Of course I had the parallel of having the early years of my life being spent during apartheid, and then having a lot of awful poverty going on around me while I lived in this bubble of middle-classness, but I was a child, and I only really started to (I hope) understand all of that fairly recently.
St. LuciaI am home grown St. Lucian. Born in 1980 I have spent most of my life on this island. Apart from the few summers I spent in the United States I spent most of my time in my homeland.
St. LuciaI was very conceptual about what I was doing; I had the first five albums planned out, and all the songs on every album, and the artwork. I always had these ambitious musical projects in mind.
St. LuciaI also got encouragement from my teachers at primary school but one person in particular who had a significant impact on my lean towards art is Mr. Luigi St. Omer. Mr. St. Omer was the one who always reminded me that I should not settle for less than greatness in my art. He saw that I had the potential and he helped me develop that talent.
St. LuciaI believe that people have to be sensitized more about the many jobs an individual can branch out to after studying an art form.
St. LuciaI feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.
St. Lucia