You all know there’s a lot of hidden musical talent around Jamaica. It seems every corner you turn there’s someone who’s trying to make it as an artist and I always consider it a privilege when a random person who has talent wants to perform. This one is no exception and it’s a cool story how we discovered his musical gift.
It was last trip while staying at the gorgeous villa I wrote about HERE that we came across Rasheed Bailey aka Spooky Don. He’s from Mandeville but lives and works at the villa in Black River. The villa owner advised us that during our stay we’d be hearing Spooky singing around the house as he goes about his work. Now if you know Jamaica you know that everyone sings there, regardless of whether they can or not. But let me tell you, this one can. And as I got to know him I found out that he’s actually tried out for Digicel Rising starts two years in a row and I hope he keeps trying. I don’t know what the criteria is for making it into auditions but surely talent has to be a criteria.
So one day on the veranda Spooky was singing along to a riddim on his cell phone and I overheard so I went outside and started filming. I was pretty impressed even though he wasn’t trying that hard. It was just coincidence that I had a Jamaican friend with me whose brother produces original riddims and he had a CD full of riddims in the car so we brought it into the house and Spooky practically laid down two tracks in no time flat!
Watch the video below….the entire video, because it goes through the stages of the quiet veranda performance, the louder house performance and finally, a stage performance…..because we couldn’t NOT take him to karaoke at Cloggy’s! I said it in that story and I’ll say it again….Cloggy’s has awesome, not just average karaoke.
Sorry the video is a tiny bit skewed (elongated) because I had to rotate the original files.
Leave a Reply