Cherisse Moe

If you look close­ly at Kes the Band’s much-raved-about NPR Tiny Desk Con­cert per­for­mance, you’ll see a smil­ing De­nil­son Gul­ston play­ing con­gas, bon­gos, and cow­bells next to his fa­ther, Dane Gul­ston, on the steel­pan.

For those who on­ly know him as “Dane’s son,” this mo­ment was years in the mak­ing. The op­por­tu­ni­ty came af­ter con­sis­tent work as a tour­ing per­cus­sion­ist and net­work­ing across the re­gion. He now plays per­cus­sion for The A-Team Band.

“The ex­pe­ri­ence was in­cred­i­ble. Every­thing about the process was ex­treme­ly pro­fes­sion­al and well-or­gan­ised. It was tru­ly an ho­n­our to be trust­ed with such an im­por­tant pro­duc­tion,” he says. “One of the most chal­leng­ing parts was keep­ing it con­fi­den­tial for sev­er­al weeks be­fore its re­lease. Once the world got to see it, it felt amaz­ing know­ing that I was rep­re­sent­ing not just my­self, but my coun­try.”

De­nil­son has been busy. Book­ing this in­ter­view took weeks — he had just re­turned from Bar­ba­dos per­form­ing with Patrice Roberts. In five years, he has al­so toured through­out the Caribbean and the US, late­ly per­form­ing along­side so­ca heavy­weight Machel Mon­tano, among oth­ers. “Every coun­try, stage, and au­di­ence has taught me some­thing new and helped me grow both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

Why did he step away from the steel­pan?

He want­ed his own mu­si­cal path. Per­cus­sion was al­ways his gen­uine love. Af­ter his un­cle — per­cus­sion­ist for Net­work Rid­dum Band — died, his grand­moth­er brought home his un­cle’s bon­go drum. At eight years old, De­nil­son picked it up and couldn’t put it down. “At the same time, I be­came fas­ci­nat­ed with drum­mers such as Gre­go­ry Pe­gus and Ker­nal Roberts,” De­nil­son re­calls. “I would spend time watch­ing, lis­ten­ing, and prac­tis­ing when­ev­er I got the op­por­tu­ni­ty. What start­ed with steel­pan even­tu­al­ly ex­pand­ed in­to a love for drums and per­cus­sion, which be­came my pro­fes­sion­al path.”

Weeks af­ter com­plet­ing his Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts de­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2021, he got a call from the A-Team Band to per­form at an acoustic record­ing ses­sion with Patrice Roberts. It went well and just like that, he be­came their of­fi­cial per­cus­sion­ist.

His tal­ent al­so ex­tends to pro­duc­tion. For the past three years, he’s been step­ping be­hind the mix­ing boards as a mu­sic pro­duc­er un­der the moniker MaxBeatz, and lat­er, 1Max. The nick­name “Max” came from his fa­ther, who called him “Mad Max” be­cause of his hunger for suc­cess. Over time, the name stuck and even­tu­al­ly be­came part of his cre­ative iden­ti­ty. His cred­its in­clude com­pos­er and co-pro­duc­er on projects fea­tur­ing Ja­maica’s Valiant, Busy Sig­nal, Skil­libeng, Ra­jah­Wild, Jahshii, and Chron­ic Law.

“There were many late nights be­hind the scenes where I was learn­ing the art of mu­sic pro­duc­tion. I be­came in­trigued with how records were cre­at­ed and spent count­less hours watch­ing tu­to­ri­als, study­ing pro­duc­ers, and build­ing my skills,” De­nil­son shares.

“Through so­cial me­dia, I con­nect­ed with pro­duc­er Jig­gy D, and that re­la­tion­ship opened many doors. One of the ear­ly high­lights was be­ing in­volved in the com­po­si­tion and pro­duc­tion of the JAR Rid­dim, al­so known as the Dol­ly House Rid­dim, fea­tur­ing songs such as ‘Loy­al Gyal’ by Chron­ic Law, ‘Dol­ly House’ by Ra­jah­Wild, and ‘Want­ed Luv’.”

More re­cent­ly, he com­posed the “Af­ter Hour Rid­dim”, fea­tur­ing tracks like “Crown Jew­el” by Kraff and “Trum­pet” by Ra­jah­Wild.

Long be­fore the rid­dims and tours, he built a com­pet­i­tive foun­da­tion. In 2013, he placed sec­ond in Tri­ni Kids Got Tal­ent. A year lat­er, at 14, he copped four gold medals and two cham­pi­onship tro­phies at the World Cham­pi­onship of the Per­form­ing Arts in Hol­ly­wood.

A youth from Duke Street, Port-of-Spain — an area fre­quent­ly sad­dled with neg­a­tive stereo­types — those ear­ly wins mat­tered. “It changed my per­spec­tive com­plete­ly,” he ex­plains. “It gave me con­fi­dence and helped me re­alise dreams can be­come re­al­i­ty through prepa­ra­tion, dis­ci­pline and hard work. That mind­set has stayed with me ever since and con­tin­ues to mo­ti­vate me in every­thing I do. Grow­ing up on Duke Street taught me re­silience, re­spect and per­se­ver­ance. There are tal­ent­ed, hard­work­ing and pos­i­tive peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties like ours every day. Great things can hap­pen re­gard­less of where you come from.”

De­nil­son trea­sures his tight-knit fam­i­ly sup­port. His fa­ther, who pro­vid­ed the mu­si­cal foun­da­tion and ex­posed him to op­por­tu­ni­ties that helped shape his ca­reer, and his moth­er al­ways made sure he stayed ground­ed, dis­ci­plined and fo­cused.

He shares an es­pe­cial­ly close bond with his 22-year-old broth­er, Daniel, who has down syn­drome. “Grow­ing up around mu­sic, Daniel spent years watch­ing and learn­ing from the peo­ple around him and even­tu­al­ly de­vel­oped in­to an ex­tra­or­di­nary young pan­nist in his own right. De­spite his dis­abil­i­ty, he con­tin­ues to in­spire many through his tal­ent, de­ter­mi­na­tion and pos­i­tive spir­it. Watch­ing his growth has been one of the great­est joys of my life, and I am in­cred­i­bly proud of him.”

De­nil­son’s ul­ti­mate dream is to make his mark as an in­dus­try pi­o­neer. “Whether it’s So­ca, Dance­hall, Hip-Hop, R&B, Gospel or Jazz,” he says, he wants to show the world that ex­cel­lence can come out of the Caribbean.

More im­por­tant­ly, he hopes to in­spire young peo­ple to be­lieve that their cir­cum­stances don’t de­fine their fu­ture. “If I can help push our mu­sic for­ward while open­ing doors for oth­ers, I would con­sid­er that a mean­ing­ful lega­cy.”