As told to BC Pires

My name is Kevon Walk­er and I am an or­gan­is­er of sound.I'm from Port-of-Spain but I re­cent­ly moved to Point Cumana, on the sea side of the road. I love be­ing close to the wa­ter. I lucked out with that apart­ment when two friends went back to New York and I took over the lease.I got trans­ferred from New­town Boys be­cause my moth­er left to go to New York when I was about sev­en. She left us with my grand­moth­er in Trinci­ty.

Af­ter about three months in Form One at Five Rivers Ju­nior Sec­ondary, my pa­pers came through and I went to the States. And high school was a big cul­ture shock! I had a strong Tri­ni ac­cent, I knew noth­ing about Amer­i­ca and I had to con­form to this new cul­ture. But it all con­tributed to my men­tal­i­ty now.

I lived in New York from ages 11 to 25. Some peo­ple say I have a lit­tle ac­cent and it's from that part of my life. I nev­er re­al­ly felt dis­con­nect­ed from Trinidad. There are A LOT of Tri­nis in New York! Es­pe­cial­ly in Brook­lyn: Flat­bush; Crown Heights; Bed-Sty. You al­ways met a Tri­ni every­where.

High school in New York had no school uni­form, so it was a fash­ion show every day. That I couldn't keep up with, at one point: I had to get a part-time job, to buy clothes to go to school! What­ev­er the most fa­mous mu­si­cians were wear­ing, you had to have it. I can def­i­nite­ly keep up with the fash­ion, now. They can't touch me on that one, boy!My hair grows nat­u­ral­ly like this. I just come out the show­er and shake it and let it do its own thing. And this is what it does.

I could build stu­dios, build tracks, beats, edit­ing. Most of it was self-taught. But I did do a two-year course in New York. Every­body has a bed­room stu­dio in Trinidad. It's my dream to have a prop­er, pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio.I feel artists like K Rich and Kes and Machel and Bun­ji have got­ten in­to a new el­e­ment: EDM, elec­tron­ic dance mu­sic. That's the new scene. And so­ca's tak­ing that di­rec­tion, too.

So­ca lyrics are so washed out now. I would love to be a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to chang­ing that. Take it back to a lit­tle Ras Shorty-I. I would love to re­work a David Rud­der in­to EDM. You keep it alive that way. They're pro­duc­ers in Eu­rope who're do­ing that with our ca­lyp­so songs. Peo­ple are beat­ing us to it!

I do be­lieve in God and I am a Chris­t­ian, even though I might not be prac­tis­ing. But every­one has their own way to God. Some­times I won­der, "Is my be­liefs just what I've been fed?" If I was born Hin­du, I'd have be­lieved that just as strong­ly. Ac­tu­al­ly, I wear a Ganesh ring. Ganesh is the god of pros­per­i­ty and I be­lieve Ganesh is re­al!

I'm an or­gan­is­er of sound. I pro­duce and I al­so dee­jay. Most pro­duc­ers dee­jay to pay the rent now. Even Dr Dre! I got to keep it com­ing if I want to keep my apart­ment in Point Cumana, man!

I use drum ma­chines, key­boards, sam­plers, syn­chro­nis­ers. The love of the craft keeps you go­ing. A lot of times, I'll take work for free. If an artist friend asks for a track for an im­age or film. And I know that, if they could, they would pay me. If big com­pa­nies ask me to do some­thing, I know they can af­ford it, so it's on­ly right to charge them.

The best part of the job is do­ing some­thing you love. There's a cer­tain amount of sat­is­fac­tion when you com­plete a track. Here, world! En­joy it! And dance! The bad part of the job is fi­nan­cial in­se­cu­ri­ty. That's where the day job comes in.A Trinida­di­an is a hap­py per­son. I have a lot of Amer­i­can friends who would love to switch places with me.T&T is where I come from. That's my cul­ture, man. That's home.

�2 Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com