A few years ago at the Big Ship headquarters, Dougs approached close friend Stephen McGregor with the idea for a song.
He started singing the lyrics of the chorus, and with the recommendation to slow the pace of the song, McGregor took out his guitar, and began playing along.
Before he knew it, ‘Di Genius’ had laid down the guitar, bass and drums for his melody, providing the instrumentals for what was to be named the Pursue riddim. That same day, Dougs recorded the song Pursue… however the system crashed and the file, lost.
As if by fate, in 2010 the song emerged, on a CD found by friend Germaine Mason, who had begun playing it for a few people in England, where he resided. Among these was footballer-cum-music producer Ricardo ‘Bibi’ Gardner, who had nothing but good things to say about the track.
The decision was made to try to get a few local artistes to ‘voice’ on the riddim. It was also time to register the company. Creative Noize Records was officially borne, with Dwayne ‘Dougs’ Douglas and Germaine Mason at the helm.
If you know how the music business operates in Jamaica, you can imagine and understand the difficulties the duo has encountered along the way… but still they persevered and ‘pursued’ (pardon the pun), getting the likes of Tony Rebel, Queen Ifrica, Shema and Ce’cile (to name a few), to share their musical talents. And already, Ifrica’s Pot Still Haffi Bubble is getting airplay, not to mention rave reviews among New York selectors.
This soothing one-drop brings about ‘feel good’ emotions, an element which is brought out in the lyrics of many of the artistes featured thus far on the riddim – a welcome change to the nonsensical lyrics of face-bleaching, hammering, and jumping up and down across a dancefloor trying to contort our bodies into different shapes. I personally identify with the lyrics from Ce’cile’s Gwaan Live Life which states, “keep your head above water, stay conscious”.
You know… sometimes all you need is simply to slow things down a little, in order to see its true beauty and worth.
With more artistes to come, I invite you to listen to the preview and share your thoughts.
::PuRsUe Riddim::
Instrumental – Stephen ‘Di Genius’ McGregor
Never Love Again – Shema McGregor
Gwaan Live Life – Ce’cile
Don’t Fret Too Much – Tony Rebel
Pot Still Haffi Bubble – Queen Ifrica
"Living & Loving Life" 