Gillian Cal­iste

Dar­ryl Hen­ry aka “Farmer Nap­py” is on some bold mis­sions in 2023. He is bent on bring­ing a new vibe to so­ca as the voice of the peo­ple, mak­ing up for the ab­sence of the late so­ca bard Dex­ter “Blaxx” Stew­art, and cap­tur­ing a Gram­my award.

Hen­ry be­lieves that his new for­mu­la–con­scious groovy so­ca–will in­ject some pur­pose and show con­cern for so­ci­ety's needs in the mu­sic that dri­ves the mec­ca of all fes­ti­vals as well as par­ties at home and abroad year-round.

“I have a new type of mu­sic I want to in­tro­duce to Trinidad. I want to call it con­scious groovy, send­ing the mes­sage, talk­ing for the rur­al ar­eas, the peo­ple. I want to work on that af­ter Car­ni­val,” Hen­ry who has used his plat­form to take stances in the past said in an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian last Tues­day.

The vet­er­an en­ter­tain­er, who is fond­ly called “Farmer”, said he wants to be the voice of the peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the poor; he wants to be the peo­ple's gov­er­nor.

“I get­ting old­er now...let me be the ves­sel to talk for the poor peo­ple. Do you know how peo­ple used to sing ca­lyp­so against the Gov­ern­ment? I'm not singing against any gov­ern­ment. I'm talk­ing for the peo­ple, so I'm the peo­ple’s gov­er­nor. We don't go in­to the rur­al ar­eas and see what's hap­pen­ing; all the flood­ing that’s hap­pen­ing. Our house is high hous­es, we have no flood. But the peo­ple, no­body knows how they feel, so I'm go­ing to talk for the poor peo­ple now,” he said.

At his per­for­mances, the so­ca artiste has in­creas­ing­ly sport­ed a beret atop his Rasta­far­i­an dreads over the years. He said he calls it his Pe­ter Tosh equal-rights-and-jus­tice hat, adding that he grows his dreads long as his hair is his strength.

Al­though Farmer plans to re­treat to the coun­try­side and re­al­ly get in­to com­pos­ing about con­scious mat­ters af­ter Car­ni­val, he has start­ed the sea­son dis­miss­ing de­trac­tors with Ole Talk writ­ten by Mi­cal Te­ja on the Hot Sun rid­dim and with the rhyth­mic groovy Want It Back by James Mor­gan aka Jamesy P and pro­duced by De Red Boyz from Bar­ba­dos.

“We tired of the push down fence and ra ra ra in the par­ty. We say­ing we want back the nice, sexy and groovy songs so you could dance with your la­dy,” he said of Want It Back which sam­ples the cho­rus from Ja­maican reg­gae singer An­tho­ny B's Waan Back.

Join­ing forces with St Lu­cian Ted­dyson John in one of his sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tions this sea­son, Farmer ded­i­cates the feel-good num­ber Every­thing Good to Blaxx. He said the sin­gle was writ­ten by Je­vaughn “Vghn” John from Grena­da who was men­tored by Blaxx. So, when “Vghn” who sang along­side Blaxx as part of De All Starz Band, pre­sent­ed the song to Farmer, it was on­ly fit­ting that he sang it as a col­lab­o­ra­tion with John–al­so a band mem­ber–and pro­duced a video show­cas­ing the band mem­bers in trib­ute to Blaxx re­as­sur­ing every­one that every­thing is fine in the af­ter­math of his pass­ing. The song's pro­duc­er is al­so part of De All Starz Band so it was like fam­i­ly com­ing to­geth­er to pay trib­ute to the fall­en artiste, Farmer said.

He ex­pects his Gyal Like Rain col­lab with Ja­maican singer Christo­pher Mar­tin penned by Shaft on the Port-of-Spain rid­dim to be the tune to take over all the fetes and rep­re­sent for Blaxx who was the man in all the all-in­clu­sive fetes, he said. Farmer felt that work­ing with Mar­tin whom he de­scribed as the next Beres af­ter the gold­en-voiced reg­gae artiste will ush­er in his con­scious groovy mu­sic. He hopes the song could al­so land him in the run­ning for a Gram­my nom­i­na­tion and pos­si­bly an award.

“You see, I'm chas­ing a Gram­my award. I would love to win a Gram­my Award, or at least con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to mak­ing so­ca recog­nised by the Gram­mys, so I feel like Gyal Like Rain could be the song to step me out there. It's ca­lyp­so, reg­gae, dance­hall and so­ca mixed in one.”

He al­so teamed up with Na­dia Bat­son for “Enough” on the Ole Talk rid­dim and joined St Lu­cian singer, writer and pro­duc­er Mot­to for an­oth­er col­lab ti­tled “U Get Through”.

In 2014, Farmer's clas­sic hit Big Peo­ple Par­ty earned him “Ca­lyp­so of the Year” from the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee (NACC), but one of the high points of his ca­reer, was win­ning the MTV Ig­gy's Artist of the Week in 2012 with Sur­ren­der from the al­bum You Make Me…Sur­ren­der which marked his recog­ni­tion on the in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic scene.

Farmer al­so plans to do a com­plete­ly live in­stru­men­tal al­bum by mid-year.

“Yes, I am a per­cus­sion­ist, so I will be part of it...just live mu­sic, no pro­gramme,” he said.

Farmer Nappy joins forces with Jamaican artiste Christopher Martin for a first-time collaboration Gyal Like Rain.

Navindra Harbukhan/NH Productions TT

The sea­soned en­ter­tain­er re­ceived his in­tro­duc­tion to so­ca as a per­cus­sion­ist in Machel Mon­tano's Prana­son­ic Ex­press at age sev­en, lat­er branch­ing off in­to vo­cals along­side the dy­nam­ic teen who would be­come the King of So­ca. A main­stay in the so­ca en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, Farmer draws on his 38 years of ex­pe­ri­ence to bring con­sis­tent hits with a ca­lyp­so-groovy so­ca feel that win au­di­ences lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. He sings main­ly for a ma­ture au­di­ence, the Hook­ing Meh and Tech­ni­cal­ly singer who has his own la­bel Coun­try Life Mu­sic was quick to re­mind.

As to whether he will be pulling off an­oth­er Back­yard Jam which won him both the On­line So­ca Monarch and Road March ti­tles in 2021, the tal­ent­ed artiste said de­spite hav­ing songs he could use to de­fend his ti­tle, he has no in­ten­tions of re­turn­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch as his was a “unique win” in 2021. It came at a time when the com­pe­ti­tion was held at the NA­PA be­fore a small live au­di­ence and broad­cast vir­tu­al­ly to the rest of the world due to the pan­dem­ic. The 2021 Road March was al­so held on­line that year and nei­ther com­pe­ti­tion came off in 2022.

Farmer said he was grate­ful to all the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who paved the way for artistes to be able to earn a liveli­hood from so­ca and take care of their fam­i­lies. He lives for his chil­dren Aisha, Kai­dyn Je­sus, Jadon Daryl and Jowah Daryl who range in age from 31 to sev­en as he nev­er had a fa­ther to spoil him, he said. His moth­er wore “the pants and skirt” in their house­hold, he added. It was his moth­er who asked Liz Mon­tano to take care of him be­fore she passed when he was 26 years old, the same year dou­ble M and Xtatik did Mu­sic Farm.

“That's why Liz Mon­tano is my moth­er, the on­ly woman I lis­ten to,” he said.

This fan got real up close and personal with soca star Farmer Nappy at Kairi People's Different in 2016. PHOTO: DAVID WEARS

Q&A with Daryl “Farmer Nap­py” Hen­ry

Putting you on the spot here...what has been your best col­lab?

Christo­pher is the best. No dis­re­spect to oth­er artistes, but this project means a lot to me. This is like my ba­by...long time I've been look­ing for Chris. Af­ter Chris, I go­ing and find Janet Jack­son. I am a de­ter­mined per­son and what­ev­er I want I go af­ter it, so I will find her.

You grew up with Monk Monte as part of Prana­son­ic Ex­press and then Xtatik, take me back a lit­tle to the ear­ly days and what be­ing an in­stru­men­tal­ist, a writer and an artiste meant for you then.

I was a per­cus­sion­ist. I learnt when Machel dad send us to learn mu­sic so I went and start­ed play­ing per­cus­sion. Af­ter per­cus­sion, I start­ed singing in the band. I left the band in 1991 be­cause of the birth of my daugh­ter. She was born one pound, ten ounces. I had to make a de­ci­sion be­tween my band and my fam­i­ly and I stayed out for five years. It was very, very hard to give up be­cause it was my ca­reer and I did give up and go to Amer­i­ca to do odd jobs...Yes, I'm a re­al grass­roots, team play­er.

Af­ter five years, Machel came and say I come back for you, you have to come back in the band. I came back with songs like Mu­sic Farm (1997) and Foot­steps (1998).

I was a writer, Oungku [from Burn­ing Flames of An­tigua] said I was an idea fa­nat­ic so I used to have the ideas and I used to take them to Machel and he used to fin­ish them with me.

What do you think is re­spon­si­ble for your pop­u­lar­i­ty and longevi­ty in the busi­ness?

Machel is the one re­spon­si­ble for telling me: you write songs al­ready and it was big songs, hall of fame songs, but now you singing, go and buy from oth­ers be­cause the writ­ing changed. So Machel is a big in­flu­ence in my ca­reer, and Liz Mon­tano, very, very big. An­oth­er per­son I want to put in­side is Ka­t­ri­na Chan­dler that is my son's moth­er in Bar­ba­dos. She's the one that took me to Red Boyz [Pro­duc­tion] and for the past 16 years, my mu­sic has been pro­duced in Bar­ba­dos. So thanks to Ka­t­ri­na for be­ing the ves­sel car­ry­ing me along there, she is very im­por­tant in my ca­reer and my life and she is still my man­ag­er along with Navin­dra Har­bukhan of NH Pro­duc­tions TT who is my road man­ag­er.

What type of mu­sic did you lis­ten to while grow­ing up?

My moth­er used to play plen­ty of Gre­go­ry Isaac, plen­ty Ja­cob Miller, plen­ty Bob Mar­ley and Swal­low, Ar­row and Scrunter.

If not so­ca and en­ter­tain­ment, who would Farmer be?

A me­chan­ic...I love cars. My favourite is my Sub­aru...be­cause it's a four-wheel dri­ve and it's a ral­ly car so it dri­ves through the road re­al­ly nice. I know I would have been some­thing spe­cial in life; a me­chan­ic or I would have bought a car and run a taxi and buy more cars and have peo­ple work­ing for me. I nev­er want­ed to work for peo­ple. My hob­by is sav­ing. I'm in­to re­al es­tate be­cause this busi­ness has no pen­sion. I want to let artistes know that be­cause some en­ter­tain­ers have a cham­pagne taste and mau­by bud­get.

Who men­tored you?

My men­tor is Chris “Tam­bu” Her­bert and Oungku Ed­wards from Burn­ing Flames. Oungku showed me the busi­ness part and Chris “Tam­bu” Her­bert is my first men­tor who gave me my first shoes–red shin­ing tip shoes–to per­form with Char­lie's Roots.

You paid trib­ute to Dr Leroy Cal­liste the Black Stal­in when he passed last week. Did you have a re­la­tion­ship with him?

Not on­ly Black Stal­in, but we lost Singing Francine too. Black Stal­in was a per­son that I learnt from. Machel, all of us, from the ca­lyp­so tent when Machel was singing Too Young to So­ca, we learnt from him. I met him on many oc­ca­sions be­cause he was from the South and I'm from the South too.

And he was al­so the poor peo­ple's gov­er­nor. May he rest in peace, it's a big icon we lose. When they go it's on­ly then we want to cel­e­brate them. Cel­e­brate them be­fore they die. Songs like Hookin Meh and Back­yard Jam, he used to call and say: Farmer that is a bad one. He said he loved my mu­sic. His son is part of a pan side called Pan El­ders Youth Steel Band and in 2019, I went to his house to do a mu­sic video record­ing with the pan­side and we hold a vibes. He loved me and I loved him, he will be missed.