Fully charged

Ever since he charged up the local party scene with his Vincy Mas’ hit for 2010, soca lovers region-wide want to get the skinny on the artiste. Firstly, he is the hat-trick winner of St Vincent’s Party Monarch competition, having won with Head Bad in 2008, then De Beast Leh Go in 2009, and last weekend with Charge Up. Many of his fans and associates know Gamal Skinny Fabulous-The Boom Doyle for his heavy dancehall influence. The “Boom” attached to his sobriquet immediately conjures up all the qualities that make Skinny such a fabulous performer to watch.Pace-loving soca connoisseurs simply went gaga during the week over clips that appeared on youtube.com of his riveting crown defence, complete with oversized white bunnies playfully mocking the Duracell battery commercial. How did he manage to pull it off for the third year in a row?“The key for me was, I was trying to outdo myself without paying attention to the competition. I’ve developed a habit of competing with myself and that’s not in any arrogant way but I always try to be better than I was the previous year. Each year it becomes more challenging than the previous year.“This year I wanted the performance to be humorous and at the same time adventurous; hence, I went for Duracell mascots,” he told the SUNDAY SUN this week, also expressing uncertainty about whether he would defend the crown for a fourth year. He attributes his success to his Barbadian management team Pyramid Entertainment as well as his home team in St Vincent. And to think it all started with a little poem he composed at secondary school that turned into his first performance poetry session.“I started beating on the tables and chanting my little poem about wanting to become a pilot and the whole class went mad,” he said, laughing hoarsely, a reminder that he was recovering from laryngitis and playing on the truck during the carnival parade. “Skinny was slated to perform with the Berger Boyz two weeks ago but had to cancel the event because he was having problems with his voice.From his school days Skinny had been a huge fan of Jamaican dancehall heavyweight Rodney Price aka Bounty Killa, whose gruff, booming baritone influences are part of what makes Skinny stand out among others in the region who tend towards the heavy chanting deejay style over soca rhythms.That he started his career as an entertainer in the genre comes as no surprise.“Admittedly, I was a dancehall man from the beginning who eventually got into soca over the years,” he said, much like Barbados’ Kid Site, Li’l Rick and Peter Ram. But geographical location heavily influenced the direction his music would take over time, he said, recalling his earlier years when he opened for Price and Beenie Man at stage shows in St Vincent. “Your territory defines what is expected of you. And eventually you’re going to find yourself giving in to those expectations. But for me I managed to hold on [to] the elements of dancehall in my soca, but it was a better career decision for me to cross over full-fledged into soca,” he said. Fell in loveAlthough it was initially a business decision, he quickly fell in love with the genre once he understood how to stay true to his own creative persona. At first he had been drawn to representations of the gritty hard knocks life present in reggae and dancehall, elements which are not present in contemporary soca, he indicated, saying that in fact it was the contrary.Making the distinction, he said: “Soca is about euphoria and release, not pensive. Soca music is not supposed to take you there. It is supposed to make you forget about the bills you have to pay.”He won the award for St Vincent & The Grenadines’ Entertainer Of The Year, was the first runner-up in the OECS Soca Monarch Competition, and was adjudged Best New Male Artiste at the Soca Music Awards. In 2009 he placed fifth at the International Soca Monarch Competition but gained the top prize for presentation. Skinny has also collaborated with an eclectic range of artistes, including Vincy’s own Jamesy P and recording sensation Kevin Lyttle, Trinidad and Tobago’s Machel Montano (who performed on the remix of Charge Up) Bunji Garlin and Faye Anne Lyons, Barbados’ Peter Ram and Kimberley Inniss, Guyana’s Tameka Marshall, Europe’s Matter Fix among others, and admits having learnt valuable lessons in recording and performing from each. But he also believes he has something to pass on in terms of good energy hype.While there are not many fêtes for Vincy Mas’, Skinny felt that the few that existed had a uniqueness about them as, according to him, Vincentians partied with an aggressive abandonment that did not exist in Barbados and Trinidad. “I’ll show you all how we do it for Vincy Mas’,” he said, vowing good-naturedly to teach Bajans a thing or two about partying when he performs next week at the Plantation Garden Theatre as he starts his international tour.