker 3:Lots of their early stuff sounded like dance hall. They were heavily influenced. Wizkid, 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 afrobeats is amazing.
Speaker 3:I listen to afrobeats probably, you know, 60 of the week, right, so it's not, it's not a time upset. I don't. I don't know why we have to do that. Like for me, when I heard the chronics and whiz kids sound 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 that. Also, jamaica's like three million people on an island and you're talking, talking about a whole continent. You know what I'm saying. Like I was like, like that's crazy, right, we should all be, I think.
Speaker 3:So Jamaica's like 3 million people on an island and you're talking about like a whole continent. You know what I'm saying. 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. I think it's more about using what you have and the influence and what instruments just like with food and you know know turning it into whatever it is that works for you, and some of it can be 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:I love that song. Or in the 80s, when they were singing, you got a fast car. That was like a whole cover of trade, like yeah, and I love both.
Speaker 3: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 at first, so that's not what this doc is about.
Speaker 3:So if anybody's looking for like we did this first and like in like a more device, 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, I know they feel this way too. I'm like I just don't have the resources to go all over the Caribbean to shoot. But I know a lot of them feel similarly to me.
Speaker 2:No, I think Souls is more about the tempo, and so you know the feeling that you get around the rock, even yacht, yacht, rock.
Speaker 2: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 the, the genres themselves aren't unique, but the way that it is packaged yes, in jamaica and in the caribbean is unique and that's a cultural thing, and I think that's no, it is kind of tying, tying it back to to to what we were talking about. I think a lot of the, the, the miss 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. I think that we have to do a better connective job of recognizing each other and the history, cause we've seen how history gets erased, right, yeah, 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 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: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, I will eat arroz con dules. I will eat rice and peas. We'll eat the black rice. I'm going to want that jalapeño rice too. I like all of that, but on the internet it narrows it can be like that on the internet, it's just the internet.
Speaker 2:So I think we all in a party we hear Afro beats, we hear souls. We hear danza, we hear R&B. We can't 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:By the way, I wish more parties played souls here. I do. That's not like in the. I think it's that bullshit happens, but if I go to like certain parts that's not happening and I miss it. I miss it a lot.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3:There's like 80 songs and they're really good, 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 like even some things I try not to talk about too. 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 and you know before in her social media.
Speaker 2:There is so much we did not even cover, yeah, but like, even like the Marty Robbins thing. I actually don't post that just because I it's a lot, it's a thing, I because I see the connections being really so strong, 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: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 just you know, I think it actually drums up interest more for those artists. I think people 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. It's 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?
Speaker 2:um, so I think that did nostalgia for gen x and then, like milan is was really strong because we like we, we are even 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:Fleetwood Mac. Yes, yeah, I think they rediscovered, I think they discover, but for us it's like pure nostalgia.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so for corporations it equals more money, so that's why they should include it.
Speaker 1:Completely. So we can't do this labrishing thing forever, but we just want to. Mika 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 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 that street I'm not for them ears alone. I hear it.
Speaker 1: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 right. I'm your superwoman. There's no, there's no, there's no reason. But every Jamaican kid knows that song right. 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, michaela, and I will drop the links to the crowdfund. When does it end?
Speaker 3: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 crowdfunding campaigns for indie films. Our coach I have, 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 of like reggae trivia to see who knows which is a cover, and stuff like that, um. And then the rest of the week is just fun stuff. Like we do a um, 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. Um. We have some new rewards coming up this week, I think, yeah that's exciting.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm right, I gotta do my donation today.
Speaker 1:So on that note, um, jess, you know this is not the last of us, but you know again, congrats on the project and um, we're super excited for you and of course, of course, and as I love to say at the end of every episode what good. Well, michaela, what you love say it's been so long.
Speaker 2:No, but make sure you guys go out and click the link. Uh, support roots, rock, reggae and schools. Click the link. Support Roots, rock, reggae and Schools documentary. I've emphasized the schools you know, and share with all your friends, please and thanks, because we need support. Thank you so much, jess. We appreciate you being on the show.
Speaker 3:Anytime.
Speaker 2:This was fun.
Speaker 1:It was we got to do it again yeah, I mean listen.
Speaker 3:Let me know, I'm always around all right, all right.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to the latest episode of the style and vibes podcast. If you like what you hear and I know, you do share it with your friends and family. If you want more, make sure you visit stylingvibescom and follow us on our social channels, twitter and instagram. At styling vibes. Until next time, leah tummy peeps.
