Christmas, Crop Over, and his birthday are the three times of the year that Biggie Irie loves the most. Of the three, said the entertainer who brought you Pankatang and Get Over last year, Crop Over should happen every day.
“At Crop Over there’s a sense of camaraderie among the artistes in Barbados. I don’t think there’s another country in the Caribbean that has that camaraderie like we do. We get together at this time of the year and do a lot of shows together and it’s a lot of fun.
“There’s not only camaraderie among the artistes but among the people. The past years in Barbados have been really bad – people ain’t had no money, especially last year. People just came together and unite and have a good time. Crop Over is a feel-good season. We all get together and have a good time. We dance, we enjoy the music, we go to the fetes, we drink . . . and I wish it could happen every day,” said Biggie, who was christened Geoffrey Cordle.
So far 2015 has been a busy year, the defending Sweet Soca monarch told EASY.
“It’s been pretty, pretty hectic with a lot of bookings for shows with corporate Barbados after I won. The competition was the Sunday and I left Barbados the following Wednesday for a show in Britain. I was just going and going.
“I got a lot of work, corporate work, and then the year opened with Love, Poetry and Song. I did a lot of shows, a lot of performing, a lot of travelling. I just came back from Atlanta and before that I was in New York . . . . It is ongoing. Winning the competition did a lot for me,” Biggie said.
But his hectic performing schedule isn’t anything he can’t handle. For the last 30 years he has been performing in various locales in Barbados, the region and beyond.
He and Scott Galt (of De Red Boyz fame) performed as a duo, playing on the hotel circuit on the West Coast, some restaurants, at “a lot of corporate performances, a lot of parties, birthday parties”.
“This is all I do. This is what I’ve been doing for the past 30 years and recording. I did the whole circuit: the Warehouse, the Ship Inn, Coach House, Club Maliki, After Dark, the Reggae Lounge, Harbour Lights, Boatyard. All those clubs I performed with the Splash Band, with Spice,” he said.
The entertainment scene has changed a lot in the last 20 years. There are now fewer nightclubs and whereas back in the day he would arrive home around 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning after performing to get back up at 10 a.m. to head to rehearsals, these days, most nights, he is at home by 11 p.m.
“It has really changed a lot. The nightclub scene is basically non-existent and they’re not many bands really any more. I think for me it’s better because I don’t think I could do it now, working and leaving home at 11 every night. I would be weary of that,” the entertainer said with a smile.
With De Big Show set to open on Friday and other performances lined up during Crop Over, Biggie knows how important it is for him to maintain his fitness in order to give the audience a good performance every time he goes on stage.
“Recently I’ve started back eating properly. I’m eating a lot of green stuff. I recently bought a NutriBullet and most of my meals now are juice, like drinking grass,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m trying to eat healthy. Sometimes I dabble in the unhealthy but I’m human and you would eat a fish cake or you would eat a pork chop or greasy food but I’m trying really, really hard to stay on the healthy path because you’re getting older and you want to live as long as you can and you want to stay as healthy as you can
“I want to keep performing and singing and enjoying life as I’ve been accustomed to over the past 30 years. I have not been exercising as I should.
“I’ve got to get back into that as well but I think that Crop Over will be an exercise in itself for me,” he said, adding he is not entering the Party Monarch but the Pic-O-De Crop competition, in addition to defending his title.
His groovy songs Sweet Type Of Way, written by Shaft Vibes, and My Island, are already getting heavy rotation on the radio stations but you’ll have to go the tent to hear his social commentaries.
Reflecting on years past, he said that Need A Riddim is an “amazing song”.
“I love a lot of melody and minor chords in my songs. I was really excited about Need A Riddim.
“I wasn’t as excited about Pankatang actually. People took to Pankatang more than Need A Riddim from the beginning. From the time they heard it people loved it. With me it was vice versa.
“From the time I heard Need A Riddim I loved it. Usually, when you’re recording a song you tend to like it, but Pankatang grew on me when it was done and playing on the radio a lot. I was sold on Get Over. To me it is an amazing song, a lot of people love it and I love it,” he said.
Biggie said he expected the criticism he received and continues to about the song he sang with Imani.
“Music is universal and you have the purists that will say it’s not calypso. You’ll have the people that will say I should never have made it to the semi-finals. They would say I should not have entered with it but it’s music and people have to realise that music is changing. It can’t stay the same way all the time.
Biggie is excited about performing at Soca Royale, “despite the fact that I spend most of the time backstage. Again, the artistes’ camaraderie backstage for Soca Royale is amazing. Although we’re competing against each other, we’re all together and that shows when we come out on stage for the results. There’s no animosity among the artistes.
“We’re all there to make sure that the people who come have a good time . . . . I don’t think any of the artistes are upset at the winner or anything like that,” he said.
As the interview came to an end, he started to sing the lyrics from Pankatang:
“I tink deh, inject meh liver, bury it in meh soul, ’cause no matter day or hour, I always in soca mode. Yes deh inject me liver, ’cause no matter day or hour . . . ”. (Green Bananas Media)
