 And welcome to another episode of Creative Excellence. I am your host, Irina Lee, and we are coming to you from the studios of the Government Information Service. On this show, we'll discuss the artist's landscape in St. Lucia. We'll discuss the work, the balance, and the aspirations. My guest today, he really needs no introduction. He is a producer, a singer, songwriter, a father. I would like to welcome to Creative Excellence, Mr. Shane Ross. Hi, Shane. How are you doing? I'm good, Davina. Thank you very much for having me. It's indeed a pleasure. I mean, I really appreciate you having me. Okay. The first question I'm going to ask you is a question I ask everybody who comes on this show. It is, what do you call yourself? Like in the intro, I said you're a father. You're a singer-songwriter. I forgot to mention that you also read your personality. What do you call yourself when somebody says, Shane, what are you? I am purposefully curious. I think that would encompass what I consider myself to be, because I'm always driven towards endeavors that are challenging, endeavors that have some sort of expression towards them. So, I mean, I've done, like you mentioned, they're singing, the songwriting, producing music, radio, television as well. And even a little bit of acting here or there again. But for me, it's always about something that just allows you to just free up, if you will, just on a level. It's difficult. I'm always curious and I'm always seeking to find purpose in expression. So, what is it? Purposefully curious? Purposefully curious? I don't know. I'm a creator. I'm a curious creator. I like that one. I'm a curious creator. Now, you didn't start off as Shane Ross, the R&B crew member that we all know. What was your journey to get there? Because I know the story. Can you tell us what is the story? How did you start in the entertainment, I should say? What was your thing? Well, my very first foray into music, in terms of in a public sphere, was at the Monaco Combined School. I did a Calypso. That was a long time ago. I wrote and performed the Calypso at the first and incidentally the only Calypso competition ever at that school. There were three competitors and I tied for second place. Calypso was my first foray. I always remember writing songs, growing up just making up songs, banging on the old milk tins and stuff like that. I used to do a lot of that. I always used to come up with little catchy little things, sometimes make up songs from existing dance hall and stuff like that. But my first foray into the public sphere as a performer was at that primary school in that Calypso competition. I was the only one who wrote his own song and stuff like that. I always tell myself, listen, if I wrote my own song and the other two had the songs professionally written for them, not just who wrote it, but somebody who had actually penned songs for money, who did that essentially professionally. And I was like, hey, I was able to tie for second place. But I don't tell myself beyond that they were more than three. But for me, that was my first jump into it. And I think from there, it's just like this. But didn't you do like, wouldn't you like rapping before you were singing? No, that was in primary school. Oh, that was in primary school? Yes. So that was after? Yes, okay. Then from there, like what I found myself doing, I mean, I'd always had a love for music and creating songs and stuff like that. And then there was the Guinness Freestyle competition. Oh, okay. And that one was the one that put butterflies in my stomach. I remember this feeling of extreme nervousness where it's almost like this fear of the stage and fear of like, you know. And that's something, looking back, it's something I think I always got like a bit of a high off of it as a young person. I'm still relatively young. Okay. But like, you know, it's just this thing that you feel like you have to overcome and you have to break through. So inevitably, I would always find myself in positions where, you know, like I either have to go perform somewhere or go do something that, you know, it's like, oh, you're going to do that? You're in front of a camera, in front of people, and people are telling me, like, how do you do that? I'm like, well, I really don't know. It's just something I have to overcome. And as I've gotten older, though, like, I've noticed that it's like, for example, I would come from work sometimes and there would be a karaoke, and I could be fighting myself, don't sing, don't sing, don't sing. But I would still every now and again just jump up on the mic. But to answer your question, how did I get to that whole crooner thing? From that Guinness freestyle competition, I was, I think I was a finalist, a national finalist. And from there, Christopher Hunt, I can't remember how, when I was at the competition itself, but he approached me shortly after. And he's like, yo, you have, you know, you can rap and stuff like that. And it's like, I'd like to work with you. And he introduced me to LIBO. And from there, like, you know, we started working on Naked, which was the Naked one. Yes. And I remember Naked started off as a song that, it was just a rap song straight through with just a little R&B chorus. So then, um, when they, they first heard this one, they're like, yeah, the rapping is nice, you know, but as if we want more of the R&B in there. Right. Okay, more R&B. I'm like, so, but it's the whole chorus is an R&B. So what you talking about, like, you know what? Give us a verse. I'm like, okay, I will do one R&B verse. So then after we did the one R&B verse and two rap verses, they're like, hmm. Not the R&B verse. Not the R&B verse. So I'm like, but if we do that, then it's not going to be a radio song anymore. It's going to be too long. Nobody's going to, and they're like, well, how about we just drop one of the rap verses? Right. I'm like, so that means I have two R&B, two R&B verses and just one rap verse. I'm like, but I'm not the singer. I'm a rapper. And they're like, no, but it's, it's, you can keep your one verse. I'm like, how generous. Yeah. And then I was like, you know what? Why not? But then let's just go with it. And when that song, everyone that song first played, the date played on the radio. I wasn't even aware of it was really going on, but my phone was just going crazy. Like Iwa was calling me a bunch of other radio stations were calling like, who's this? Yeah, everything just like. Okay. Now you mentioned Christopher and you mentioned Libo. The first time I knew anything about you was through Tempest. Tempest was a production that was put on by Chris and Libo that really brought together, I mean, a lot of talent in St. Lucia that I had never heard before. We had level four yourself. I mean, Lisa Weeks. There was like a bunch of people and it felt like this certain renaissance in music. What was like that for you being part of Tempest? That was just like a very, that was like an amazing time in St. Lucia for music. Absolutely was. Let me tell you the excitement that, and man, this was I was still riding higher from the wave of naked. So it was like in a lot of people were like, yo, we're coming to see who sings that song, you know, that particular song. And I mean, that's not taking away anything from any of the other performers at Tempest. But I remember like when we, because we were racing at Gate, I think it was. And when we were there, like, you know, Libo. Libo has long been known as in terms of quality and just production. Like Libo was, Libo was it. I mean, you work with Libo and you know for a fact that you work with the best. You know, I mean, and most of the productions came from Libo. So you have an idea as to the quality of music that was there. And Libo was somebody, I mean, Libo has probably, if you get the whole of his catalogue and probably... Archives. Yeah. Archives of music. A lot of stuff probably you've never heard or probably unreleased or what have you. But the quality of music was, it was good. And not just it being good, but we knew. It was great. It was. Yeah. We also knew that none of us were trying to do what was normal in society at the time. Because the music cuts you up. At the time, for say, Lucian music, Rikiti was actually very writing high. Like 2005, 2006 high. That was Rikiti's time. Yeah. We were always known as having Calypso and Soka. And Soka, yeah. So we didn't expect to, I didn't expect to hear Reggae, Dan Sol, R&B coming out of San Ushua and of such a high standard. Yeah. I mean, in terms of the Reggae and the Dan Sol, they had, there's always been Reggae and Dan Sol, but not to the extent of Soka and Calypso. But with that, it's like, it just showed that there are a lot of people who had a palette for something that was other than Soka. And like when you hear about the San Lucian performance at the time, nobody was thinking, well, boy, there are people who do R&B, especially like outside of stuff like hotels and cover bands. So getting that, you'd be like, yo, this is actually interesting that this might be something for me. So just the cross section of artists and everybody was young and excited and everybody was like, yo, this is my chance. This is my big break. And the way Christopher was selling it to us was just like, yo, you guys, we're going to get this on television and this and that and whatever. And like, you know, like this was like, yeah, okay, that's my shot. The artists wanted to be part of it. Yeah. And I think American Idol was already around at that time. You know, I'm not sure, but in 2006. So it's like, it's like, you know, you, excuse me, you, they did the whole. And tempo had just come about. Tempo was. Um, um, because it was like the Caribbean version of MTV. So tempo had just come out. So I think a lot of it was like, okay, these artists, everybody was thinking, oh, we can get on. We can get, yeah. On tempo. Yes. I was just around that time. But not around that time. I'm not around that time. It was around that time. Yes. But like, but you had like, all of these, it was just like this, this perfect time, this, you know, like you mentioned, it was a sort of Renaissance period for, for the arts and music. Rather for, for music, I should say, not the arts, but music. For music. For music. Music for sure. And so like I said, that was the first time I saw you. And I remember thinking at that time, my sister and I and my friend, Charlene, we had a TV show. And we went into our second season. Access Caribbean. Access Caribbean. We went into our second season of that TV show. And when I took you, I'm like, no, this has to be our intro song. So I think, I don't like, either like interviewed this guy because she was working at She magazine and and please ask him, can we use your song? Can we please use your song as our intro? And you said, yes. And we did this, we did the intro. And according to you, it looked like a music video. So you were like, do you want to do a music video for, for take you home? And I was like, well, okay. Yeah. And we're going to look at, we're going to see Take You Home in a bit. But I just have to let people know we had the first view of Jade Mountain. Before Jade Mountain, we had an opportunity to film at Jade Mountain in Souffre. And so guys, right now, here is Take You Home by Shane Ross. And we will come back to discuss it after we view. The way you look into my eyes doing them crafty things. The way your hips are moving. Girl, I can't explain. I'm feeling you the way you look the same. I don't know if I'm dreaming. Not sure if I'm away from sleeping. This is more than a wish that I was your man. The way you do them things you do. You just don't understand mesmerizing. And you drive me wild. You've got my pressure rising every time I see you smile. Help myself. You make me want to show you things. Yeah, I got my Tim's laced up and I'm smelling real nice. No one to show me been feeling up on me all night. She winding up on me. Don't know what she started. So I'm thinking that I'm going to take her to my apartment. So she could get to know me real well. I believe in the morning with the story to tell. About a foot massager and itty-bitty back rub. Get rid of it. I want to see you in just the clothes you was born with. In other words, show that you're so cute. That I want to see you wearing just your birthday suit. Okay, so that was take you home. That was like my first professional music video. And so what was that experience like for you? First off, let me just backtrack. Just live in terms of when you approached me for the theme song for Access. I remember one thing. You guys offered to pay me. I remember that. And I was like, but why should I pay you for something where it's getting me exposure? Because the thought process I was like, yo, if this is, and I saw how the show was being promoted on DBS at the time. I can't remember a choice. One of them. It was on the TV. After news. It was on, the ad for the show was on pretty much every day after news. And I was like, yo, this, that means that this song will be playing every day after news. Right. And that means that people will hear the song. And I think it's a great song. And then everything just snowballed from there. And of course, when, when, when yourself and Esther approached me, I mean the energy that you guys had, like to me, it was just, how do I put it? Like it just felt like everything was just coming together at the time. It's just like, you know, it's probably like the height of the Renaissance, I would say. Because this, this, this was another medium in terms of film and stuff like that. So, I mean, just, it was a perfect, perfect time. Let's just put it that way. Perfect time, perfect everything at the time. I like that. Out of, I will not say out of Tempest, but after Tempest and that high of all these artists, I, after doing the music video, we were introduced to your, I would like to say your extended musical family, which was Sherwin Bryce, who was the producer, Cherry L. Nelson-Serrier. K.O. was part of that. K.O. was part of that. There was Ken Hardy. There was Keen Kotomeka. A lot of people, just the extended family and that also felt like, okay, there's something really big happening in music at the time. So tell me, like, do you think it's important as a musician that you find your, I always ask people, is your tribe, your like-minded people that push you? Absolutely, absolutely. That in itself is the most important part of it. I mean, I'm reminded of this statement that day, no man is an island. And in creative endeavors, as much as you might believe that you can do pretty much everything, you're talented enough to do everything yourself, you cannot because even if you have the technical capabilities, there's always that part of it where after all, you lose your objectivity. And in any creative endeavor, when you lose your objectivity, you begin to take away from that technical skill that you have. So you have to have your tribe, and you have to have people that you are willing to accept their criticism, accept their judgments, accept their comments, and take it to heart because on your own, even if you might just think that you have enough talent or you have enough technical capability, no human being has the objectivity to be able to look at their work and say, listen, I think that this person's work is better than mine. You always, you always have to, you have to have your tribe, and that's a perfect word for a tribe because it's like your extended family, that's your friends, that's your confidence, that you fight with, that's your tribe. We understand you day-to-day, and that's the same lines as you. Absolutely. But also like in the intro, I said, do that you're also a producer. Yeah. What is your process like for producing, not just a songwriting, what was that process like? For me, it's a process that's longer than most I would say because of what I just mentioned. A lot of, for a long time I was trying to do, or trying to develop the technical proficiency to be able to do everything within a studio. And technically, I can do pretty much everything from composing the melody, playing the guitar, adding the samples, mixing down to mastering. I have the technical capabilities to do all of that. But they're not having the tribe with something that kind of, I wouldn't say held me back, I wouldn't say not having the tribe, but having people that you could lean on in terms of just releasing a project and say, listen, this is my part, you just take it that's your part. For a long time I had to add difficulty in letting projects go. I still have difficulty in letting projects go. Yeah, we know that. I still have that difficulty. But my process is longer than most. And for me, I have a lot of, a few confidence that I would have heard pretty much everything that I've worked on. And there's a lot, a lot of back and forth. Like there's a lot of, what do you think of this now? Okay, that now. And just to try to get that objective view. Yeah, so also, as a producer, then how do you work with other producers? Because you work with Shulwin, you've worked with Lebo, these guys, they have their ideas. How does it work with somebody else who is a producer? Do you just give them the beats or do you come in and see? A lot of the times, the way that it has worked for me is I viewed producers as somewhat like a translator. Okay. And throughout my career, I could say that I've had a lot of different translators. I'm Johan, it's been one of them. Shulwin, as you mentioned, Lebo. It's just, I know there's something that I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. And so you entrust these people with the... You say, I want it to sound like this, you know? And they can technically put it down. Absolutely. For a long time, I mean, I doubled, I noodle with the guitar a little bit. So I was able to translate, let's say, the chords or the general progression. But from there, I just used to just clean on them to take it from there. So I have a question to ask you. Do you think some artists, I'm not saying you, some artists from almost like this kind of perfectionism complex? I don't think it's a complex, but like this perfectionism complex, does it have to be absolutely what they consider perfect? I think the great ones do. Okay. The great ones do. Being an artist means that you're tortured if you don't do what you do. And, for example, I could think of people like Miles Davis, right, where there's always I can do better, or I can do more, I can do different, I can do... The problem with perfectionism, though, is that, number one, it can never be a thing. No matter what you do, you will never get something that's perfect, especially where your art is concerned. And two, the greatest artworks, if the artists have to evaluate them, they'll say it's unfinished, right? And when you consider that about art, at some point you have to learn to let it go. You notice I'm kind of tensing up. I can see your hands like this, but I totally do understand. I understand. But then how do we excel without over-picking? How do you excel without going back and scratching it up again and saying, I can do this better and redoing it? How do we manage that? How do we balance that? Excelling, making sure it is where it needs to be, but not over-picking. I don't think it's necessarily a balance that you strike. I think what it is is that, if you think of the volume of work of any artist, what you see is just a tip of the iceberg, what you actually get, what's actually released. Most times it's just the tip of the iceberg, unless they have a lot of commercial backing behind them. For example, the whole A&R team to say, you're going to do this song, that song, this song, whatever. We're in the age where so many people wear so many different hats, that, again, what you hear, the work that comes out is probably just a minute volume as to what they actually have in the bag. I mean, if you speak to any producer, they'll tell you that their demo project folder is probably the biggest folder on their computer, because we have a lot, a lot, a lot of demo projects. The thing is, it's been able to curate that on your own. You know what? I think this one is the next one, because every piece of art that you release is almost like a piece of yourself that you're holding up to somebody and saying, listen, this is me, judge me, tell me what you think of me. As an artist, when you put yourself out there like that, it's a very vulnerable feeling, especially when you spend a lot of time and you try to perfect it, but you know that deep down in your heart, it's not perfect. I know that if somebody looks closely enough, they'll find the flaws in it, and you start to think and nitpick on that, seeing it. Exactly. And it's something I've struggled with, I still struggle with it to a day like today, to be perfectly honest, but in the same vein, you're not going to find that balance. What you have to do is just hope that, just change your ratios, if you will. Okay. So in other words, a lot of these that you have as demos, take them out of the demo folder and just set them free and see what they can do, because you being the judge and the juror where your own work is concerned, again, you'll not get that objectivity. So you need to just... It's like I'm talking to myself right now. Yes. All right. So do you think that this is the mindset generally in our artists community, in the music community that people are striving to get excellence? Do you think that we settle? It adds that to a lot of my guests. Do you think we settle? I wouldn't know the motivations of individual artists where their work is concerned, but what I will say is that by their works, you can judge them. And when I say by their works, I'm not just talking about, for example, having a song that's gone a couple of places, that's gotten a couple of spins. Part of it has to do with how you maintain and how you sustain in your industry as well. Right? Getting to a point where people think of the biggest names in the industry as, yo, these people make it. They have million-dollar record deals and this and that, whatever. A lot of that is almost like winning the lottery. What a lot of people don't see is the work that goes into it. And when you start to realize that it's a lot of work, you kind of have to tell yourself at some point, you know what? And be honest with yourself. Don't say, am I willing to do that work and to do what it takes to get to that level? Or am I content in being able to be just a working musician? Because it's a balance that you have to try to strike. So for the artist community here, by their works you shall judge them. Look at those who've been in the industry for a long period of time and then you'll know, this is somebody who has put in the work or this is somebody who has put in the effort. Then you look at those who they have one song this year and then you never hear from them again. Then you'll say, you know what? This is somebody who wasn't putting in the work. This is somebody who didn't want to do what it took to actually have some sort of longevity or some sort of noteworthy Korean music. And I think to be honest, a lot of artists are not honest with themselves. But in life, a lot of people are not honest with themselves in any event. But as artists, you have to, you know, aside from the not nitpicking and not looking for that perfect song before you release anything, the part of it is, you know, you have to be honest with yourself and be able to say, that's not good enough. That's not good enough or this is not representative of what I want to be or who I want to be. Like I know there are artists who want to be R&B singers and one of you and then they switch to Soka. If you say that you're an R&B singer and you go to Soka, that's all well and good. But understand that you're making a switch. It's different from what you set out to do. And everybody has the right to change course. But at the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself to be able to say, okay, I'm going to stick with this particular pony or I'm going to go with this other pony or I'm just going to do whatever the hell I want to do, which again, you have the right to do that as well. So I have a question. When will we get some Shane Ross music? Because I know you have lots and lots of music. I have lots of music. So when are we going to get some Shane Ross music? Incidentally, before the pandemic started or right, I think the same year, the pandemic. Well, it was 2019. We had the first lockdown. It was 2020. 2020. Look at me forget the whole year. March 2020. March 19th, 2020. 14th was our first case, I remember. And by March 19th we had a lockdown. I guess that's where the 19th kind of stuff. But I was already in the process of releasing a song every month. I had gotten to, I think, six songs. And one of the things that happened to me during the pandemic, I shouldn't say it happened to me, but my, and I wouldn't say hampered. I made the choice. I made the sacrifice to sacrifice the work because I had to be home with my children. So like for me and my kids are pretty young. I mean, right now they're three and five respectively, five and three respectively. What am I saying? Yeah, five and three respectively. And at the time, me being home with the kids, I wouldn't be able to leave the children and go to the studio and try to finish this project or especially knowing how time consuming was. And my partner, when she came home, because she was working throughout the pandemic, but when she came home, she needs time to rest and there's no, there was no time off really, right? There was no, and not just that too. I think 2020 for everybody was just such a mentally taxing. I don't think anybody should be hard on themselves for this. Even the last two years, I don't think anybody should be hard on themselves because people say, oh, you were home. It's a lockdown you should have created. You should have done something. No, I mean, people have time, need to really distress and try to figure out what is happening. And not just what is happening to them. Like for me, my, because for me, that means I mean, the whole lockdown meant that I wasn't working. Much like a lot of people, but in my line of work, I'm self-employed. So not working means that there's no, not just no guarantee of a salary or any sort of compensation, but there's no guarantee of work actually coming back. So for me, it was just like, okay, boy, what am I going to do? I knew this was a time that I said I wanted to diversify what I was doing to seem to make a living, but I actually can't do anything because I have to take care of my children and this is the major priority, the main priority in my life really is my family. So it was something that for me, you know what, I was like, it's time to put it on the back window for the time being, that particular project. So there's still songs from that project that they're still there. But part of it too is that mentioning, like I had to improve my technical proficiency in mixing. So while I was home with the kids as well, and I still wasn't going to the studio, but what I did, I started doing something called air training. So I signed up for like a program for air training. I signed up for an online course in music and in mixing music. And then out of that whole thing, it kind of made me, I looked back and I was like, boy, it's probably a good thing that I didn't finish that project because looking back at it, the technical aspect of the music, it was, I've learned so much more from then. And that's one of the things that people should have taken. I mean, I understand that, not everybody might be able to create, but we should. Everybody, if you consider yourself an artist with your sword, you have to take the time to sharpen your sword. And sharpening your sword means even taking a mental break really is part of sharpening the sword. But you have to understand that your craft is still there and you have to pay attention to the craft. Even if you're not necessarily, again, even if I wasn't necessarily writing any songs or anything like that, but I was trying to figure out the science behind mixing music because I knew I was like, listen, I know when this pandemic is over, or when this lockdown is over, I still have music to release. And I still want to release music that is of the quality of what is expected now. Talking about music, let's just take a little break and listen to one of Shane's songs, In Love With You. Do you know anything about that song before we go to it? In Love With You was a song that... In Love With You was a song that I wanted to keep simple. Klon Lovis is on the guitars on that one. There was a version that we had done previously with Jetty Joseph. But that one, again, technical proficiency, we didn't record it at a quality that was good enough. So we had to redo the entire project by the time Jetty was out. That was the simplest but I think the most beautiful song that I had written up to that point. That's how many years ago. A long time, I don't know. People still remember. 2008 maybe? Yeah, and then it's like, it's how I mentioned this song. People will be like, oh, you know, maybe by Shane Ross. So let's take a look at In Love With You by Shane Ross. I've been mesmerized by your pretty smile Though I haven't seen it I've been wide awake Trying to picture your face And the beauty I just can't escape There's something to tell you And I, that you feel the same And you, you see No surprise that you know what to say You kiss my sadness away Passing day This is for a That you feel the same Feel the same This is for a Okay, now that was In Love With You by Shane Ross. Shane, there's something I have to bring up. Obviously, you've heard it. One thing we heard when you just came out, wow, this guy sounds like John Legend. We know you're not trying to sound like John Legend. But in an industry where it's important to maintain your identity, how has that comparison affected you for the positive or for the negative? How would you think that's affected you? At first, to be honest, it was a little bit, to me, I took it in a negative light at first. And I probably should never have, but at the end of the day, that's all part of the growth process. When you listen to music, and there's something that I read, something that I read that's called Unique Familiarity, where one of the things, that's pretty much one of the things that draws people to anything new. There has to be something that you can identify as, oh, this sounds like that, or something that you're going to reference it to, but then it has to be unique in its own right that it's different. So it has to be the same but different, and as conflicting as those two ideas may seem, that's probably how I should have looked at the whole comparison to John Legend because he still is one of the best entertainers and singers and all-around performers that's still in the game today. That comparison was, it was like it was, yo, you sound really good, you sound as good as this guy, and I used to take it like boys, I'm trying to sound like John Legend, I'm not trying to sound like him. So it's something that I took it the wrong way at first, but it's a compliment more than anything else. So how do you think one in a business like this, how does one preserve the identity, how do you preserve your identity? You just have to do you, and I think that goes with anything, social media, whatever it is, like you just have to be genuine you, like present yourself, because if you're presenting yourself, then you're not working, you're not trying to project any image, you're just being yourself, because it should be the easiest thing that anybody, anybody has to do, just be yourself. So do you think, okay, so say Lucia, do you think, I should say, do you think our artists have a moral obligation, do you think, to create something that sounds authentically Saint Lucia, even if it's music, fashion, film, whatever, do you think you have a moral obligation to create something uniquely Saint Lucia, or just uniquely you, and I know obviously the two will not be different, but then what somebody considers to be, like somebody might say, okay, R&B is not Saint Lucia, or rap is not Saint Lucia, but what do you think? To answer that, that's something that I've contemplated myself a lot, and I found the answer when I was watching I think on Netflix, I think the evolution of hip-hop. No artist has a moral obligation to do anything. What happens is that, again, going back to that same unique familiarity thing that we spoke of, when you offer your people, or whatever region that you're from, when you offer them something that they can identify with, they will ride with you, they will accept you, they will be like, yes, this is us. So as an artist, you don't owe anybody the moral obligation, you don't owe anybody any responsibility to create anything that is complementary or derogatory to anybody. You just do what you want to do. What will happen is that, based on what you want to do, if you have an audience that's big enough to carry what you want to do, then they'll recognize the Saint Lucia-ness or the Trini-ness or whatever it is that you do. If it's good, no matter what you do, it must do what it has to do. The people, the support that you get from your art can relate to the community that you're from because we as artists, as much as we don't have a moral obligation to anything or anybody, but if you want to be successful as an artist, then you have to create work that is relevant to your time and your surroundings because if you don't do that, then nobody will ever get you and you have a lot of work, but it's better. Right, right. So we're going to get some more, before we switch gears a little, this is Chebe that she wrote for my movie. How true. I have to give myself a blog. I hit my leg too hard. So Chebe, you want to give us a little background? Chebe, it was produced by Johann, Johann Detilveil, Yogi. It was for my movie, The Coming of Og. It was starring Jason Seafley and you did the theme song. That's a little bit about that song. Well, I remember you approached me and you were like, have you considered doing a quail song with this? And I'm like, that's interesting. And then you told me about the idea for the movie and I was like, okay, I can definitely work around something like that. And, you know, I just picked up the guitar and the chord just came to me and I was like, okay, this is, okay. And this song, I didn't expect it. I mean, I love the song. I like the energy of the song and everything like that. But I didn't expect it to be one of the songs where, you know, people are actually like, oh my God, I absolutely love that song because it didn't, for me, I never really expected people to get it because it's quail but it's different quail. There's nothing, I've never heard anything like that in quail before. Again, I didn't expect people to get it but so many people have told me how much they love that song or that they prefer that song to be in love with them. Like, what? I'm like... I guess you talked about uniquely saying Lucian. Even if it wasn't the intention to say I'm making a Lucian song, whatever, it just comes through. So let's just take a look at Chebe by Shane Ross. Plug. Maguswesh Chebe by Shane Ross. So Shane, like I said, we're going to switch gears a little. This show is a lot about balance. Balance in family. Some people have nine to fives and so on. You, full-time musician, full-time dad, full-time partner, what has that like... Sorry, what has that been like for you in terms of balancing? Do you feel like one, even pre-pandemic, during pandemic, what has that been like for you, the balance of family and music? I've been fortunate for one to have... I have a very understanding partner. One. Two. For me, my... It's never had to... I've never found myself in a position where I had to make a choice between art and family because my work essentially is my art. So, for example, it's not... For some artists, their endeavor is like, I'm going to go in the shed and make that. But my nine to fives is doing something entirely different for me. My nine to fives has never really been a nine to fives, but the hours have always been condensed. So, I've never had to make that choice. I've always had enough time to be at home and to be working on other parts of the craft, but the craft essentially has always been my work. No matter what I've done, be it television, be it radio, whatever, everything has to do with music in some way or the other. Even what I do now, well, when I get back to doing it, even what I do now, I perform at hotels. I mean, it's... It's doing music. It's perfecting the performance element. Doing the radio is learning to listen to music critically and understand how music has that appeal in terms of mass reach or mass communication. So, television was being able to connect with an audience one-on-one. Everything has to do with some facet of music or the other. So, because of that, I've never had to find that balance because it has always been that... Well, not that. Never had to find that balance, but that balance for me was... You feel like it was a natural balance? Yeah, it was a natural balance. So, this is what I do to earn an income. This is what I have to keep doing. I have to work for it because, fortunately, again, the time is convinced. I'm condensed, sorry. So, I have six, seven hours at home with the children during daytime and then work at night. Right. For me, that balance has... You know what I should say, too? That took a long time. I had to sharpen the sword for a long time and go through various processes where I could get to a point where I could say, well, I could try to work from home now. Or I get to do stuff at the hotel. You have to get to a point in your craft where you're good enough or that you're successful enough that it becomes easy to balance. The only way to do that is to just try to find your balance and be aware that there is such a thing as finding balance. If you're aware that there's that thing, if you love to do, then you will endeavor to find that balance. And also, I think it's important to have a good support system, too, because you mentioned your partner, because I think if you don't have that kind of person in your life, too, it might not be as easy. So, very recently, Shane, you had what we would call a near-death experience. You were in a serious car accident and it left you for a while. But what kind of tool did that take on you mentally? How did it affect your family? The recovery process? Even at that moment, like... Wow, I never expected that, actually. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life in terms of physical pain. That's for sure. But in all of that, I will say this, that the experience is one that has... I wouldn't give up that experience because of the lessons that it taught me. And the lessons that it taught me was, for example, you have to learn to appreciate life and appreciate love and be able to accept love and be able to accept that there are people who genuinely care about you and then, you know, people are not doing things for you or offering themselves to you as friends or as family or whatever. They're not doing that just for the sake of doing it, or just because of pity or just because... You have to be able to accept that people do things sometimes because they genuinely love you and that you are actually good enough to be loved that people do things. I think a lot of people don't learn the lesson in life that a lot of us were not taught how to love ourselves and part of loving yourself is being able to identify and accept love. So, for example, when you mentioned a while ago about the balance and finding a partner, like you have to be able to identify love for you to find that kind of partner, for example. Right? You have to be able to to know how to love yourself and learning to love yourself again is being able to identify love in people. So it's almost like this thing that's supposed to... It's like the hand that draws itself. You don't really know where it starts. But what this whole accident... What it taught me was that you could lose everything like that. So, as long as you know that you could lose everything like that, then you owe it to yourself to accept as much love as you can get and to give as much love as you can give. Because if you don't do that, then what's the point of anything? So do you feel like you've been really changed by this experience? Absolutely. It's one of the most difficult lessons that I've had to learn but it was a humbling experience. It was one where I didn't know how strong I actually was as a person. I didn't know what I could have endured through. I never thought of myself as a strong person or as somebody who is you know like these sorts of things are kind of like you expect them to be like, I was in an accident or macho kind of thing. That's... I never understood that sometimes you just have to go through things to realize that you are strong. You know, you are what you are. You can do, you can be what you want to be. You can survive anything. And in that time, period of reflection and all of that, were you able to think about music at that point? Music was my therapy. Music, let me tell you, I can give you a... I was at the hospital and in the accident I suffered a minor concussion as well. But for weeks afterwards I felt like this popping sort of feeling in my head like something was heavy on my face. And one night I just heard this ringing sound in my ear. It was this low frequency hum kind of thing. And I just got my headphones brought to me at the hospital and I'm listening to, trying to listen to music and like this hum is there. And it's the music, like I hated it because this hum basically was blocking out everything at a certain low frequency. And when you lose that it's like, I'm like, cheese, I'm like... So in your head that was the hum? Yes, because it was a condition called tinnitus. And that, I mean that after effects of the accident and stuff like that. And either the accident or the surgery or but after effects of something. And I thought that I was like, yo don't tell me I'm going to lose my hearing. Because if I lose my, because my voice didn't even sound as it was supposed to have sounded because the whole bass in my voice was gone. So I'm talking, it sounds like I'm talking in a cup everything I'm hearing was like it's in a cup listening to everything sounds like in some sort of cup and I'm like, wow, I'm like that means I can't mix music, I can't listen to music. Is this permanent? Please that means it's not permanent. And so I'm like googling the whole night and my going nuts. But fortunately, that only lasted for about like two days, two, three days and then I was gone. Because I didn't panic right how it was about after like the whole day of it I was like, okay this is not going away this is scaring me a little bit. So that that like experience is like that they they change you man, they do something to you. So do you think the message in your music would change, do you think approach to creation would change? Absolutely. So in what way? One of the things that I took the time to do during this period or what I would consider this other down time was to try to you know I was doing a lot of music theory in terms of guitar I mean I always played the guitar but just noodling and just for the sake of composition just you know let me come up with a song. But now it's more purposeful when I do it. So I find myself like practicing I have the time now so I practice a couple of hours a day now and I'm seeing improvements and it's like okay this might be the next version of my music and because of that experience too like the message now because I found myself writing a song recently the message is different I mean normally what I found it easy to write about was just writing about the more primal instincts like they can take you home and stuff like that and for me that that wasn't challenging myself enough I think because I'd gotten over it I was good I was pretty decent at it and I still have a lot of songs that I get towards that which kind of puts me in a dilemma right now I'm like okay should I go ahead and release that especially considering that now the message that I have so far has been different it's more of a you know uplifting you know develop yourself sort of perspective I would say or love yourself I should say you know and love yourself and accept that sometimes there are things that you're not in control of you know do you think in terms of music they talk about improvements do you think there's how can music on island generally improve do you think there is something that artists need to do to help improve the sound generally or signature music or do you think we are there when you wow that's a difficult one to answer because there are so many different ways that you have to look at it it's not a problem that's and it is a problem I would say it's it's a multi-dimensional problem you have the technical capabilities which now it's a lot cheaper and easier to produce a good song and to mix a good song and to have a good song to have a song that is of the quality that can match anything that you hear globally it's a lot cheaper to do that now so now there's no excuse not to do it but the thing is what I'm finding right now is that to me the volume that I'm seeing the volume of music that I'm seeing it's not as much as it could have been as much as I expected it to have been given the trajectory that we were in like to me there was this one point it felt like another and it's also coming back prior to um maybe some people have been over perfectionist like like Shane Ross probably you decrease the volume there's probably but you see again in my case there's a technical aspect to it there is because again I took the time to develop the craft in terms of the mixing side of it and when you develop that craft then you start to realize some of the stuff that I had before it can be improved so I'm not going back on stuff that I have released already but I'm basically going back on stuff that I was planning to release I'm like okay this can be better this can be better from a technical standpoint okay that's the and even that's a slippery slope too because sometimes you can start off by saying okay from a technical standpoint it's not as good but can I write it better oh my god no but the industry in general what I'm finding is that right now it's so difficult to hold people's attention and to be honest I feel kind of not yeah man and I feel not sorry but you see for somebody coming up now as an artist the things that you have to do to remain relevant and the amount of work that you have to put in in terms of social media management and that kind of thing it's like it's it's a scary time because you have to compete with so many I mean if you look at music right now just on an international scale a song that you love that we were thinking about last week by next week you finish that song already it's like onto the next one people's attention spans are so short nowadays that I think it's necessary as an artist to learn not to try to cater to people's needs but to try to cater to what you want to express yourself and you hopefully you'll find your audience in that but right now you just have to understand that you might not find an audience in that but that doesn't negate the fact that you're an artist what you have to do is to do it because you love to do it because any artist will tell you you have to do it because there's a need for you to do it like you love to do it and as long as you do what you love to do you might find your tribe you may not find your tribe you might find a big tribe you might find a small tribe but you just have to do it because you love to do it and don't expect anything and then things will start to happen do it because not for a paycheck not because you want to you have to express you don't have to have this ideology of like boy I have to be famous or I want to change the world no if you do it because you love to do it if you love to do it enough the world will change so question you worked in radio, you worked in TV and we're going back on the whole moral obligation talk again do you think radio dramas, TV producers have a moral obligation to play more solution music to show more solution art design put more solutions faces out there do you think that is they have a moral obligation or let's just wait for the cream to arrive to the top and they'll take what people are going after and play I and I hope my views aren't considered controversial but at the end of the day I have to speak my truth I don't think they have a moral obligation to do that however they they should have the they, how would I put it a patriotic obligation to do that and what I mean by that one of the things that I did I was a music administrator for a period of time and when I was a music administrator I worked as a director on the Board of Echo and eventually the chairman for a short period of time that's a whole other show but what I was able to learn at that point in time was that the issues that we face in terms of the industry here it's a global phenomenon you go throughout Europe and the artists will tell you that guess what they're not playing our music they only play in American music and a large part is coming back to us is not a large part of what is played in terms of copyright revenue that has to go to the U.S. because you have again the re-anners and the this and the that they get way way way more airplane than we do the thing about it is that we everybody is to blame where that's concerned because if we didn't consume so much of the foreign music then the radio the radio DJ wouldn't have this you know he wouldn't be worried about playing anything that he considers to be this is what the people want if the people let him know that this is what we want I want to say the way they let him know we have to be our own taste makers I guess it's like some of a balance because there are some people I might not know about until I had played somewhere you remember earlier because there are different forums like where people are brought together like we mentioned Tempest there was the playlist and so on where you see new talent that you didn't know about and that's why I said I feel sorry for the artists who have to come up and do the work now because right now there's such a large volume of it in terms of the online stuff right in the traditional sense anymore and not just that today there's everybody attention spans are short you you can get music on demand right now you can just pick up your phone right now and listen to any song from anywhere so to compete with that as an artist you have to I don't know what you have to do but you have to find a way to get people's attention somehow if that's what you want which is why again as an artist do it because you love to do it don't expect likes and don't expect it to go far and don't expect anything but do it just because you love it they can be found because I get my local music from Apple Music imagine that that's where I get my local music from I just think they have to be where people can hear them and maybe not everybody has Apple Music I don't even have Apple Music or you can or if you are Spotify or somewhere you can go on when the artists get to put themselves out there but to me if certain people are in that's just my view a position to push it along then you should it's a difficult for me again I don't know how to navigate the industry now like I can I can tell you like I've just been so comfortable being just a working musician just doing it for the love of it that I don't even give that much thought to okay well let me see how I can get it trending and let me see how I can do this and do that for me it's like I do it I drop it you like it you don't like it I'm just I am content in just being able to do it that's a good place to be do you remember a couple of years ago 10 years ago what the landscape was like to be honest I came up and I had it easy they were not many people doing what I did I would say it would be easy it would be different because for example your goal let's say releasing a song releasing a music video I can talk about that part would be I needed to be on BET Tempo HTSDB whatever that was your and once you know your music video reached there you know that's it YouTube wasn't a big thing back then right now people can just release like that it was easier it was just different so now there were less people but it was actually you're right come to think of it it might have been more difficult back then and it was more expensive to do back then exactly so it was more difficult but there were less people the market was less crowded yes it was difficult so I guess it's just different but you know what that's that in itself is balanced right there because like you said there were less people right but as much as there were less people doing it the process was longer it was more expensive to do so basically that was part of the reason that there were less people in any event even to produce to produce music the music equipment was more expensive the camera equipment was bigger and more expensive to edit was more expensive everything was more expensive more cumbersome more work but I think that was a good thing too because you put more effort into what you're doing right now it's easier to make a song easier to make a video I can just pick up my phone and make a music video so the time I would take before to say this shot that shot that shot that's out the window for some people the same thing with music absolutely right and you know what I never in all my my pondering about it I never had that particular perspective and you're absolutely right because yeah because people like it's like they seem because of the ease of doing it there seems to be a lack of appreciation for some people some people will take it very seriously and some people able what the mindset back then to be able to move with the time and to adapt but not some people just came up in this era of snap and insta so it's short like you said short attention span on all of that it's just different time you know you know what I related to as well like there's this thing where for me I experience that a lot today something called paralysis of choice right because there's so many different options right now in terms of even as a creator if you know the inner waking of let's say masking when it comes to photoshop and stuff like that you know the possibilities right now because everything is so automated like they can just click and you have that entire process that you know the reason for the process people don't know the reason for the process but they just do it and when they do it like that then there's this ad hoc and haphazard sort of look to it but when you know the process then you're able to say okay well this is that but that still puts you in a similar position where so you know that you still have paralysis of choice you know and then a lot of people a lot of like it's yeah because it's automated they don't want a lot of people don't want to take the time to understanding the process they don't want to take the time but that's all they've known so it's not like they don't take the time but all they know they just know that's how you do it I pick up my phone and I do it they don't know what the process was like from before because if I have to take from my own experience splicing film when I learnt how to go when I went to film school I shot on a film camera I had to look at the film splice it together and stick it now you just have something that's there right so what advice would you have for somebody who's like just entering into this entertainment music entertainment sharpen your sword and do what you love to do get get if you're doing something don't just do it for the sake of well I want to be famous or I want to do whatever no if your aim is to make a living off of doing it treat it like it's a profession and sometimes you have to understand that what you expected that profession to be starting off might not be what it really is again I'm a working musician right now and that's something that I've done for all of my life despite everything else that I've done I've been a working musician if it's not for the hotel it's Swerve on this stage show like hosting shows all over the place and stuff like that when you understand like for me I knew my market I knew that St. Lucia is if I can make a living doing this and I know how to make a living then I'm going to do this in that particular way now what I did I didn't just go and do stuff off of my head I trained myself in various fields where these things were concerned so in that my advice to any young person coming up sharpen your sword learn your skill learn your skill as well as you can before you even tell somebody that I am a producer or I am whatever because to be honest I still don't even consider myself to be a producer I consider that I happen to produce music but the ins and outs of being a producer I've never gone through the rigors up to the point where that I know some of my friends have so I wouldn't even consider myself on that level am I able to produce yes but I'm not a producer so don't call yourself what you are not trained to do Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell 10 years or 10,000 hours right put in your 10,000 hours before you can call yourself a master and don't call yourself a master let other people call you a master or whatever your craft is yep yep yep yep very good advice so what is your ultimate goal when you get it I will say I have arrived there is no ultimate goal there is no I have arrived aspect of it I mean for me again one of my I looked back I was able to look back and I was able to understand I think at a very young age that it's not there is like again when you see the big the huge names that's like when in the lottery there is a huge grey area that you can live comfortably within that grey area and not getting to that point where you felt like you won the lottery or you know like the mega stars the global mega stars at that point doesn't mean that you haven't made it not getting to that point doesn't mean that you cannot make a living off of doing what you love to do I think making it is getting up every single day and doing exactly what you love to do because there is a saying that goes like this if you love what you do you never work a day in your life so getting up and not working I think that's making it a really fantastic place to sort of start the wrap up so Shane how can people how can folks hear your music how can they get in touch with you can you give us your social handles Shane Ross music that's Shane with a why that's my social media hit me up on there you can message me and then we can talk business well Shane it was really an absolute pleasure sitting down with you and talking about your journey and your recent accents and all of that so hopefully very soon and maybe as we close the show we'll close the show with some snippets of some Shane Ross music you know we'll just put that in pop your of his music I wish I had the phone I must have something deeper like that's a dope song okay so we're going to hear some Shane Ross music as the credits roll but yeah okay great yeah okay we're going to get that my tracker could have given Davino Lee my music is pretty good so why not I've never leaked his music I'm talking about what I'm saying good things have happened when I've given Davino Lee my music guys this has been creative excellence I really enjoyed this on the Shane Ross so catch us next time thank you