INTERVIEW : KHAGO
Interview by : Benoit Georges
Pictures by : Benoit Collin
on Thursday, October 18th 2012 - 8 019 views
Khago is one of the stars of the moment in Jamaica when we meet him at the Kingston conference centre. His tune Tun up di ting, on the Overproof riddim, is hammered daily on TV, on the radio and in the dancehalls. An unmistakable sign of his popularity: that day he is invited to perform at a seminar for the Canadian bank Scotiabank. And he is also buttonholed by numerous young women for an autograph, a photo, a phone number… Khago sings three tunes, customised for the occasion, in front of an audience of bankers in business suits, then slips away with us for a first chat.
Reggaefrance / Can you introduce yourself?
Khago / My name is Khago, aka Skywalker. My parents christened me Ricardo Gayle. I was born in Kingston but I grew up in the parishes of Manchester and St Ann. So I didn’t really have the experience of growing up in Kingston.
You also had another nickname, “Chicago”. Is that where your stage name comes from?
Yes, I had that nickname when I started my career, but I had to change it because a group with that name already existed. So I cut my nickname down and kept only the end, Khago.
And where does your “sey so” gimmick come from?
It’s a little tic I came up with while listening to riddims… I needed to find a signature that set me apart from other artists. “Sey so” is a slang expression that I thought fitted well.
 Je ne veux pas perdre mes racines, c’est pour cela que j’ai envie de faire un album culturel. 
When did you go back to Kingston?
I went there regularly to visit my sister, who lives there. I don’t really have a date in mind. In music, to make it work, you have to be in Kingston. So I went back and forth: countryside to Kingston, Kingston to countryside.
How did you develop an interest in music?
It came from hanging out with a friend. I had this schoolmate who was a bit like the school’s artist. He had his little bit of success and I hung around with him because he had loads of girlfriends. I was like my pals Jay and Slaughter, whom you can see with me today and who are there for the girls (laughs). That’s what interested me back then. That friend had to go abroad, so no more girlfriends, and I found myself singing his songs. Someone heard me and told me I had a good voice, and that’s how it started to take shape.
And is that why in 2006 you entered the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) song contest?
Yes, thanks to that person who told me I had a nice voice. I heard about this competition and entered to see whether what he said was true. I took part in this contest, which is one of the biggest in the country, and I finished third. It’s a serious contest, not a reality TV show: these are real concerts, with a real band, you can’t cut, redo takes or anything. You have to perform in front of a few thousand people, who vote for you. This contest brought artists like Bob Marley, Toots Hibbert or Beenie Man into the spotlight, a lot of very great artists came through there. I entered again in 2007 and finished second. From then on, everything went very fast and I decided to do things seriously, in a professional way. It allowed me to get in touch with a lot of important figures in the music business.
You then played a lot of concerts in schools. What did that bring you?
The school tours really helped me get known in the best possible way. The schoolchildren liked me and were really receptive. We did the school tour until 2009. During the competition in 2006, I had already done a school tour as part of it, it was almost daily. There are also media outlets and companies that organise their own tours of schools. Once I became a professional, I also got offers for those tours.
What did you learn from that experience?
I learned that everyone is different. In schools, you discover that every child is different. You see it when you go into schools and try to adapt to that audience. You can’t just turn up and sing as you would in front of any audience; the music you bring is for them, they have to see themselves in it. It’s also about adapting your songs, so that you only do the “clean” versions, you don’t swear or use bad words in front of them.
You’ve worked with a lot of producers, Roach, Not Nice, Seanizzle… Which team do you work with the most?
Seanizzle really made me known on the One Day riddim, where I did Nah Sell Out. Justus recently gave me another hit on the Overproof riddim (Tun Up Di Ting, ed.). I also work with DJ Frass. Jay is my “road manager” and we’re trying to set up our own productions. I work with just about everybody.
I wanted to talk to you about the song Daddy From You Gone, which is a bit apart in your repertoire.
Usually I don’t really write songs, but that one I wrote. I didn’t grow up with both my parents, like many people. I lost my father at the age of 7 and it’s a deep subject that I wanted to put into a song. I wrote this song for all the young people who lost their father too early, whether he left or passed away. I heard the riddim and it came quite naturally. When you tackle subjects like that, you have to put a bit of your experience, your life, into the song…
And the two tracks on the theme of Nah Sell Out
I didn’t really plan the first one, the one where I say “me nah sell out me friend dem”. It came from Seanizzle’s riddim. I mostly sing reggae, so he didn’t necessarily think of me at first to sing on it. But he gave me the riddim, I remember playing it in the car and thinking: “I’m going to try singing on this dancehall riddim anyway.” And Seanizzle gave me that chance. For the second track, after the huge success of the first, I told myself I had to go deeper.
Those two tracks had a very strong impact in Jamaica. Can you explain why?
When we say “sell out” in Jamaica, it’s like saying “snitch” in the United States: it means you repeat things that don’t concern you, that you’re an informer, that you betray. There are a lot of sell-outs in Jamaica, and most of the time it’s friends betraying other friends. Your enemies can’t necessarily come at you directly, so they use your friends, and betrayal always comes from someone close to you. When the song came out, there were plenty of examples of that kind in Jamaica, like with Buju Banton, so it was the right moment.
What are your next projects?
I want to make a reggae album, but I don’t know if I’ll have time to make it happen this year. It’s very busy at the moment. I have another dancehall track, for the girls, because they’re all over me right now and they’re responsible for my success. The song is called Wine Pon Di Pole (laughs). I have loads of projects at the moment. I’m focusing mainly on the female audience, it’s the law of the market and I have to capitalise on my success with that audience: Beenie Man built his career with tracks for the girls, Vybz Kartel too. It’s also what I have to do. But even when I sing for women, my versions are different, they’re clean. No need to censor them or bleep out words. When I say “wine pon di pole” (literally, ''move on the pole'', ed.), it isn’t vulgar, it’s up to you to interpret it as you like, up to you to decide which pole I’m talking about. No need to be explicit, you just have to be suggestive. From time to time, I’ll also have to keep burning the jealous and the evil spirits, telling my friends to walk in righteousness. I don’t want to lose my roots, which is why I want to make a cultural album. If I come to France, I’ll see what the market is like over there and I’ll mostly present my cultural side. Among the young artists, I’m one of the only ones doing reggae and dancehall at the same time, with equal seriousness for both. I try to balance these two genres in my repertoire and I think that from this year I’ll be feeding the audience with “one drop”, cultural tracks. But the problem is that the DJs here don’t really pay attention to reggae tracks and I do have to earn a living.
Who is going to work on this album?
I’m looking for someone to work on it with me. I’ll surely find someone to produce it because “one drop” is my best side. But you can love something at one moment and people won’t care. For now, I’m pigeonholed as a dancehall artist, I’m making the most of it, I’m lucky, but I’d be even luckier if I could put out this “one drop” album, to show which direction I want to go in.
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