BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IF you are one of the few that do not know who Dagah is and what he does, then you can find out by attending the 13th Annual St. Kitts Music Festival.
The 28-year-old Dagah was born Kwame Samuel and is a resident of Old Road. He is a rapper and will be making his third appearance at the St. Kitts Music Festival in a solo act. He said the upcoming event would provide him the opportunity to prove that he is a good solo act and undoubtedly the best rapper from St. Kitts.
“People been telling me I’m the best, although I don’t necessarily see things that way. I think once you got talent you’ve got it, but I have paid my dues. I’ve performed on shows in the square while everyone else was performing on the Music Festival, and basically this is my time to shine,” he said.
Samuel was a member of the Razor Band which came on the scene in 1995 and his involvement was that of back-up vocals and bass guitarist.
During the band’s career, three carnival albums were produced which included a hit titled ‘Yabba Dabba’. The band was managed by Kevin Donovan who is now known as Masud Sadiki.
Before breaking up in 1999, the last album produced by the band was called ‘Good to Go’ in which Samuel first showcased his rapping skills on a track titled ‘I wanna know’.
Samuel said after the band members went their separate ways he decided to dabble into Hip/Hop and Rap music and formed a group called Blunt Killers.
“It was not about killing anyone, but we wanted to be hardcore rappers. We were into 2Pac and Biggie Smalls back then, and we did a lot of free styling and battling among each other,” he said.
While doing that, many persons began telling Samuel that they saw something in him that was different to the rest.
“People started telling me that I sounded like a real rapper and that I could make it. So I decided to take it more seriously and started doing more solo songs,” he said.
Samuel said there was a period in his life when he experienced some problems and had travelled to Nevis for awhile to clear his mind.
That was when he met Ball-A-Karn producer Jazzique Chiverton, who was at the time producing the first album of local reggae prodigy Masud Sadiki.
At first, Samuel hung around the studio and observed Sadiki’s album ‘Blast Off’ being produced.
“I use to go there and chill and I use to tell him that I want to be an artiste as well as sing rap. But he would tell me that rap music is not that well received in the Caribbean, although he would like to see a rapper from the islands make it,” he said.
However, Samuel’s vision of being a hardcore rapper was not what Chiverton had in mind for the young artiste.
“He wanted me to rap like LL Cool J, or Will Smith, and I used to tell him that’s not me, I came from the ghetto, I lost my mom at age 13 and my dad went to jail,” he said.
Finally, Chiverton began playing tracks and asked Samuel to free style. The offer was taken and Chiverton was impressed with his energy and persistence.
“He showed a strong intrinsic motivation and he knew his space of grace and where he wanted to go and I respect people like that,” Chiverton said.
Another reggae superstar who wanted to keep everything local journeyed to Nevis to have his album produced by Chiverton.
Ian Vieira, a.k.a. Crucial Bankie, produced his second album ‘Home Grown’ and wanted a remix to one of the tracks ‘Cutting up Sensi’ which also featured Masud Sadiki.
Chiverton told him that he knew a rap artiste who would be great for the track, Samuel said.
“So I free styled for him and Bankie said he heard enough and that we should go straight to the studios and I was featured on the remix of the track,” he said.
That year, Bankie was featured on the St. Kitts Music Festival lineup and he took Samuel along to perform the track.
“That appearance was basically the birth of Dagah,” he said.
The artiste received another opportunity to mix reggae and hip-hop when Sadiki was producing his second album ‘Sunup 2 Sundown’ and featured Samuel on his track ‘Dancing Point’.
Sadiki was also featured on the festival and brought the young rapper along to perform ‘Dancing Point’ in 2003. During his performance, Samuel climbed up the side of the stage’s scaffolding and that act left a lasting impression on the audience.
‘Island Hop’ and ‘Street Heat’ were some of the CDs he released to showcase his skills. He has also performed on shows including some that featured Vybz Kartel, Elephant Man.
In 2008, he organised and produced “Home Grown: Promote the Peace” concert, which he said was an event to showcase local talent.
The event was held in Nevis and he noted that the turnout was not great because of funding for advertisement.
In July 2008, Samuel had travelled to New York, where he did promotions, recorded music and also performed at shows in Manhattan and Queens.
He is now working on his first official album titled ‘In Search of Dagah’.
“I’m still in search of me trying to find that happiness, love and completion. My style of rapping has changed a lot. I was more of a follower than a leader, and that has changed,” he said.
Samuel said that he loves hip/hop because it is the best way of telling one’s story.
“I didn’t want to be a drug pusher or anything negative. My dad is a Rasta and I saw the stuff he had to go through and I didn’t want to follow down that route,” he said.
Also because of the type of music he did, Samuel hardly got airplay as the music was raw descriptions of the ghetto life.
“I came up hard and poor and I rapped about that. But I also try to teach the youths with my music now because they’re lost. There’s something out there for everyone and they should move away from the gangsta life.
“I learned that whatever you rap about is what you are; so I try to rap about positivity because that’s what I am about, I don’t want to come off negative.”
The artiste said that while in New York he formed a band called Carpe Diem, which means “To cease the moment”. He is the lead singer and they perform a variety of hip/hop music with reggae in which he showcases his skills.
Samuel will be performing at the Music Festival on Friday, June 26 which will also feature the Odisi Band, Ziggy Rankin, Beres Hammond, Stephen Marley and Burning Spear.
