‘D’Termine Nation’ is seeking to open doors for Vincentian artistes

An independent record label called “D’Termine Nation” is seeking to open doors for Vincentian artistes who are serious about their work.

The label, which is based at Villa, St Vincent, is owned by Barrouallie resident Carlson “D’Termine” Hannaway and his business partner “Genna Gen”.

In a recent interview, Hannaway told SEARCHLIGHT that they are working on setting up a studio but at the moment they are linked with Mark Cyrus and his Master Room Studios.

“We are all about music,” Hannaway said while adding that so far, they have been linked with local acts like “101 Stunna”, “Moonskull”, Keith Currency and Akene “Prez” Keizer among others.

Hannaway, himself an artiste with songs like “Ghetto Girls”, “Don’t wanna let you go” and “Summer Fling” said that many Vincentian artistes are so talented that they put out music in different genres.

Hannaway himself does this as his recent album “Better Days” encompasses all genres, Soca, dancehall and reggae.

“Vincentians can break into any genre. People jump to Soca to get their music out there, but a lot of genres have talent. Look at Abuza, Dynamite, Yafatu, Skinny Fabulous, Sergeant Bread, Icon…” Hannaway commented.

He said when his label is up and running fully, it will create opportunities for artistes as they also have planned, things like writers’ camps so that artistes can interact.

“Good things are happening and we trying to link up Vincy to the whole of the Caribbean,” Hannaway said while adding that 101 Stunna’s parang, “Turkey for Christmas” has made a huge impact.

“We trying to put Vincy music out there and do collaborations with the outer world and other artistes and trying to achieve bigger that what happen before,” said Hannaway who added that local artistes who get the right help can make a huge impact.

“We have a lot of artistes…young talent like L Pank, Small Circle, so we need that opportunity to push it,” Hannaway said, but added that one of the problems here is to get the disc jockeys to play local music.

“They not pushing the local music in the ear of people, so people not really recognizing their own except for carnival, but there are other artistes, big talents here so the DJs need to play the local music because the quality is good and if you play local, people will rate you because you support your own,” Hannaway commented.

He noted also that our festivals like Carnival and Nine Mornings can be bigger as we have the international airport and people travel for festivals.

Hannaway said he is hoping that he can create more festivals and help improve the ones we have, and he is looking into this through a collaboration with and entity known as “Link Up Vincy”.

“People travel long distances and hours on a plane just to get to Jamaica or Barbados for Crop Over or for Reggae on the Hill and the international airport will be in use if we start to have some big festival here.

“They can have Vincy festivals with other links. For instance there is a festival in St Maarten with links to St Lucia and St Lucia can link to Vincy. Vincy has Carnival and Nine Mornings, but to me the festivals them not big enough when compared with other countries like Cuba, Jamaica’s Dream Weekend. We have facilities here that we can push off good shows and have weekends and a whole week of shows so we trying to push that link,” Hannaway explained.

He also has some advice for local artistes who may find it hard in the business.

“I would encourage all artistes to keep on doing your things no matter how hard or what people may say. You have a talent, stick to it. We recognize talent, so if you come and we [see] your talent is there we will definitely help the youths,” Hannaway said.

His official website is www.dterminemusic.com while he may be found on Facebook through “D’Termine”, “D’termine Official” on YouTube and ‘dtermineofficial” on Instagram.