Nass­er Khan

Free­town Col­lec­tive’s Take Me Home is a big song—big in mu­si­cal­i­ty and lyrics. It is build­ing on a genre of slow­er, deep­er Tri­ni mu­sic that is aimed at the soul.

The lyrics strike a chord be­cause of their many lay­ers and lev­els. The song opens with a lov­ing de­c­la­ra­tion of an un­stop­pable jour­ney:

Ah go cross any ocean to find it;

Won’t let no moun­tain get in the way;

We come cross the wa­ter, been through the fire;

Ah know that meh heart go show meh the way.

Every­where you turn you see peo­ple smil­ing;

We doh see no creed and race;

Don’t want no­body tell we bout leav­ing;

We fight for we ting and dis is we place.

In the de­scrip­tion of ar­rival, you see the fu­ture state of Trinidad and To­ba­go in con­so­la­tion, the best ver­sion of our­selves. This is T&T when we ar­rive at na­tion­hood and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the 5,000 sq. km we call home. Then comes the cry of the heart, the yearn­ing and the deep­est de­sire:

Take me home;

Take me to a place where me heart don’t feel no pain;

Take me home.

The next verse opens many dif­fer­ent move­ments of the soul:

Wake me up be­fore I fall asleep;

Take me to a place where lovers meet;

Mar­ry me to the heart of Port-of-Spain;

So if I ever leave, I bound to come again.

The yearn­ing for habi­ta­tion is a yearn­ing for God. “Mar­ry me to the heart of Port-of-Spain.” This is a mar­riage of the heart, and it evokes de­vo­tion, be­long­ing, iden­ti­ty and sac­ri­fi­cial love. Mar­riage to the heart of Port-of-Spain is a per­ma­nent union with our cul­ture, art, eth­nic di­ver­si­ty, and quirky poly­gon na­tion. It is to as­sume and find a home in all of who we are. Hence, the next line: “So if I ever leave, I bound to come again.”

Ac­cord­ing to Muwak­il: “Car­ni­val is mag­net­ic be­cause it is one of the high­est man­i­fes­ta­tions of the abil­i­ty of the hu­man spir­it to not on­ly sur­vive but thrive amidst de­spair.

“The abil­i­ty to not lose every­thing when all seems lost but rather to find a way to har­ness the best of our­selves in or­der to rebel against our op­pres­sors and cel­e­brate our ex­is­tence. Car­ni­val is a liv­ing rit­u­al, a li­brary of an­ces­tral knowl­edge for those who care to read, it is a place that any­one who is tru­ly look­ing can find God, eas­i­ly”.

Your ear­ly years (in­clud­ing where born and grew up)?

I was born in Care­nage, Up­per School Street on the banks of a riv­er in a board house that had no run­ning wa­ter or elec­tric­i­ty, a beau­ti­ful life we had in the bush. I grew up for the first six years of my life on the com­pound of the Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen in Mu­cu­rapo. Af­ter that, I moved around a lot un­til I was ten or so and fi­nal­ly set­tled in St Au­gus­tine, up­per St John’s Road, in St Michael’s vil­lage, for most of my teens.

Which schools/ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

I first­ly at­tend­ed the kinder­garten at the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen and then my pri­ma­ry school­ing hap­pened at St Joseph TML Pri­ma­ry. I spent five years at St Mary’s Col­lege and my ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion was at the UWI but did not com­plete that pro­gramme.

What was your first pay­ing job?

The mem­o­ry made me smile. My first pay­ing job was pack­ing gro­ceries in a gro­cery that was op­po­site Char­ford Court In Port-of-Spain. I re­mem­ber be­cause it was the first time I had mon­ey enough to buy fast food for my­self and I over­did it that Au­gust! LOL.

If we talk­ing of­fi­cial job with BIR num­ber and such, then I worked as a process plant op­er­a­tor at WASA for two years in my ear­ly 20s.

What are the plans for Car­ni­val 2026?

Our Car­ni­val show is al­ways in the mak­ing, so that is set for the Sun­day be­fore Car­ni­val week. We en­joy mak­ing this mu­sic for our peo­ple so we will con­tin­ue do­ing that. Pos­si­bly some col­lab­o­ra­tions!

Who/what has in­flu­enced/in­spired you the most, with re­gard to your ca­lyp­so singing?

The writ­ing of Shad­ow. The melodies of Lord Kitch­en­er. The re­bel­lion of Black Stal­in and Valenti­no. The easy beau­ty of An­dre Tanker when he gave us Mare­na Os­ha. The abil­i­ty of David Rud­der to speak truths we knew but didn’t know how to say from Mad Man’s Rant to Song For a Lone­ly Soul to Ral­ly round the West In­dies. I could go on but these are a few.

What oth­er ca­reer have you con­sid­ered?

I’ve not se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­ered be­ing any­thing oth­er than an artiste. I’ve faced in the di­rec­tion of oth­er things but I was nev­er drawn to any­thing as I was drawn to this.

What is your recipe for suc­cess and what in­spires you?

My recipe is a stub­born faith­ful­ness to mov­ing for­ward no mat­ter what. A strong team of peo­ple that be­lieve in what you see and at the core of that, in my case, a broth­er who knows your heart bet­ter than any­one. You have to have peo­ple you can trust.

In terms of in­spi­ra­tion, any artiste will tell you this is a strange ques­tion. All of life is in­spir­ing all the time, there may be mo­ments where we ex­tract things from the flow that we re­mem­ber specif­i­cal­ly as an in­stant of be­ing in­spired, but the artiste’s mind is con­stant­ly ab­sorb­ing and sift­ing through the mun­dane look­ing for deep­er mean­ing. Oth­er songs in­spire, peo­ple’s con­ver­sa­tions, paint­ings, draw­ings, sculp­tures, smiles, tears, wins, loss­es, lovers, good books, good food, all of it is raw ma­te­r­i­al.

Of all your ac­co­lades, ac­com­plish­ments, prizes and awards, which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

I think be­ing in­vit­ed to open for UB40 year be­fore last was some­thing tru­ly spe­cial—the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing at the 45th an­niver­sary of a band that we grew up hear­ing, who have such mas­sive songs. And for them to con­sid­er us enough to have us open for them in their home­town, I’ll nev­er for­get.

If you had to in­ter­view some­one from Trinidad and To­ba­go who you did not know and had to ask just one ques­tion, who would it be and what would be the one ques­tion?

This is tough … the African in­den­tured work­ers who came and formed the orig­i­nal Free­town, in­ter­view one of them and ask what their view of his­to­ry and the world was at that time.

What is/are the most im­por­tant les­son/s you’ve learned in life?

Fail­ure is the teacher we all hate to lis­ten to and em­brace, let go of ego and em­brace fail­ure quick­ly. Fail­ure comes with em­bar­rass­ment and hurt pride, all of that most­ly has to do with the way oth­ers will view you; love your­self and un­der­stand that fail­ure is where the lessons that will pro­pel you for­ward ex­ist. Took me a long time to learn that. Still learn­ing.

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go?

Dream. Imag­ine the world you want to live in and take steps no mat­ter how small to achieve that. But dream­ing that new world is the most im­por­tant step, you can­not step in­to a re­al­i­ty that you haven’t first cre­at­ed in your own mind.

If you could dine with any­one in his­to­ry who would it be and why? What din­ner con­ver­sa­tion would you have with that per­son?

My fa­ther. I just want to up­date him on every­thing and be able to see the ex­pres­sion on his face know­ing that we are all do­ing well. It would be pre­cious to share an­oth­er meal with the man. I’d ask him to be to­tal­ly hon­est about his jour­ney on this plan­et. Every­thing he would have tried to shield me from as a young man, every­thing he might have felt ashamed of or fear­ful of. In there would be heal­ing for not just me but through me, many oth­ers. And we would talk about the vic­to­ries in the face of so much de­spair. And re­al­ly just talk about life and the ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing, like we used to.

How would you de­scribe your­self?

Evolv­ing.

What would you say you do to bring your per­for­mance to life on stage?

I be­lieve in what I write and choose to sing. Re­hearse and plan as much as pos­si­ble and then re­lease it all to the mo­ment on stage.

What is the best ad­vice you have ever re­ceived?

Want for your neigh­bour what you want for your­self.

What is the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you have ever made?

Let­ting go of love that was still very much alive in or­der to free my­self and an­oth­er from a bond that served nei­ther of us.

What would you say is your great­est virtue?

For­give­ness.

What dai­ly mot­to do you live by?

Nev­er let the heart­less make you lose heart.

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with M, the oth­er with M, your ini­tials.

Mixed Me­dia (this is an artiste joke, I apol­o­gise LOL).