There is a line in the infectious Survive The Weekend that goes, “They know meh name/Been doing this thing from young” which is a true statement in regards to Damian Marvay who has been knocking around the entertainment scene for years.
The 33-year-old (soon to be 34 in November) singer’s name has been on everyone’s lips since the start of the Crop Over season.
While he was disappointed in not overcoming a hurdle by making it to the Sweet Soca finals, he said the outcome has made him more stronger.
His foray into the music business all started in 2002.
“I was studying at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) and had some songs on my laptop recorded. Some friends heard them and it went from Jude The Dude Eastmond hearing it, to it being played for Chris Allman in his studio. He called me and tell me come so the first set of stuff I recorded was some sorta soca-fusion ting from 2002 to 2005 with him.
“In that time Rupee did his album there for Atlantic Records so I did all the backgrounds on that and that is what really sparked my interest in it.”
He needed something to pay the bills as music wasn’t cutting the big cheques so he finished his FIT degree (aviation science), returned to Barbados, then moved to New York for awhile to figure out what to do.
“I wanted to perfect my craft so I started to teach myself voice training and then went on to teach voice training classes. One day I got a call from Shane Free in Barbados who told me he needed a lead singer for a reggae band. I said cool.”
He came back home, he told EASY magazine joining the band Red Alarm (with Buggy Nhakente) for about two years. It was founded by then manager Kirk Browne who wanted another band to go along with his other band, Strategy.
Many small gigs led to bigger gigs and his “long locs” phase.
“This was where I found my voice. Singing loud to loud instruments.
He did a lot of growing up and the locs went in 2009 while he was in New York, making a baby boy (now eight years old) in the process.
“I cut all the locs one day. I got a lot of negative feedback from that. To be honest it was time to go. The typical stereotype affixed to it I was slowly becoming tired of that. And I was becoming too attached to it. Everything goes down with wearing the locs – even the clothes you wear. I was afraid at first to cut them so I went shoulder length, then nape length, then one day in New York in front a mirror I cut all, going bald.”
Fast forward to a break-up with the mum of his son and he is back in Barbados, trying to find his footing. He can be heard as background vocalist on Fadda Fox’s Ducking, Bunji Garlin’s Red Light District, and a couple of Farmer Nappy’s hits, among others.
He was also singing at funerals (as a favour to friends) and weddings (“it was a way to make money”) as he had to support his family. He did a couple of showcases and advertising jingles.
“To be honest the only way to make money and call yourself anything in Barbados is to do 50 different things.”
All that hard work has led to him learning the piano to help him with songwriting and production in the studio (collaborating with Simon Pipe, Shontelle and Jaicko and others).
In December 2014 he was called into Red Boyz (Mike Hulsmeier and Scott Galt) studio with manager Katrina Chandler as a backing vocalist for a Farmer Nappy track. He said that when he finished the track he was so caught up in the vibes that he said to himself, “I want one of these”.
Sending out positive energy, he was happy when Scott Galt called him in January.
“He wanted to have a meeting. He said we have a void we think you can fill. I was in shock. I asked, ‘Me’? about a couple of times. I went and they said they want to make me the next Machel.
“I let them know from that meeting that I was ready . . . . Don’t wait on me to write any songs as I am still rusty with the soca writing. I said, ‘look in the inbox and give me something juicy’,” he said, laughing.
Two weeks later the call came. The “juicy song” was Survive The Weekend, written by a couple of guys from the Cayman Islands called The Seventh Sign.
The song fit him like a glove: “The intro was mine, but I had to tweak it and personalise it . They have a heavy twang in it. More than what people tell me they heard already. The song didn’t have a name at the time and I wanted to call it Challenge. Mikey is a stage guru and said Survive The Weekend and we said OK.”
The name felt perfect too. He said the name change to just Marvay was because of the song and he learnt it in two days of two three-hour sessions.
“Mikey said you should go as Marvay. I said I was thinking that. I trust them. They are like big uncles and brothers. They convince me to let the track get released early so people would get familiar with it.’
He said the first time he performed the song he was extremely nervous.
“In a reggae band you have many voices blending. But in soca as a solo is just you and it is a faster BPM and you have to dance too.”
Speaking of dance, he said the first time he performed the song by the chorus he was out of breath.
“That jumped me. Katrina forced me to do exercises while singing after. I started to get better each performance. I started to pace myself. How to breath and move.”
EASY takes you back to the fateful July 3, 2015 and Marvay was ready for what he expected to be a life-changing event. It was what he has been preparing for the majority of his existence.
It was the Sweet Soca semi-finals being held at Kensington Oval as part of the Crop Over Sweetest Summer Festival under the auspicies of the National Cultural Foundation
Marvay was performing at No. 13 and per the rules was checked in. Finding a spot to sit and relax, he was then told by Katrina she had to rush back home.
“My song is about Crop Over and the fetes held on the weekends. Some people party from Friday to Sunday straight from fetes to parties to limes. The first two lines of the song are ‘12 parties straight/ Three days before the feting between her and Marvay, she decided to go back home for them. Promising Marvay she will be back in time, even though he said he didn’t need them.
Going home saw Katrina walking into a burglary in process, with her young son in the house with the nanny.
“At the time I didn’t know that. All I know I was panicking and calling her phone and she wasn’t picking up.
A distraught Katrina returned to the Oval screaming, with her son in her arms.
“When she told me then about the battempted break-in, it threw me off my game. I started to crumble. And I couldn’t pull together myself. I was confused at the time. With me then hearing all the drama I got an anxiety attack. People don’t know this but I suffer horribly from anxiety.”
By the time he pulled himself together his time slot had passed and Red Plastic Bag, Imani and Edwin performed while the whispers started to increase on what possibly could have happened to Damian.
“That night was the worst. Major humbling experience. I was on a pedestal already (former headboy at Luther Thorne and Harrison College). I felt that moment was to humble myself and let people know that I am a normal person. It was very obvious to me that I couldn’t keep walking around like I was sturdy.”
He did get to perform but as the last man, lost part of his peformance fee, and he didn’t make it to the finals.
He heard the names of the finalists in the car going home.
“I heard all the names except mine. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be there but I was still hoping. The next day I woke up and I wanted to cry. I wanted to run far into a corner and cry. I felt that I had disappointed a lot of people. One friend asked me if I was on drugs that night.”
Marvay said he went to perform that night at De Big Show tent. And it wasn’t easy.
“A lot of people came to me that night to ask what went wrong. I went to perform with a plan – in how I was going to dress, how the music was going to be done. The people loved it and the doubts I had about stopping was gone.
“I took every performance after that as an opportunity to try to erase the Sweet Soca semi-finals.”
One chance he got was the finals of Soca Royale at Bushy Park.
“To tell no lie I was a bit offset, heartbroken in fact at the venue. It could have been me up there as a competitor. But I was still proud as they didn’t have to call me to come and perform so it meant the song still has some purpose.
“I was walking around backstage and wanted to be one of the guys in the competition. My family was there and I wanted to make them proud but I did my thing on stage and went and watched the other guys perform.”
The song still has legs and he has travelled to Toronto, St Vincent, St Lucia and other islands to perform the song. He will be in Dominica in the next two weeks to perform at a fundraiser for the storm-hit country.
He has an album on the back-burner with Simon Pipe. It is very different, “eclectic” as he calls it. It was done during the time of both of them being new fathers going through a lot of “depression type stuff at the time and it came through in what we were singing.”
He is also looking forward to doing some island hopping and getting a work visa to go to the United States.
“I am looking forward to performing at Mahalia’s Corner [tonight]. I have come full circle as one of the supporting acts previously to now being one of the headliners along with Hal Linton.
“I am extremely happy to let fans come to show me all the love they have been showing me since the past couple months.”
Marvay has now teamed up with Farmer Nappy, happy to be taken under his wings.
“I know he sees me as a little upstart, but I know I can be moulded. I have a big drive and I can think he sees that. I am very humble and will continue to be humble.”
He will be part of Trinidad Carnival next year – and all that he is doing now is all about higher heights progression.