Glenville Ash­by

Sel­dom do you find raw hon­esty in a per­son. And rarely are skele­tons from one's clos­et vol­un­tar­i­ly�of­fered up for the world to view. More than any thing else, this is what de­fines Ger­ard Placide's unique­ness.

Raised�in La Ro­maine, Trinidad, life was far re­moved from the awards and at­ten­tion he now re­ceives as gospel mu­sic's fastest ris­ing star.�"I am not ashamed to say it, but at one time I was home­less in Trinidad...Yes man, sleep­ing on the streets in South," re­vealed the At­lanta gospel singer. "It was a hu­mil­i­at­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that I didn't want to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for. I re­mem­ber those nights in al­leys and pa­n­yards. Some nights I stayed with friends or rel­a­tives...but no one knew. It was too em­bar­rass­ing to talk about."

There was pas­sion in every ut­ter­ance, as though com­pelled by a high­er pow­er to get�the mes­sage out. He de­lib­er­at­ed, search­ing the�heav­ens it seems for the right words.

"I hat­ed who I was, and I had to cre­ate an­oth­er iden­ti­ty," be­gin­ning a brief for­ay in­to psy­cho­analy­sis. "I be­came a com­pul­sive liar un­til I ac­cept­ed the Lord and it has been a beau­ti­ful ride ever since...Those were ter­ri­ble years, but that's be­hind me now. I have rec­on­ciled with every­one." Ger­ard cred­its an out­reach pro­gramme for dis­placed and mu­si­cal­ly tal­ent­ed kids for res­cu­ing him.�With a rous­ing vo­cal tal­ent and Prov­i­dence on his side, peo­ple start­ed tak­ing no­tice.�He left his mark on the�grounds of�Buck­ing­ham Palace�with Chances�for Chil­dren, and then�in the US.

Soon,�Ger­ard was wow­ing thou­sands of dai­ly straphang­ers on New York sub­ways,�in­clud­ing the�in­flu­en­tial so­cial ac­tivist Al Sharp­ton,�who in­vit­ed him to sing at the fa­mous Abyssin­ian Bap­tist Church.

The re­views were stu­pen­dous. And the op­por­tu­ni­ties and awards�be­gan pour­ing in. Re­calls Ger­ard: "I re­mem­ber win­ning the Mc­Don­ald's Gospel Fest Award the first time..."I�sat there with so many con­tes­tants and I looked like a mis­fit, you know... I was not well dressed and my is­land ac­cent was ridiculed�by this par­tic­u­lar woman. She ac­tu­al­ly told me that the event was for pro­fes­sion­als. Well, as they say, "the rest is his­to­ry. I won, hands down." The Sharp­ton con­nec­tion has made this Tri­ni Gospel star a favourite of�the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus, with no less a per­son­age than Hi­lary Clin­ton hav­ing her fill of Gospel ren­di­tions.

To­day, Ger­ard makes his home in At­lanta, Geor­gia. At 37, he has served in the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary; has re­leased two com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful CDs; has opened for mul­ti­ple Gram­my award�nom­i­nee Mar­vin Sapp; and broth­er and sis­ter duo, BeBe & CeCe. To many, this seems a life­time worth of ac­com­plish­ments. But Ger­ard sees it dif­fer­ent­ly. "I am al­ways push­ing the en­ve­lope, as you see with my last CD–Caribbean Praise–where I fused gospel with so­ca and reg­gae." And the mil­i­tary–where does it fit in all this?�"You should know more than any one else," he says, (mak­ing ref­er­ence to my ser­vice,) "that as a sol­dier in the US, you have a voice...that mem­bers of Con­gress are will­ing to lis­ten...and I have al­ways in­tend­ed to work for the rights and in­te­gra­tion of the im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty." With con­certs sched­uled for the rest of the year, Ger­ard Placide now serves as the min­is­ter of Mu­sic and In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs with the In­ter­na­tion­al Charis­mat­ic Coun­cil of Church­es, and is mak­ing good on his im­pres­sive ti­tle.

"I�have just launched the Caribbean-Amer­i­can African Gospel Net­work (CAAGN), which will give our artistes here and abroad the much need­ed ex­po­sure in the mu­sic in­dus­try," he says, with a sense of pride, tem­pered with hu­mil­i­ty. "It's a re­al bless­ing...this ven­ture. There are more than 35 min­is­ters and a num­ber of busi­ness­es in­volved." The prover­bial "rags to rich­es" sto­ry is com­mon­ly told.

But this is dif­fer­ent.�In truth, sel­dom do we hear of "home­less­ness," "the dec­o­rat­ed sol­dier," "the mu­si­cal su­per­star," and�"the so­cial ad­vo­cate"; in one sen­tence, and all at�a very young age. Im­pres­sive by any stan­dard.

�

(Glenville Ash­by is a New York Cor­re­spon­dent for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian.con­tact her at: glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com)