SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

Schol­ar and pan­nist Chu­ma “King Ca­jwa” Wat­son is try­ing to raise $150,000 by the mid­dle of Au­gust to pay for his tu­ition at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) come Au­gust 23.

Wat­son, whose ap­pli­ca­tions for schol­ar­ships were un­suc­cess­ful, says even though times are tough he is press­ing on to achieve his mu­sic ca­reer goals.

On Sun­day, at 5.55 pm, he will host a three-hour vir­tu­al fundrais­ing con­cert, Vi­bra­tions of Steel, via the YouTube chan­nel, Po­et­ic Stu­dios.

The show, or­gan­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chris­t­ian Joseph, Tris­ton Mar­cano, Safiya Wat­son and Caris­sa Vic­tor, promis­es to tell a sto­ry like no oth­er. It will give an in­sight in­to Wat­son’s life jour­ney through the steel­pan from 1999 to present.

The unique event will open with nar­ra­tion by Michael Cher­rie: “We are noth­ing but shad­ows and dust. The earth is our birth-right where un­told sto­ries and un­told his­to­ry be­come the loud­est cries...Steel and fire cre­at­ed an em­i­nent sound that con­tin­ues to echo through ages, and up to this day.”

Fea­tured artists will in­clude VOS. Quar­tet, Jereel Samuel, Kion Robin­son, Tris­ton Mar­cano, Aki­no­la Sen­non, Caris­sa Vic­tor, Tony Paul, Robert Gomez, Kelé, Black Loy­al­ty, Prophet Ben­jamin, Mar­cus Prince, and Shot­ta Linkz. The UTT stu­dent quar­tet—Mar­cus Hy­po­lite, gui­tar; Emile For­tune, pi­ano; An­dre Jack, bass; and Lea­son Ja­cobs, drums—will pro­vide mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment.

Carissa Victor

For Wat­son, who has a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in the Per­form­ing Arts with a ma­jor in mu­sic, his aca­d­e­m­ic ex­pe­ri­ence has been chal­leng­ing as he is dyslex­ic. Mu­sic has been ther­a­peu­tic for him, so he holds it very close to his heart.

“I pa­tient­ly await this next stage of my aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer path with im­mense ex­cite­ment, look­ing for­ward to learn­ing and al­so nur­tur­ing the rich­ness of knowl­edge which the North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty has to of­fer,” said Wat­son, a grad­u­ate of UTT.

“My long term goal for steel­pan cul­ture strong­ly fo­cus­es on scaf­fold­ing a stronger and more in­no­v­a­tive aca­d­e­m­ic sys­tem for the Caribbean cre­ative arts sec­tor in pro­vid­ing ca­reer de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, Mas­ter’s De­gree and PhD pro­grammes in all Caribbean uni­ver­si­ties strong­ly fo­cus­ing on the fine arts, di­rect­ly.”

Wat­son start­ed play­ing steel­pan with the LH Pan Groove Steel Or­ches­tra in La Hor­quet­ta at age 13 years.

He said he is grate­ful for the sup­port and en­cour­age­ment he has re­ceived over the years from his moth­er, Os­unke­mi Ojegbe­mi, aunt Eliz­a­beth Thorne and un­cle, the late Tony Thorne.

He al­so ex­pressed his grat­i­tude to Pan Trin­ba­go, Po­et­ic Stu­dio, Mon­ti­cano, Sound Forge, Flowsstate and Pro­fes­sion­al In­ter­ven­tion En­ter­tain­ments.