Ian Wa­son

Free­lance Re­porter

Rex­ton Gor­don, known to his fans as Shab­ba Ranks, says he is hap­py to be back in T&T.

Shab­ba Ranks will head­line the World of Reg­gae con­cert at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah tonight, in a show that al­so in­cludes Bar­ring­ton Levy, Maxi Priest, Jah Ma­son and An­tho­ny B.

Shab­ba Ranks ar­rived just af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day for his per­for­mance and head­ed to the Brix Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

While he hit the stage at the To­ba­go Jazz Fes­ti­val in 2017, it will be his first per­for­mance in Trinidad since 2015.

The 58-year-old said, “Any­time I land in Trinidad, it’s a mo­tion and a move­ment where I just feel great, like I’m there in Ja­maica or I’m there in Ethiopia. You know what I mean?”

Shab­ba Ranks praised the peo­ple of T&T, say­ing they have sup­port­ed him through­out the years.

“The peo­ple have love here, and if it hadn’t been for the love of the peo­ple, then I’d al­ways be on the peo­ple’s re­quest list. So I give praise every time I land in Trinidad. It’s a good mo­tion,” he said.

Shab­ba al­so took the time to ex­plain why he has not been re­leas­ing a lot of new mu­sic.

“New mu­sic is not sell­ing now. New mu­sic that’s down­loaded on­line, clas­sics are what’s do­ing it. I’m a man of the clas­sics. There’s no new mu­sic, but the mu­sic that I used to do be­fore, I give them away free and let peo­ple be­come mul­ti-mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aire. So now if they want some new Shab­ba, they’re go­ing to pay me for them,” he said.

A lover of sports, Shab­ba al­so threw his full sup­port be­hind the West In­dies team cur­rent­ly tak­ing part in the ICC T20 World Cup.

“West In­dies al­ways have a chance to me,” he said.

He called on the fans to be pos­i­tive when sup­port­ing the re­gion­al team.

“If we sup­port them with a pos­i­tive en­er­gy, then noth­ing can let them fail. It’s our en­er­gy that en­ables them to win. The en­er­gy from with­in will come out. So no mat­ter where wrestling is though, love wrestling is all the way. My team, yeah. All the time.”