Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to Art of the Nation, the podcast with the artists around Barbados. For the artists in you, today on our show, we have a special guest, but of course, all of our guests are very special.
This one, his name is Ruby Tech. Someone you may know. He's an artist, both visual and audibly inclined. Ruby Tech is one of Barbados's treasures. And through this episode, we're going to be talking with them a little bit more about what he does. And you don't have to just hear it from me. You can hear it from him because he's right here with us. Welcome.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Thank you for being a part of the Art of the Nation.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: So first of all, for the people, tell us who you are in just 60 seconds.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: In just 60 seconds.
First off, we're trying to get a voice like Horse, right? Because, my God, serious Mike presence right now. But who is Rubytech? Ruby Tech is an artist first. Visual artist first. I mean, drawing. Sent single digits, leaned into poetry, from poetry, it turned into songwriting, songwriting.
Linked up with another artist, formed a group.
Group with shelf. How to take care of my Father and had shut that down. Met this guy near San Rock, got better at freestyling, Took over Barbados for a little bit, was aiming for the world, still aiming for the world.
And basically finding the. The rhythm and the cohesiveness between the visual and the audio around and believing that there is a purpose for myself that is a positive to the world.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: That's. That's fantastic. We don't even need 60 seconds, but I got it all cleared on.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: All right.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: There's so many names you mentioned there. Like Sunrot. That's the guy I remember from a very young age. I said something before I was like, doing this podcast is kind of like a full circle moment for me.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Because when I was just a young boy thinking of wanting to be in this media space, I would often go to open mics when I was at the Hilton. I remember you did one. There was one at Pirates in for a time.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Bump and Wine.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Playwright. And you was. You was really with it.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: I was really with it, like, everywhere it was. No matter how many, like, times it changed venue, I was there and I was watching you freestyle.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Sunrock, right?
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Minister D.J. simmons.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Davy Ellis sometimes would pop in.
S S.
I remember the word. Like Mahalia was also playing, like Bump and White. Mahalia's Corner.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Actually, my chat grew of it's.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: It's like the. A realm that I was in from very young and now to be here and speaking with the people who were the architects of that.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Is fantastic. We're talking about back then. We want to know about now. What are you up to these days?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Lord, boy.
You know, it's a funny question when people see me on the street and ask me, so what's going on? I said, I cool, man. You know, got stuff. Plotting, planning, scheming. That's. That's my mantra.
Planning, scheming. And I usually say that because for me to detail everything that I'm into, it could sound like.
I know people speak assertively, but me as a humble person who likes to encompass team effort and that sort of stuff, I find it sound a little bit braggish. So I don't say. I just said flaunting, planning, scheming. But recently we've been involved in movie making. Myself Jonathan Temple. We have a movie and a series called Camouflage.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yes, I did like a few interviews with Jonathan.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: All right. So I'm one of the. At least until they kill me off.
One of my characters in it playing the undercover car.
And we're supposed to Recommend Shooting early 2026. So right now he got me in boot camp trying to get in shape, trying to get abs of steel and all this sort of stuff.
So that there's that.
Which I also want to explore more of it because shooting music videos from the time I was in my 20s, you. You do play a part. Yeah, right. Is. Is you sell the song.
You sell the. The material through your performance in front of a camera. So it's like you could just get broken up with your girlfriend, but you got a song name, Happy as the Sun Rising or something like that. It's like many cameras off.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: But anyway, man, say, look, Ruby, we don't want that in front here. You got to come is a level of acting. It comes from a real place, but you need to. You need to market it. So that's. As I said, that's another realm of being an art artist that you want to explore music wise.
Last year we took it a little bit more into the soccer arena and we was getting.
I would say I was getting good feedback. We. We were the material. I think actually for the last four years we've been in association. So association with Stabby the guard. Well, Stabby had a security now because he ain't got anymore if he had the security.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Stabby head.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, man. But Stabby had believe in my ability to do soccer for a long time because, you know, I came up in the household of Winston Jordan. So all the soccer artists used to be passing through of that time.
And it's second nature to me. Like crop over the Beijing diaspora, calypso social commentary, all that. Because we used to be building the props for them actually doing the T shirts, headgear, whether the props were standing three dimensional or actually body worn costuming type props, we were doing it. So it's always been there. It's just as a person who was well read from young, I found that I had. I was intrigued by the lyricism of hip hop and then the visual marketing of it being introduced into the 90s. It captivated me. So I had lean more to it. But I never disregarded had always late artists from barbell such as Infiller, number three, Red Plastic Bike, Bumba and then across the sea Sugar Aloes. Crazy.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: You know you also had a music video like Paint on my shoe. Little Rick.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: As well.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And Laura has me because on the law school bus you go to school every time.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: It's a part of the culture, man.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we grew up. We grew up.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: He was, he was a legend. I mean still is, but like growing up back in the day when he was, you know, in his prime. If Rick.
No, still in his prime.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, he's still in his prime.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: He was like emerging, you know, he was like getting his powers.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Like if Rick put out a song, it was like their new release, you know, everybody was singing the songs, whatever dances. Everybody was following everything he did.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: So I. I do get that.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And why said he's still in prime. Not in a joking way when they say that.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Because he hasn't lost a step.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: No, Lil Rick, I think Lil Rick has white paid homage to him. Because that actually came from a discussion about Lil Rick. Like I remember, you know, first form, second form, Hard Wayne and then start songs and it was like people were shelling down on the school bus today. You got, you got your little boom box there, man. Get on back till we get school. And it was like, yo, there's some fun memories. And it's like. But. Yeah, but little Rick still putting out hits. Like, I think like Rick was written around.
I didn't give I a. Give a what it takes. And I was like, that was 2019 or 20, around that sort of time. And it was like, well, from the 90s up to now, you still putting out relevant.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Because every.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Every, every year, like whatever he puts out is like a mainstay wherever you go.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So what happened is I have a so well associate.
She used to work at Black Entertainment Television. Then she went on to BBC a lady called Sharon Carpenter. So her, myself, Billy, we were jumping with creative that year. And when he dropped that song, song, you see the pandemonium on the street. Yo. Yeah, you know, you know we was doing in effects, but the pandemonium of it on the street, I was like to have that, that visceral impact after two decades, it's crazy. Like in my head. No, after crop over, I written this song. Yeah. So he wrote the song. I actually sent it to Rick Turner. I think I may still have a screenshot of me saying. But you say it got potential. I was looking for your physic somewhere.
Got potential. So it's like knowing Rick as a. As a quiet dude off camera and in person, it's like, yeah, yeah. And you know, we did the video. Video was done really helping the ncf. But so. Right. So that's Rick and that's our stuff. So music wise, we working with Alicia Joseph for a long time. Alicia Joseph being architect behind mixing, mixing and mastering. Like I know they work for Jaco Cover Drive, which is a minor refund there.
He would have also been heavily involved in a. In a lot of the international market doing mixing front to house mixing, live mixes. So he was working with Asat, Rocky J. Cole, Ice Cube, Uzi Vert, up to recently Ariana Grande, Willow Smith. So he's being our main chef in the kitchen in terms of when we bring the music to him, he mixes it how it needs to be mixed and mastered. And that had resulted and like I had an initial boom of the Ruby Tech after watch that would take a real long time, but there was a boom.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Can you condense it?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a boom in. In 0607 when freestyle battles and. And at the different venues was going on. Went on to win some.
Actually won a couple from that. It snowballed into putting your music on radio again after that touring, being featured in Double XL alongside Drake and then the next year reaching United States to do tours out there south by Southwest. And then it kind of, I don't want to say employed as family situations that's going on here because simultaneously as I was ascending, my father's health was declining and likewise his mother, after he passed, she took a decline as well. So that my grandmother raised me. Two of them surrounded me. So I had to.
I felt inclined to, while he was in his decline, take care of him. And same with my grandmother to death.
So people would be like, you seeing. Hearing Ruby Tech 07 to 011, you're hearing Ruby, all about your place. But it's like I think it started to take a toll on me, like having to play a multitasking role because I was not full time artist, but I was doing full time artist things. So around the clock, still giving care to one person until death, which my father died in December 2007, my grandmother died in and already beginning 2011, 2012.
So you're still working, you're still doing music and you're still taking care of these people. So I think after a while I had to run into the wilderness. I kind of refined myself, but I was still doing music and never actually stopped doing music because it itself is art.
And I find like if I had stopped drawing, I would develop something like a fair white paper where the picture that I draw in my mind is so. It's so clear. But you want to replicate it exactly, because I draw in my first right. And then I want to replicate it on a piece of paper or canvas or what's not. And then if it does not replicate the quality that I see in my mind, I get disillusioned with it and just stop. But I realized you call it the.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Fear of a white paper.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah, if you're a white paper. And there, there is a such a thing. I don't know if that's the exact name for it, but is some. Some people just know that what they can do versus what they are doing is chalk and cheese. And therefore they step back. It's trying to get to this place where I can be and I can do the output. But sometimes you just have to draw. Even when you crap this come, you just gotta keep drawing. Even when you crap this come, you just gotta keep writing music and that sort of stuff. So for me, I've never stopped, you know, but I still realize, no, at my age that you do need room as an artist to create. Not necessarily to say that everything come out will be a masterpiece.
Neo was here sometime ago, a couple good couple years back when he performed. And the article he had, I think was Willie Nation too. He said you could double check if. If it was with Ignition.
And he said that every song will not be a hit song.
But the thing that you want to subscribe to is quality.
So that quality, you know, your fans find quality within songs. You might have 10 songs and you believe that two hits, the ones that you fans like and even the ones that you believe is his, but their fine quality is like, yo, I can't fault this guy or this girl, whoever is the artist in what they're they're doing.
So as I said recently, is the music still there, the art still there? And even when I put up my. Even before my first project, Billy King Kid, when it was a group myself as Ruby Tech, Billy King Kid was then called Caliber. But because I could not multitask everything, he said, well look, is it, is it all right? I could take me and Billy King Kid. I said cool. But it was doing the artwork for the group. So all the promotional singles, as long as it was involving some type of design, character illustration, it was me. So when I put out my first album, which we call a mixed step, but all the songs except two were original beats.
The artwork was by me too. The interior, the exterior.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: And this is because you've been like you said, you've been drawing since you were like three years old.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Cuz we tell us just a bit about how that began because we know you as a musician, right. But as you said, like there's a lot, whole lot of things that encompass who you are and who you are as a creator. So just want to learn a bit about your art because you know, you make your music, you do the artwork. How did that side of Ruby, the artist. How did. What was the genesis of that?
[00:15:35] Speaker B: From the. The visual side?
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Yeah. As you as a visual artist, how did that begin?
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Well, I grew up with what I refer to as a master artist. My father was a master artist. Not because I am his son, I'm the last of his children. Is crop over.
Guy was saying when he was at BCC there was a art tutor there and he did not like the guys art. But when he got older and he, he went in different doctor offices and business places, he saw the guys art and he came to appreciate it then. So score and perspective also comes into play. So I did not know it was living with a master artist. I just saw him as my father and who would give me money and sent me school and tell me bringing good grades and that sort of stuff that does art and produce costuming. But as I started again to my teens and I was exposed to more like it even challenged, my father said, look, by 14 years old you can beat you in art.
You're done, you're done. Brother over for you, you know.
And I never got better than my father because his exposure to a plethora of different art influences, he was always challenging himself to be better. So it's almost like you see a book. Yeah. Hey, start for you. You'll never catch it. Yeah, all right. But that encouraged Me by living within the same residence as him to explore more. And my father never confined me from trying different types of art style. Furthermore, I had.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Sorry, man. The garbage disposal in the background. But. Yeah, you can go ahead.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. My.
Something that the spirit stopped.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: But that's your dad telling you, you're still not better than me.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so true. But every on weekends he would give me a little allowance and tell me, you know, I know you like comic books. Don't buy some.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: All right, we got to talk about that. Yeah, go on.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I got. I got a heavy. A heavy collection which I have to re. Up the. I mean, I can't Any image years. The image, the valiant ears and that sort of stuff. So everything from Jim Lee Will Spartac, the master. Yeah.
Todd McFarlane got spawn number one. World cats number one. Straightforward. Number one.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Those were especially like during, like the 90s, early 2000s. Those were the books because, like, people were moving away from the Marvels and the DCs and like, image was just popping up. Like, these are new ideas.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: New things to explore with. And it was just like a beautiful time for.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Yeah, man. I also felt fresh because, like.
Right. So with the artistry. So me reading these comments help influence part of my art style. So it generally was my biggest influence. But I did not want to draw, like, generally. One thing that my father had always taught me is like, you could use these things as influences, but always have your own style. Exactly right. So I. I do a Barbadian style, but I have the ability to do a more North American style. They used to do a lot more often. But you do not want to be lost in a sea of art that looks like that. Like, he. He even explained to me about Calvin and Hobbes. And I was asking. Calvin and Hobbes actually had Space man Spiff.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Space Man Spiff.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. So they would come from.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: People used to like jokers. Like space man split.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Exactly. But, you know, they used to come from. It's very comical, simple style of art. And then when Space mask was.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: It was just very like, detailed.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it was like. I asked him like that. Who. Who doing this? Two different artists, same artist. But he was like, for you to draw simple and jokey at times, you have to first know the principles, the basics of art.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: So you're able to break it down into your own style, condense it and then build it back up. So I was like, yo, that is so wicked. Because you can do two styles of art. Yeah. Most People I know could not. They could not differentiate or, or change their style of art.
It would usually be Wincy's way to get precisely right.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: So I want to, I want to talk. You talk about like, you seem like someone that, you know, you indulge a lot in art and a lot of the things that you indulge in like, moved you throughout the years. So what would you say were like, your artistic influences? Both like, you know, visual and, and musically as well.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Visual is everything from movies to artists.
Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, James Cameroon. They played a heavy part on shipping in terms of art, framing and composition.
Because for you to create movie scenes that are engaging to the eye, you need to compose it in a way that, that captures the imagination and is a mixture of being out of this world but also being grounded in reality. So this shit, if I had to draw a comic book frame, I approach it from a director frame or illustration frame. I need the best composition possible musically.
Coming out in 90s, Nas, JZ, Lost Boys, Wu Tang Clan, Biggie, any other people.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Which is like a, A spoiled period really. If you were growing up and listening to rap at that time. Yeah, like almost. You look at the rap slate of like, albums that came out in 1994 alone, like almost like five of them are just straight up classics, like eternal classics.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they are.
Yeah.
I know around that time you had Ready to Die, you had Nas Ilmatic.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think like Tribe Called Quest, Tribe Called Quest.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: I.
I like Tri Core Quest. I grew to like them more. Yeah, I find that that was a little too, too chill for me because growing up, my early influences was rock music.
So I was listening to Motley Crue and Megadeth and Def Leppard and this.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: People, which is a lot more like, you know, high energy.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very, very high energy. But as I said, grew to. To appreciate a TRICO class, especially QTech, fight dog groups like Far side, A lot of left. The left course people.
Yeah, man. So.
And then my father was. Was one of my biggest influences when I got to BCC in the early 2000s. Then I realized that, all right, being exposed to a multitude of artists, right? Visual artists from, as I said, like Joe Cassetta, Todd McFarlane. But then you also have influences in movies, the actors, the Al Pacinos, the Keanu reeves. Keanu Reeves. 1994 was. Would be speed.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so yeah, yeah, I recently saw that the other day.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: How was it for you?
[00:22:51] Speaker A: I think it's still like. It still stands the test of time.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah, because.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Because it was just such a. One of those real we're going to the movies kind of film.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: We're having a good time.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: But the charm of the characters also just draws you into like, it's like a whole comprehensive movie experience.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a beautiful movie.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Funny enough, a cinematographer directed that. John. Yeah, John. The is French, I think. Jean Dubont, B O N T.
But as a, as a, as a teenager, that, that kept me going back to the cinema. It was two or three times. I mean, it wasn't 12 hours 11. Something wrong. And just the, the, the, the, the type of story and it didn't have gun use or anything like that. It was marketed as a, as a.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Movie that was always like, it, it was always moving because there was a plot of it. The car is moving, but it just never stopped.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: And this is an incredible concept. What is a movie where like the action never stops?
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: It just keeps going. But you kind of still got to find a way to like, find your wits throughout this constant motion. True, beautiful, beautiful.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: And the aspect ratio that the movie was shot into, I think the. Him being the director, being a cinematographer again, it's come back to framing.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Now, when I look back at James Cameron films, I saw Terminator one last. I only saw that in recent years, but I saw Terminator 2 first because that would have come up when, you know, he's a boy in your time. Terminator 1 was, I think 80, 82. 83. Somewhere around there, I think.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. 82. Because Terminator. Terminator 2 was 84.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: You mean Terminator 2. Yeah, it was Terminator 2 was, was 91. 92.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: I think Terminator 1 may be in 84.
Maybe 84.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Right. But I wasn't yo baby name interested in it. But the framing aspect of utilizing that frame on screen.
Cameron had it. The same guy in Speed had it.
They said that the. All spaghetti Westerns.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: That Clint Eastwood would have, would have been Sergio Leon, they call them spaghetti Westerns. And I'll tell you a few dollars more, Good, Bad and Ugly. They use a different aspect ratio where it almost looked like the characters were bigger and larger than life.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: But still within the frame that you could see everything and it was cohesive.
And that's the type of art that I actually want to represent, even musically, because music.
The thing about speed is that speed got a wicked soundtrack. The person who scored the movie, the visual pumping, the score pumping, and you just like, yo, wow. Then he upped the auntie when he started in Matrix.
And it's like I remember leaving the cinema on Matrix and I tell people, any movie that you know is good, it replicates the Matrix. After the post movie, when you leave the cinema, the most chatter in a favorable way lets you know that people will repeat watch. So it's not like Batman versus Superman when it was a funeral procession after the movie and then we left it.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: And people say, you know what? You didn't know what to say about what you saw because it was just like. It felt just like lacking inspiration, lacking creativity.
I think that I put like, Matrix still remains one of the most influential movies. Like, as a sign of the turn of the millennium. Yeah. Not just the cinematography technology, but the kind of stories you told with it.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it changed the game.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yes, it did. And it. The discussion of. For me, I usually tell people, you know, do your own research, don't just take my word for it. But for me, looking at the success of the tree, the three Matrix movies, they pull together. Something I replicate musically and it's something I replicate with my art projects is that looking for the. Within my team, even if it's outside of my team, I have to go if I, if I can't get it in my team. But the thing is, my team is sharpshooters. Everybody. Sharpshooters, right? These like, yo, these men real hard.
So when I pull them together, we are aiming to get the best outcome possible right now. The names that were involved with Matrix movies, Young War Pain, the Wachowski brothers. Well, at the time, Brothers, you had the Chad Stalaski, David Leach, who went on to do John Wick and Atomic Blonde.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You start to see the connection.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: You see connection. So when you have a product that is that impactful and you hear the names, Yu Warping was the guy who was doing the hype, the Chinese action choreography for years from Shaw Brothers. So when you see these guys come, come together in this type of cohesive synergy vision to get this outcome, it's like, yo, this is where it works. So this way, Matrix 4 didn't work because you brought about one person.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: You didn't have the.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yeah, you didn't have.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: The cooks were different.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah, you didn't, you didn't have it. So it's like that's. That's what you feel. That's why LeBron knows, like, even though he gave flack and things, he's not without fault. He got your faults. He might put your finger too much in a managerial position where he's a player still. But apparently Jordan did the same thing too.
You know that you need these pieces of this board to be impactful and to be, to be overall successful. So if I don't have these, these, these parts, I can always be missing something. So for me I needed Elysias Joseph to mix and master the music because we used to use Minim before. Minim was on the first project and is a. A class mix and mastering. But Minim have become so notorious for his quality that everybody in Barbas were using them at that time. You could not have the same access to as the early times as with him.
So I, I look for the next best thing and I found this guy that was working with outside of bar and inside of bar simultaneously.
And through that we, the music started to climb back because we had the initial claim, then the decline, then you know, the reemergence and it, it, it took time because we were independent, always being independent and CF would have came along later and you know, and put some funds after. But when we started over six myself, management was just us putting together and reinvesting in the project.
And after management left, it was just me investing and then you know, Elysias and them and the guys coming together, co writing, sharing ideas, saying they don't like this, they don't like that.
And we got to a point where I got back to United States in 2018, 2019, doing shows out there again.
And it was a funny thing, reaching for the stars and always getting a little setback, which I, I'm not calling it, but so far it has happened, you know, because if you are featured in XXL alongside Drip Serani, oh JD Smart. This was the up and coming rappers at that time. So you in there right on CMPs, you know, like says like, yo, we going. Yeah, you know, you're touring the Caribbean, we going, you hit the us, you're touring, we going, you got that motion and then you got this decline. Yeah. So then we climb back.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: How do you, how do you go from that peak to the end of the decline? How do you process that?
[00:30:35] Speaker B: I still be processing it, but I also know like sometimes I, I become a bit too immersed in stories. Like I'm a, what is called it, a voracious. Like I read a lot so I can get lost in reading too much. Like I gotta stop myself. And I realized that everyone in almost everyone in life has a Phoenix moment, you understand? Like from the ashes, everyone will make an ascension. In the beginning or the middle, they can crash and burn. And then you come back out. Keanu Reeves Was once one of the worst deals in Hollywood. People will not. Would not want to invest in a movie in him.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: At the same time, with Robert Downey Jr.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: He was facing a tree. Strike me. He was like, yo, you keep. You come back in front of me a third time. You know, you get in prison and then, you know, a couple powerful friends and I would say true friends vouch for him and say, look, we can get this man on, on track. Give him one more chance. And that was. And from then I remind and the whole global.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Global superstar.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Right?
[00:31:43] Speaker A: So I know. Yeah, I know it's like you have that fetus moment is like your story is not yet written.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: But your story was like. Because I will call back to those early days of like open mic. But even like looking through the archives preparing for this interview, I saw, you know, clips of you from 2007.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Like rapping on a stage in front of the Buzz magazine.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah. How.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: How has your craft evolved over the years? I mean, were you like Ruby Tech? You know, Ruby the artist, Winslow Jordan the artist. And you became Ruby Tech the musician. And how. How have you evolved over the years?
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Evolve?
I think I got stronger with effort.
Stronger effort is definitely necessary. Also witnessing again when they use the matrix as a metaphor. When I look at the initial success of what caused the three matrices to be legendary is the same thing that caused my early projects to be legendary. It wasn't just me. I remember being in the studio and us writing, rapping, singing songs. As soon as we would get, you know, people who just there because they attach another person and by the end of the session they're singing the song. So you realize that yo, people who might not be musically inclined do have a real say in where your music goes. So it tests songs more now. I would send them out to people, you know, some who are musicians, some who are not.
And I always. Then I'm getting feedback. So my. My evolution is constant, encompassing most factors for the end result to happen.
Also learning new technologies. During COVID I learned how to utilize Google AdWords better.
Well, yeah, you utilize it better so it was able to promote the videos better.
I remember you learning hyperlink smart URLs when it was a thing.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: So I had had to, you know, the tutorials there even to sing better. You was doing a lot of vocal tutorials online.
But after Corvid, everything kicked into her year. Corvid to me as an artist was like, it was a negative for the world.
But for artists and people who looking to learn and Reinvent themselves or either increase the capacity under which there were invested in a discipline. It was a lot of free time for you to really enhance yourself.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: It was when the world, I guess, really saw the importance of creators.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Because all of a sudden now like with the usual like grind and bustle that we had that gone.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Like we turned a lot more to the entertainment. You turn a lot more into art.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: And then like people such as yourself who create these things, like we began to appreciate.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Who you were then, so. Well, yeah. Because you can continue to tell us what that was.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Funny enough, I was doing, I was doing both, but I was actually working at.
They had something called a care package.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: I was working at one of the centers because even though entertainment, I, I, I have a, a love, not hate, but I love a question of relationship with entertainment and the importance of it. Like know that is important for life. Like music, drums, paintings from Paleolithic man has always been used to tell stories and, and share content. So I know there's importance of these.
But I felt at that time like when I was looking around at people going through a lot of phases, emotional breakdowns, depressions, talking to police officers, and they were telling us that there was like they wasn't just solving one domestic issue a day, they were solving several. So I was like, how do I not just be behind this camera and just posting videos of me singing or rapping or being funny, but making real change?
And it so happens that I was given an opportunity to work at one of the centers and I got involved. So the duration at that time, that's what I was doing. But I felt content to do it and to see people pulling, pulling together like one. It was a coping mechanism because no one had been shut in like that ever. Like the lockdowns.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: That forced people to be in households together that were not used to being the household together.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: You couldn't even go out and just escape if you wanted to.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So the, the care centers were some form of escapism. But I also saw that it was a measuring stick for the level of unity and unison that people had within themselves. So people really pulled together. You, it's a semi lane that you were working. So you at one end and you, you might be packing a particular thing and then destroying boxes, assembling boxes, but you know, whatever food stuff. And then you helping load the tractors and the containers and the trucks and all sort of stuff. So it was real good, man. And that for me, I believe all this is interconnected.
So that Would go back into my artistry. Because you want your team to feel like.
And the vocal and the voice box is the face. But then no fierce without y'. All.
Right. So I always utilize those. I'm not in a way of trying to van coercion, but reality that these people are as important, it's just what happens.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Is that matrix analogy.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah, true. That's one. But if you enter comics, if you're into video games, if you're into poetry in the 90s, it was a big nerd.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Yeah, all right.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: It was a big nerd. But what had happened is that I did not appear like a. A nerd.
And I realized that walking the hemisphere exposure from proposal, jumping from 3 years old in Crackadoma, I had, as I said, duality. So it was very. I won't say introverted, but like I used to have a lot of moments of space to myself.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: To create, to digest cartoons, to digest art.
But that was tempered with my summers being involved in a large scale crop overband. So you had to. I was shy, but you always get roped into something. So when I look at a lot of my friends, they were never ro into stuff like that, but they had the attributes that I had.
Right. So being in the book club and what's not anything art oriented, you're always in the art class, the art room. Yeah. Running about, playing basketball too often.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah, guilty as charged. Yeah. So you were like a bit of like a avatar between the nerds and the outgoing people.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but I never shine that because that is me.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: But I realize that you have been given a purpose, a role to act on the behalf of these characters that are your friends. So I never shine them. So I mean, people will say, man, I always hang up with them fellas, but they are me. You understand? It just I don't how they may to you because that when you. When you interact in different hemispheres, not that you pretend, but if you speak five languages and you're in France, French is one of them. You will speak French, all right. But it does not mean that you don't know English, Spanish or Italian or anything like that.
So I will not try to pretend when people get into me sometimes, especially like the opposite sex, they might, like they might think this Ruby Tech character is the person they see in the videos. But you again, you realize you're this person very.
A lot of times focus deeper than you imagine. And in. In a job, you're the man that looking into bed, not flimming and do a lot of Nonsense is like very focused. We here to knock out stuff. I need my space to do things. I gotta work with my team. And you're going for it.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: You come from like. Again, like you from a household with, you know, your father, who was a creator.
But what was it that made you want to create? Like, you personally, when you say you woke up and you say, this is what I want to do, I want to create. What was that voice? That.
Was it still your father? Was it something else outside of that?
[00:40:38] Speaker B: They said the greatest influencer of. Well, one of the greatest influencers of what people will become is environmental.
Right. So sometimes there. There is a small subsection of people who become very, very immersed in other things other than what the environment presents. But that's. That's a small percentage. Right. So again, growing up in the house with him and him and my father not infringing his will on me to be this particular thing. Yeah, she made me gravitate more to it, towards it. But I did not know what I wanted to do. So what happened? I had an introduction to BCC when I was 16.
So I actually did a year or two there. And to leave because I.
That's a whole another story. But I just took leave and I came back in my. The beginning of my twenties, in 03.
And by I could produce the work, but something was missing. But one of the reasons that I chose to go to BCC is that I did not know what to do. And it did not like I had me doing art so long. Like, if you're doing it art from tree you brought, you're helping in the condom buying and you're helping your father, whatever projects. Three to 10 is seven, six and seven is 13. Right. So 13 years is a long time to be doing the same thing. So I was like, I gotta be good at something else.
But it seems, you know, standing portfolio. Yeah, my brother come up, come up and it's like, I'm sure you're not just doing this, like, feeling going through the motions. But when I got exposed to first working in the.
The private sector in different jobs, it was a.
I like it. It gives that experience out of the realm of art.
But I also saw that it was stifling because you do not have freedom as an artist.
Artists can play the music they want on, on site. If you. If you're doing murals, which we. We had done a couple of murals, backdrops from Merle Nells, Darcy Boyce. We did props for them as well. As I said, the props were entertainers and Performers.
So I always remember that my father would have his radio going and discussions were free and that sort of stuff. And he would usually start his days at 5. So he'd take a break around 11 to cook.
And then we were recommenced on his at one or two. And that one or two might lead us at the 10 o' clock at night. But you had autonomy right within the, the. The process of doing this, this art.
And I realized that I deserved autonomy more than anything else. As artists, like I think about Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, all of them had autonomy. Somewhat play. You do have your commission pieces that need to be turned in by a certain time. But autonomy, I think is what artists see because if so is Leonardo, Leonardo Vinci, if he didn't have autonomy, he could not be a progenitor of three different areas. I think the, the atomical structure was him. He was first person.
Yes, he was the first person flight where he started to design these, these airborne devices.
And then a master artist as well too. So you had to have autonomy to do that. Freedom to earn how you want, where you want and implement. The only thing is that he was a very habitual procrastinator. So he never really finished.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Anything.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: You don't share that trait?
[00:44:30] Speaker B: No, no. Because again, you know the story.
So sometimes I am my worst slave master. So you'll always be on yourself. Late.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: And I have failed a couple of times. So there are projects that I have filter. And then either for personal reasons.
Mostly personal reasons. But then when you, the failure hits you, you're like, you know, this is your calling card. Yeah. So if you want to earn money from people and they.
You want to have repeat business for them, you need to deliver. If musically you want to be one of these stalwarts, when it's Barbados or any international sector, you need to deliver. So you have to get behind yourself. Even when you don't feel like, even when you hurt, even if it's a situation that is out of your control, you have to find a way to get it done.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: You don't have a chance to blow.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Eminem and. And not become Leonardo da Vinci.
And he, he always does circle it in my head as a master of three genres, but a procrastinator and the procrastinator, though he's not champion as that to me still trails him like a dog still. You know, you see dog, you let your dog. But if you tuck the tear long enough, it can hit you on your foot and you'll be Like, I don't know if I like the dog so much.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: How, how do you carry your dad with you through your, your, your career, through your creation? How does your dad, you know, he was a big influence to you. How does your dad still show up in the things you create and the way you approach your, your craft?
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Right. So it goes back a little bit to when they tell you. Like when I realized I was living with a master artist is.
I think it was a summer when he had created this, this artwork. After my father died, a renal failure. He was also hypertensive, diabetic.
But when he died, it was sudden because he had gotten back better. But at one point he lost his eyesight.
And how Ray from the Nation had heard and, you know, he put a couple things in place to assist my father because there are stories that Harold himself, I said that in the early days of the Nation where the alignment of the paper, the outline and that sort of stuff needed to happen. It was my father who was doing that stuff. At one point, even I think he had redesigned the Nation logo or designed it. One of the things, something like that. But again, you could fact check it for me.
So when he created, he created after regaining his eyesight. He had these big pieces of meticulous work. Meticulous. It's almost like he was given a second chance to, to do these pieces.
And when we would go around to shows, you know, you got to pick them up and put in your car.
So I looking at them like, that's my heart. Yeah, yeah, I'm real hard. So then when you bring the back from your shoulders, you're putting them back down, you know, you gotta put them down carefully because the frame and everything, you don't want the glass to crap.
My hard boy in my real heart says, like, you recognize greatness, true humility of examining yourself too. And you're late, you're not last year yet.
You want to be at that stage. So they said for you to become a master, you have to submit to the years of a master.
So I saw what he did. My father was in love with, you know, all of the, all of us are influenced by North America and stuff is they are the biggest marketing machine ever. So he did like the Nat King calls and the Stylistics and the Shy Lights and the Temptations, but he also was in love with the Caribbean hemisphere as well, the Sparrows, the Kitcheners and that sort of stuff and held reverence in it. And he could do American style as well. So looking through my father's work I realized, yo, he does.
He.
Him and his dad was doing the same.
His version of Jim Lee influenced our work. But when it came to representing the Caribbean diaspora, his style could be catered or aligned with that as well.
So looking at how he did it is almost like he created the blueprint for me.
So when he created blueprint for me is like, stick to this blueprint, brother. You ain't going to go wrong. Because he did not go wrong in what he. What he was doing in terms of, each of us will have our rate for ourselves, and then people will have their rate for them. But if you're doing what is right for you without hurting people or anything like that, it charts your own course, and there is success in that. So as I said, when he was recuperating, he was still doing cartoons. Even in the. The hospital, he was doing cartoons. And it would bring them down here for him because at that time, you know, sometimes you can scan anything to say, no, he'll say, you got to physically come down the road.
Yeah, you got to physically come down. And he would be sending down two cartoons every weekend.
Every weekend. And it was. I know he was charging for them too. So you could not charge that and send and be so prolific unless your style was working.
So again, for me, he outlined the blueprint, if needed. And Caribbean Junior English wanted a style of work that they believe you can do. If Marvel or Image or somebody was to call you and say, look, we want a pin up. Are you able to do that style? You do that for them. But this is where you are BS right now. And you do it for them. But you use the sensibilities of the greatest marketing machine ever and you imbue it within that visual that you. You create.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: That's a. That's a beautiful answer.
Thank you so much for being a part of this, this episode. This is like an amazing conversation. I could talk to you for like hours, especially about comics.
But I want to get this up before we go. I think it'd be. I'd be a bad nerd if I don't.
Who's your favorite character in.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: In comic books.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Yeah. In the comic world, who's your favorite.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Batman?
[00:50:51] Speaker A: That's a good pick. That's a good pick.
Mine is Spider Man.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Why Batman?
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Ingenuity Also how writers.
A character is only as good as the writers. So what the writers have conjured for Batman over the years.
[00:51:10] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Yes.
It relates and it is synonymous with struggles that we go through as people.
You know, a person who suffers a tremendous Loss. Even though they're from the richer side of the tracks, but it brings them into mourning that we all understand about, you know, lost grievance and also want injustice.
And his reasons do not seem, as.
I don't want to say as schoolboyish as Superman does. Superman. Superman. Superman is in my top three.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: So it would be Spider Man 3, Superman 2, Batman, but not far.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Solid top three.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Not. Not far from one another. If Batman is like 9.9, Superman is like 9.7.
Spider man is probably 9.6.
Right. Because again, with the. The first and the second meaning for me. Third, Spider Man. Spider man is ultra relatable as well.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Superbly so.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Yeah. With the loss, then the guidance of late. You don't.
I remember collecting, spreading my comments, and then I realized only when they brought about his. His parents.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Saying that there were spies that had to go into hiding.
And then it turned out that it wasn't really.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: Yeah. They were just like robots.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: Right. And it was like, yo, I never realized Spider man was not raised by a traditional.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: Mother and father. He was raised by Ben. And so it was like, yo, that's a lot like me. Not that my mother died, you know, true circumstance. But my. My father, my grandmother raised me.
So as I said, there's a chord of being relatable.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: There's also the, like, the journey of growing from a young man to an adult. There's almost like, you say he calls himself Spider man and the visual of what he wants to be.
[00:53:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: And that's the journey of him becoming that person.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: But, you know, you know, actually describe Batman, too.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Because Batman does not call himself Bruce.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Yeah. He calls himself like, basically the idea of who he wish he was. At a pivotal moment in his life.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: He refers to himself as Batman. And it's one of the things that. That.
I think it was a comment that endeared me to the Batman when I found out, because it was like, we all are projections sometimes of the best versions of ourselves that we intend to be. So the fact that the world knew him as Bruce, but he referred to himself as Batman and like, Batman has some stories where he was seriously beat up.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: And true. You know, like a mantra telling himself, I must do it. I must.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Like, he'll never be the helpless person ever again.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: Ever. And that. That hit me a lot because, you know, you need to pull on influences to push past. As I said, like, you know, you're dealing with your mother, I mean, your father, your grandmother, going through these stages. You're dealing with the crash and burn. Yeah, but I want to say burn. But the crash of, you know, the decline where musical artistry and prominence is, was a thing. You need a space that you can go to and you know, just self deal yourself, isolate and rebuild and not see it as a thorn, a thorn of roses on you like affliction, but seeing it as a way of how you need to navigate.
Anything that I was saying earlier is that when in this time of exposure to social media where you could learn people's stories, sometimes a bit more in depth, you realize that everyone usually goes through this. Eminem went through it when he came back with the album in recent times. Recovery, Recovery, which was panned and then he did Kamikaze, which was healed.
And it was like, yo, I got the recipe now. Yeah, this first one, wasn't it? Yeah, this is it right now.
They predict that that same thing might happen with L. Because this Carter, I think 6 yeah.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: It wasn't well received. I've not heard it myself, but I. I know the reaction to it was not the best.
[00:55:23] Speaker B: So some people who have positive insights and. And words to say, I say this might be his version of recovery, so he might need to do the album next. And people say like, we're looking for what coming from that for me, for next things.
Those kind of stories being assimilated into your core gives you hope and provides momentum, inertia and encouragement. That story and finish what's coming for you next.
As I said, starting by shooting Camouflage, I want to do some summer releases music wise, ensure Carol and the NCF got some more work there for me to do. And then the exposure that the nation, yourself, Akil from the ncf. Like I was telling someone in lobby earlier, I have been doing these things with my team for years now. Not. Not 20 years, but I would say within the last 10. But this is the first one that has broken true where you are now seeing me face put to the work.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: So people might have me seeing stuff and then sometimes if I show them my portfolio, you should do this. I was like, I didn't know that it was. It was you. I was like, yeah. Because if it's a commission piece, I don't really float it like that because someone paid me for rights to the world. But if you know what is in my portfolio for sure you are. If I might happen to put up a piece from time to time, I would say, yes, this is our team that did this and what's not.
So with more exposure, you foresee that more work will come. And we're not the type to stop, we're the type to keep going, you know, enhance, refine and just push through.
But definitely some good things, some good things coming, man.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: We're looking forward to seeing that. So you could tell the people where they can find you, like what are your socials? Where can they find everything that Rubytech.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Does well as music wise, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Diesel, everything.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: And everything under.
[00:57:32] Speaker B: Ruby Tech Official Ruby Tech official Ruby type. Because we did have beyond management, we also have publicists based in North America. So they tell you the number one thing is that you want to be easy to be found. So don't just you're gonna put your name under or Jordan X and then your next name is Ronaldo T. Yeah, everything is officially. So when you put it in, that's the number one thing that comes out. You don't want to change. And, and recently I've had artists, you know, send me material and they would want to find out where I could find more of it. And they tell me where you go. I want to check on this. I was like, but why? You have three different names and you don't want to be successful.
You don't want to be successful. You need to put everything under one brand.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: We know where to find you. Thank you so much for being here. This is like a fantastic, fantastic interview.
Well, thank you as well listeners for joining us and Art of the Nation where we have open insights into the careers and craft of artists in Barbados. Now, wherever you're listening, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a single episode. And we'll catch you next time on Art of the Nation.
[00:58:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the music sa.
