Don’t ask me ‘cause I did not see.
If you’re wondering why this statement has been popping up in everyday conversation over the past few months look no further than Tyson Crimeson Gibson for your answer.
The 22-year-old’s dancehall track Don’t Ask Me has gone from a Youtube and Facebook hit to a song enjoying regular rotation on local radio stations.
It has also earned him a number of live performances.
Although he released “about ten or eleven songs” between September and December last year it is Don’t Ask Me which has received the most attention.
The song is a first person account of a man who is beaten by police after refusing to cooperate with an investigation.
“I had the beat for a while and I had the chorus in my head from early 2011.
“I can write really good so I just used the stories from people liming on the block,” he said.
Asked whether the song could be seen as discouraging people from cooperating with the police, Crimeson said: “It could happen but the fact of the matter is it’s a reality so I sing about it.”
“To me it’s a social commentary. I’m not encouraging people not to cooperate with the police.”
The management student at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus said his music usually tells a story and is “clever, very catchy and very Bajan”.
His style has been compared to that of Li’l Rick in his early days and the young artist admitted to being a “big fan”.
“I know all of his older songs and Li’l Rick was a story teller. He’s definitely a big influence, probably the only influence,” said the former Lodge School student who records with Renaissance Entertainment and Marketing Concepts.
He advised other emerging artists to take responsibility for promoting their music.
“When I first had Don’t Ask Me . . . I shared that video on people’s [Facebook] page, on people’s walls. I pushed until the right person heard it,” he stressed.
