–to give Guyanese music identity

By Gabriella Chapman

WE have heard time and time again the cries of local artistes who complain about the defects of the local music industry. We have also heard time and time again the many reports of change that will soon come their way to ensure they get their rightful earnings from their materials.

But while some artistes make do with what they have, there are those who are doing well, and are concerned about the well-being of others.
Forty-one-year-old Ryan Lynton, who goes by the alias ‘Gucci Boss’, has being making a name for himself in New York. He has, however, returned home to Guyana from time to time to find ways of helping his fellow Guyanese artistes.

In an interview with The Guyana Chronicle, Lynton shared that he was born to Berbician parents in Wismar, Linden. His family, he said, was one of the first in this country to start a sound system, which was called Thunderbolt, since both his dad and uncle were veteran singers.

He said he left Guyana when he was just over a year old and spent most of his growing years in Jamaica. He later returned to Guyana for a few years, then when he was 10 years old, he migrated to New York and has been there ever since.

“Growing up there as a young Guyanese, I hated it, because you’re leaving a place where you have freedom; you’re leaving a village where there is not a lot of crime. Somebody gets stabbed, that’s big news for we. Then you’re going to a place… Imagine an 11-year-old who had freedom to run around the village. Then when you get to New York, you’re stuck in a house with cages on it. You have to look on the outside through those cages; it was like jail. I missed Guyana,” Lynton said.

This caused him to turn to music as a means of escape.
“Music was the outlet,” he said. “When I was inside, I wrote a lot. Writing became one of my favourite things to do. I wrote poems. And then Hip Hop became an influence, because that was all that was on the radio. Listening to a lot of Hip Hop and trying to put your Guyanese accent to it… Then I got signed when I was 16, but my parents had other plans for me.

I chose law, and decided to go to school and pursue that until I became a grown man and can do what I wanna do. Give them their degree, and then I went back to pursuing my music,” he said.

ALWAYS HIS CALLING
After returning to music from his law career, ‘Gucci Boss’ made his debut with ‘Dogg world state of mind’.

“It’s a song about how they limit our youths,” ‘Gucci’ said, adding: “Guyana is on like a culture swagger jacket. They never say Guyana has its own style. We adapt[sic] everyone’s culture and that has to change. ‘Big Reap,’ who was one of the hottest producers in New York at that time, took me over and the song just took off. It was strategic how we released the music; nobody knew I was Guyanese. Then we released ‘Guyana is Paradise,’ and that’s when they knew it was the same artiste, and that I was Guyanese.”

Currently, ‘Gucci’ is signed to York Records, but he has his own label and is trying to implement publishing in Guyana along with a new genre of music unique to Guyanese.
Giving insight into this, he said that his label, ‘Don Link Jus Wun Entertainment’, was created after he developed the passion to assist his fellow Guyanese artistes to earn from their music.

This will be done, he said, by introducing to Guyana in 2020 a publishing platform named ‘G-CAP’, which will allow Guyanese artistes to publish 40 songs per year.

At a one-time membership fee of G$10,000, artistes will get to control their own music and get paid for their rightfully owned materials. More details on this will be disclosed in due time, since the process is at its foundation stage.

Pertaining to the new genre of music that ‘Gucci’ wants to introduce, he said that he came to realise over time that Guyana copies other countries’ style of music and he wanted to change that.

So he came up with a new genre of music called ‘Kwe-Kwe Reggae’.
“Guyana doesn’t have anything to call its own. So I’m introducing to Guyana and the rest of the world this new genre,” he said, adding: “Kwe-Kwe is a celebratory dance, and something that identifies to[sic] our country. They’re Guyanese all over the world, so when they hear it, they can identify to[sic] it because Kwe-Kwe is unique to Guyana and Guyanese.”

To make this all a successful reality, he said that the DJs in Guyana will have to cooperate to ensure that we can preserve what is ours and help to promote our culture.

“I came back in 2013, working as a DJ to push our artistes. I came with the intention of rallying all the DJs. I don’t know why I thought it was so easy, but if you don’t see the bigger picture, your mind stays narrow, and you just continue on the same level you’re on, teaching our kids other people’s culture. They don’t support Guyanese artistes at all. But you can’t call yourself a DJ if you never ‘buss’ an artiste before. You can’t call yourself a real Top DJ if you never made a star out of an artiste before,” ‘Gucci’ said.

“Jamaican DJs, the elite ones that these local DJs pattern off of,” he said, “some brought a Bounty Killer, a Merciless, a Ninja Man, an Alkaline. It was a DJ, ‘Fire Links’, who buss ‘Kartel’. Tony Matterhorn was the one who buss ‘Bounty Killa’. He even used to write ‘Bounty Killa’ songs.

DJs are involved so much in artistes’ lives, but our DJs here don’t do that,” Lynton lamented.
To this end, he said if they get more cooperation from local DJs, our local artistes will be at a way higher level.

As he is home presently, he said that he created a ‘Guyana is Paradise challenge’, named after his song, where primary school children were allowed to submit 500-word essays saying in their own words why Guyana is Paradise to them.

With over 60 entries, a 10-year-old from Mackenzie Primary won herself trophies, and the teachers were given US$500 to host a party for themselves,” he said, “because our educators are the most important people in the world.”

In addition to that, he will be promoting the song (Guyana is Paradise), and will be shooting the video over the next few days.