We Put It to Maxi Priest!
Did you think that you would still be sitting here 20 years after releasing your debut album?
Yes, I'm looking forward but not to say I was going to be back here in 20 years time, I always just thought I'm going to record, I'm going to do another album, but suppose everything goes wrong, suppose they don't like me anymore, there's always these possibilities, but I've always looked at thing on a positive side, and I would just keep going forward.
You've been very successful, if you'd been less successful would you have kept going with the music?
I don't know, that's a difficult question. I would have been disappointed but I do other things other than music: I do my building work; renovations, property, stuff like that; so I wouldn't be on my face, It's just that I would be very emotional about not doing my music, that's just something that's in me. If I'm playing soccer, if I'm on a building site or anything, I'm humming or singing, that's why people encouraged me to do what I do anyway, from home you can imagine back in the day watching black and white TVs, we had to create our own entertainment and I was pretty much the entertainer of the family.
My sisters wanted me to sing some Michael Jackson or something like that, my brothers would want me to sing some Burning Spirits or Dennis Brown, and my mum would want me to sing some Gospel, my dad would want me to sing some Country and Western or something like that. So I was always into singing and entertaining in some fashion or form. I would be very disappointed if it didn't work.
Coming from such a big family what was the influence on your siblings?
Most definitely, my mum always encouraged me to sing: "Come on, come on son, sing me a Gospel song", then I would change it from how they traditionally sing it and she would sit down in awe and say: "Yes son, I like it, carry on carry on", and I was like: "All right mum that's enough". My sisters then would always encourage me to sing, a lot of R 'n' B stuff, especially the Jackson 5, do you remember that time when they were all over the place? Of course, my brothers would always want me to do the Reggae thing.
I read somewhere that you've had more hits than Bob Marley did in his lifetime, how does that make you feel?
Wow. Damn, how does that make you feel? That's great; it's just that I would have liked it if Bob was still around personally. I would have liked it if he was still around, I would have liked to have been able to share a stage with him, to share a studio session with him, he's been such a motivation and such an encouragement, such a pioneer for us. Of course I feel good about what you said, but I'd prefer it if Bob was around and Dennis Brown was still around.
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About Petrol Records
About Petrol Records
