He's $600,000 richer, but nothing has changed - Malo says
Stabroek News
February 24, 2007
Having convinced Guyanese that he was serious and had come out to engage them with an energetic and impulsive performance resulting in him enjoying the spoils of the soca war, Malo says nothing has changed. "It's the same old me, nothing attached."
Explaining this further he said, "It's not like I'm excited or anything like that I just saw the monarchy as another performance, like I was singing at Thirst Park or one of those places. It's just that this was a competition and I won the show."
Having watched Malo's wild (in a good sense) and crazy, 'mad sick', presentation on Sunday The Scene was wondering where the idea generated. Not surprisingly, the artiste revealed it was the result of teamwork - a Wildfire Production group effort. Malo indicated the team was made up of himself, manager, friends and many others.
The individual inspiration for the song "Give Me It" (and not "Give it to Me" as previously reported) came from Malo himself. He said the lyrics emerged from a "real life" encounter with his friends. "I was heading home one afternoon and some friends who wanted a CD with some of my music approached me and were like, "'so Malo when we gon get this CD' and joking about it I asked them 'when you want it now? you want it here? anywhere?,'" he said, that was the birth of the winning 2007 Soca Monarch song.
Displaying modesty and graciousness at having captured, one of Guyana's most recognized, respected and coveted musical prizes, the young artiste said he is now looking in the direction of marketing himself even further by concentrating on producing some videos.
The videos would relate to three of his recent songs, the artiste informed The Scene. These are "Give Me It", the winning soca entry; "Jookie Jam", the song he released after first coming under the management of Jonathan Beepat's Wildfire Productions; and "Rugged and Tuff", which is his entry for the Road March competition.
Guyanese fans in the Caribbean region should look out for the budding star, who is also likely to go on a short tour some time soon; he would be touching down in Antigua.
As popular as he is now on the local scene Malo is yet to release an album containing his music. However, he feels as if he already has one in terms of the number of tracks he has on various records at the moment. "I've got 13 songs
- 10 singles and three combinations."
He notes that it is just a question of recording his tracks in one place but when that is going to happen is not clear for him at the moment. "I already have songs for an album it's just to actually put it on wax and I don't know when that's going to happen."
Giving respect to the people who sponsored him on the way to his $600,000 triumph, Malo gave praise to God without whom he said nothing would be possible. He gave thanks to his manager
who he said made a lot of things happen for him.
The artiste also singled out for mention, "Green Ice Taxi my official taxi, Ralph Variety Store, Dennis Beepat, X Factor Dancers, Homer Bowen, Facts 'n Roses, the Sirens, the management team from Wildfire Productions, the staff at Beepat's from Regent Street, friends from Sophia, Fojo from Platinum Records, Bevon from Brutal Traxx and the Brutal Traxx band and thanks to all my supporters throughout the year."
basstone@lycos.com