CDMC Review

Just a few days ago (07/08/2015) we took off to the first Caribbean Dance Music Conference held at the Hyatt Regency Port of Spain. Calling it just a Caribbean Dance Music Conference however fails to describe the importance of this unique and crucial event hosted by CDM Generation.

So who was there? CDM Generation brought in some heavy hitters in both the local and international industry. We got representative from Collective Digital Studios VP Dana Shayegan, Martin “Mice” Raymond, Carl Beaver Henderson, Robin Imamsha, Navid Lancaster, Alex Kubiyashi Barnwell, Mr. Pineapple himself Kickraux, along with the Copyright Organization of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT) and the Trinidad and Tobago Copyright Collection Organization (TTCO). With such an impressive roster of speakers we could only scratch the surface on the wealth of information imparted on CDMC patrons.

Here are a few snippets of the almost overwhelming info and advice given by some of the main speakers.

Kubiyashi
“The crowd loved every second of him”

There were a number of interesting topics discussed ranging from Music Sensibility, finding your audience, going outside of radio and not being a “hustler”. Kubiyashi spoke of going back to our roots to find that local sound and carrying it into present day, that new drop that no one has heard could be in a calypso from years ago.

Go forth and explore your culture and throw it into the mix. Some truly incredible advice as we have a tendency to look outside for inspiration when there is a wealth of it buried in our own culture. Pan, tassa, parang, bandolin, calypso, kaiso, chunty, and the list goes on and on … explore it and you might just hit gold.