Most peo­ple know Un­cle El­lis (El­lis Reid) as the fun­ny man danc­ing in front of KFC, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain. Last week, the T&T Guardian sat down with Reid and heard about his strug­gles over­com­ing drug abuse and the stereo­typ­ing which goes with it. This week, we fo­cus on what he has ac­com­plished with his sig­na­ture dance moves, and where his manger Dion Gomez and friends, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Salty (Dil­lon Charles) and Akeem "5.0" New­ton plan for the 58-year-old dancer.

Valdeen Shears-Nep­tune

PART 2

He may not have ever left the shores of Trinidad be­fore last month, but El­lis Reid's fu­ture sure looks like it has tak­en off!In fact, the small-boned, 58-year-old man, known fond­ly as "Un­cle El­lis," is ap­par­ent­ly a brand across sev­er­al coun­tries. There is even a Youtube video of a man per­form­ing Reid's sig­na­ture dance while in the snow.

If the words of his man­ag­er, Dion Gomez, is enough to go on, then Reid will most like­ly be do­ing his own danc­ing in the snow soon.

Gomez, who ac­com­pa­nied Reid on the in­ter­view, said there had been some ob­sta­cles in try­ing to ob­tain Reid's per­son­al doc­u­ments, but they were slow­ly be­ing ironed out. In the mean­time, Reid is be­ing booked for sev­er­al re­gion­al Car­ni­val and re­quests are pour­ing in for him to per­form at lo­cal par­ty hotspots.

And while the av­er­age per­son has at least two Face­book ac­counts, Reid has three, his own fan base on In­sta­gram, a web­site, and sev­er­al Youtube sites.

"Hey, is Un­cle El­lis, Am­ber, look it's Un­cle El­lis!" shout­ed Black Chy­na of US fame, dur­ing the an­nu­al Bae­watch beach fete on Ash Wednes­day.He felt his arm be­ing tugged and then he was pos­ing for pics with the two cur­va­ceous women. Those pho­tos were up­loaded to his var­i­ous so­cial me­dia pages and so the cy­cle con­tin­ues.

Re­cent­ly, Reid took his first flight on a plane, when he was in­vit­ed by foot­baller Dwight Yorke to his post-Car­ni­val fete at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go.Dion Gomez, Reid's man­ag­er said this was not on­ly about him be­ing or re­main­ing fa­mous.

Gomez has ap­point­ed him­self Reid's part-time care­tak­er. He ac­knowl­edged Reid's past drug abuse, but said every­one de­serves a chance to re­deem them­selves. It is this thought which is dri­ving Gomez and friends, so­ca stars Salty and Akim 5.0 to look af­ter Reid's busi­ness in­ter­est.It is their goal to see Reid reach as far as his new­found fame will take him, Gomez said.

"We re­cent­ly got his new Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card, a friend of mine ap­plied and got a copy of his birth cer­tifi­cate, and now we are go­ing to help him set up a bank ac­count so he can man­age his own mon­ey when­ev­er he has a gig."When asked, "So he gets paid?"

Reid in­ter­jects, "Of course, but I don't need much mon­ey in my hand all the time. Just for the lit­tle things I need, so they tell me we have to go to the bank and I was wait­ing for the ID and thing. Is just now I will have bank book and thing. This is God, you know, do­ing this for me," he said.There were times dur­ing the in­ter­view when Reid ram­bled and then quick­ly re­vert­ed to his gap-toothed smile and jovial man­ner.

"Oh yes, I used to use drugs and the po­lice took me a cou­ple times, but I clean now and feel­ing good about my­self," he said.He said he had stopped abus­ing drugs for quite a while. And while he could not say how he be­came re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed, Gomez said Reid was re­cent­ly giv­en a clean bill of health from both doc­tors at St Ann's Hos­pi­tal and pri­vate physi­cians.

All of these is­sues had to be cleared up as they were in the process of ob­tain­ing Reid's pass­port and the nec­es­sary visas so that he could ben­e­fit from the same op­por­tu­ni­ties as Salty and Akim.

"This is not just about here and done. I know there are those who are spec­u­lat­ing that he would be used for the Car­ni­val and then they would see him back by KFC. That's not so, not when you look­ing at one of the most pop­u­lar man in T&T," said Gomez, shak­ing his head and laugh­ing.

As for the de­trac­tors, Gomez said while it both­ered them, Reid ap­peared un­fazed.Take for in­stance, Reid's re­cent snap­shots on FB pos­ing in a pool with a bevy of women in sexy swimwear and the spec­u­la­tions about the ladies' in­ten­tions.Gomez sought to clear the air and ex­plained that they were in fact his friends from New York in­vit­ed over to cel­e­brate his 29th birth­day at the Hy­att Re­gency. Reid was in­vit­ed and the women just took the pho­to in fun.

"Oh yeah, that (a girl­friend) will come, I just have to wait," Reid said with a grin.

No one knows what life has in store, but ac­cord­ing to Gomez, Reid will soon ben­e­fit from every op­por­tu­ni­ty to tour along­side Salty and Akim 5.0."He is in de­mand right now, from all over," said Gomez.

Reid's in­ter­na­tion­al fame came when he opt­ed to dance to Justin Beiber's Sor­ry rather than the usu­al so­ca songs. Gomez said the video went vi­ral and many of the com­ments on Reid's so­cial me­dia and Youtube pages were from around the globe. Some com­ments, he said, were not even in Eng­lish. The video be­came ex­treme­ly pop­u­lar.

At the end of it all, Gomez said he want­ed to make Reid's fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly his sis­ter Lin­da proud of what her broth­er had be­come.T&T and the rest of the world can cer­tain­ly look out for more of Reid's brand in the near fu­ture, he as­sured.A grin­ning Reid, still sip­ping his tea, then in­vit­ed Guardian to have Sun­day lunch with him at his new home at Cas­cade, St Ann's.

�2 COR­REC­TION: Last week, in the first half of this two-part ar­ti­cle on the life of El­lis Reid aka Un­cle El­lis, the re­porter in­cor­rect­ly wrote Salty's name as Win­ston Smith, who is in fact Dil­lon Charles, and Akim "5 Star" Bor­neo, when in fact it should have been Akeem "5.0" New­ton. Guardian apolo­gies for any in­con­ve­nience caused.