Spotlight: Jory

Raised on a diet of Jamaican dancehall music that enabled him to hone his skills over the last ten years Jory is now writing and promoting his own sound signed with his trademark "a de real thing".

The artiste, who is one of Guyana's up and coming entertainers, is an accomplished stage act known to rouse crowds to laughter and frenzy with his homespun lyrics and witty punch lines. Jory also achieved some level of success on a recent tour to Jamaica with Brutal Jammers.

Not far from the norm, the emerging career of Jory Douglas Hector began with a love for music and nothing else. Love for the music led to imitating popular songs of the day, not only for personal pleasure but also for fans and rivals.

The artiste told The Scene that while he was in high school fellow students would pay $20 to hear him sing the hot dancehall tracks. Back then, he had only one original. "That was like what I used to study," Jory recalls, though he employed his lyrical skill to memorize certain answers when exams came around. He also got involved in musical clashes with schoolmates from other schools "I found it fun."

Incidentally, Jory, who is now 24, attended several secondary schools, Campbellville, North Georgetown and St John's College.

Out of these early experiments with performing, the artiste who is now with Brutal Traxx Studios realized he could do his own songs. "I said to myself if these guys could do it original and make millions of dollars I could do the same," he tried a number of songs, moved a variety of audiences and figured well, "I better go a step ahead".

Venturing out in to the world of the unknown, Jory found that persons were not interested in giving him a chance because they did not know him. "People now only deal with people they know and the business is not like that you should be dealing with people on the basis of talent."

As a result, he decided to try neighbouring Suriname to see how things would go over there. He found it was more of the same since he had no real links to any one in the arena who could open avenues.

Returning to reside in Sophia, Georgetown, a place which he has a lot of love for, Jory got into a group called Hi Tech, which was featured on several local TV programmes, with Malo, and two other guys Keon Brown and Darwin,. "Everybody from that group is real powerful in music. Everybody knows Jory; Malo, the Soca Monarch; Darwin is a very good writer and Keon is still singing he should have an album by now," said the artiste.

The group eventually dissolved and he got together with Roger, who performs with Fire Clan, which is a part of Brutal Jammers, and Sheldon another local artiste. They then met Devon Roberts, the studio engineer for Brutal Traxx Studio, and Jory was drafted into the Brutal mix.

Of the year-plus arrangement with Brutal, Jory says, "It's nice; I'm seeing my way 100%." Though he has not signed anything official, he is not fazed, "'cause [they are] good people. They treat you as an artiste; make sure you get what you should get financially. I'm comfortable and happy. I accept this music thing as my career and job."

The artiste who once hosted 'The Crib', a show that highlighted local acts on HBTV Channel 9 because he thought if he did not make it someone should, is working on a 15-track album for release in November.

In the interim, he has four songs on the airwaves: "Buss a Wine", "Nervous", "Last Bad Boy Dead" and "She Need a Man" featuring Alicia.

Jory, before heading back into the studio where the Brutal crew is always hard at work, expressed the wish to improve his country's image by building a school where music is included on the syllabus.

"Right now I got a vision to just keep moving, boring like a plane through the clouds to success and when I make it I would do good things for the country. I would build a school teaching normal subjects but including music. Not only Maths and English because music slacken up; right now in the country there are schools with no music classes. Guyana is way back. We used to cannon the whole town with music and now look how far back we are with music. We're now heading back to the top."

-- Fron Stabroek New's The Scene