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“Wha gwaan Sophia?, me deh near you and just say me a go stop and gi you a one check” he said into my phone and as usual such a visit is one I look forward to, seeing Nesbeth one of the most humble roots/reggae recording artistes I am privilege to have met. We met and shared jokes as usual, catch up and basically bask in each others presence before we got down to our favourite subject, music.
“What’s up with the career?” I asked. “Me have a new chune fi you listen to, it name Taste Victory” he said searching his iPhone. Nesbeth scrolled until he found the track and tap play. From beginning and throughout the entire song a feeling of euphoria crept over me. I’ve been a fan of his before we met and when we did, it was at my office in Kingston when he and a friend came to see me about working on their team. Nesbeth’s music catalogue is filled with varying aspects of life’s journey, his journey, the struggle, the pain, his vision and destiny.
“Many bad Christmas whole heap a bad birthdays…”
We listened the track over and over because I could not get enough, and by the third replay I was singing parts of it. This roots, reggae artiste has maintained his image musically “me stay focus never did go both ways” he sings. It mattered not, the type of event, Nesbeth gets there and do his thing reaping satisfying forwards from even the toughest audience, yup! Nesbeth’s walk has been interesting he took us along pathways unimaginable, like ‘Drive By’ the story of drive-by shooting incidents but the Ol Gangalee a “nuh chicken” and lived to tell the tale.
“Now I can taste victory….”
Now after years of trodding along those paths and losing his mother on the journey “there is hard days that always come around and bring you pain” he sang, Nesbeth is now telling us he has ‘Taste Victory’ and what a joyful thing this is. “Still me give thanks to di man whey create life, true di hardship me learn fi appreciate life” we sang together loosing count of the replays at this point because this, his musical journey, is one of the stories by a reggae artiste that motivates, inspires and drives you to ‘Taste Victory‘ on your own. I also heard some pre-releases for Nesbeth’s upcoming EP and I’m excited about getting my own copy, as he drove off I looked on thinking, “gwaan do di ting Nesbeth, victory is yours.”
By: Sophia McKay
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