#RIPShelShok

[mistavybe]

Just realised I never posted this to Tumblr...

Mostly because I couldn’t figure out how to embed a video from Facebook on here tbh lol.

Anyway, here you go. If you’re so inclined you can learn all about my first major professional musical experience/achievement through this video. 👆🏾

[mistavybe]

What do you miss that reminds you of a happy time in your past?

🤔 This is probably on my mind because of that Blog A Day post from yesterday where I had to think alot about death…

I miss my brother in music, Sheldon “$hel $hok” Benjamin.

I’ve done several posts about him on here before, but tonight I’m really missing my musical other half, and this Blogtember question has me thinking abot all the good times we shared for years.

We had alot of fun and made a lot of (IMHO great) music. We learned so much together too.

Pretty much all the core techniques that I still use today whenever I record vocals in a studio or write a song… almost all of it I honed while working with Shok for the initial years of our partnership.

For almost a decade or so we were pretty much inseparable. He made the beats, I wrote the lyrics and melodies, and then we figured out (through trial and error over several years) how to make hit records.

When I met Shok, he was actually going by the name Dr. Beat. He was the drum programmer for a popular Pop cover band (M-Voice) that rehearsed not far from where I live.

Shok and I shared a mutual acquantaince: Neil Swanston, AKA DJ Electro Sounds. Neil often DJed at fetes (Trini slang for “parties”) my parents threw at our house back in the day, and he also had a very popular electronics store, located a few minutes’ drive from my house.

One day my Mom was driving me home from school and stopped off at Neil’s store to pick up some small electronics thingie or other that she needed… and whie waiting on her to pay for whatever it was, I heard music coming from a back room on the premises…

Neil knew I was a music fanatic. Whenever he DJed at our house, I used to spend hours standing in the corner behind him, fascinated by the whole process of him mixing the records for people to dance.

I remember he laughed at me a whole lot at those parties, because almost every record he put on, I’d sing along to. He often joked: “Oh gosh, maybe it would be better if I stop (DJing) and you just perform for the people!”

But anyway, back to the story...

That fateful day at Electro Sounds’ store, Neil saw the excitement in my face and escorted me to the room in the back where Shok was.

It was the first time in my life i’d ever seen a drum machine in real life.

Shok was hunched over that TR-707, focused on fine tuning a new beat he had just made. He added chords to it and a wicked bassline, using signature keyboard tones he programmed himself on a Casio CZ-101 keyboard.

After a quick introduction, Neil motioned towards me and asked: “You Rap, right?”, to which I nodded and smiled… then Shok asked if I had any Raps that would fit on the beat he was playing.

I launched into one of the tons of Rap verses I had written down in a copybook that I always carried around with me, and halfway through, I looked up and Shok and Neil were grooving along with me!

Next thing I knew, Shok was asking if I lived close by, and if I knew anyone else around that could Rap or sing on his beats. I, in return, showed him my notebook full of Raps. 💁🏾‍♂️

It only took that first few minutes of banter for Shok and I to become inseparable.

By the next week, I had introduced him to all my little wannabe-entertainer friends from school (and some I had met at talent shows or just cyphers here and there).

Literally every day as soon as school was done, I headed to down to Electro Sounds, where Shok would have a new beat waiting, and he and I (along with whatever other friends happened to be there that day) would try to come up with the best song to match the beat.

Initially it was all Hip Hop style Rap stuff, with Shok and I trying to craft songs to sound like LL Cool J, Run-DMC, or whatever other rapper was hot back then.

Then “Silent Morning” by Noel (out of Miami) became the hottest party song in the world (in or young minds at least lol), and Shok and I became instantly obsessed with that Miami Freestyle sound, as it took over all the clubs and party spots kids frequented here in TnT at the time.

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Shok was particularly into Stevie B - who was pretty much considered the King of the Miami Freestyle movment back then.

Shok’s American cousins had turned him onto Stevie’s album one summer when he visited Florida for the summer.

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Around that time you literally couldn’t go to a house party down here without jamming to Will To Power, Exposé or (Shok’s favourite song back then), “Sending All My Love” by Miami boy band Linear.

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Shok was so obsessed with that Linear song, as a matter of fact, that he programmed a beat in the same style, and over that beat, Shok and I wrote our first Pop song!

We recorded that song several years later for our very first album, after Shok I and had formed a boy band of our our own along with two other friends, and our group got signed to EMI Records, Europe.

The baritone voice singing the “bum bum bum” part at the top of thr song is Shok. Any other vocals you hear are me. ☺️

I still look back at the time between meeting Sheldon and recording that first album as some of the happiest days of my life.

There is absolutely nothing more intoxicating than being a young person ravenously consuming new knowledge, secure in the feeling that you’re doing what you put on this Earth for.

I’m thankful to have had that time with Shok, and many years after that, until e passed away.

RIP bro. I still miss you. 🙏🏾

[mistavybe]

@whistlingwindtree replied to your post:

“What are your wishes for your body after you pass? Do you want a...”

i'm with you....i don't like the pomp and ceremony of funerals...

Likewise! @whistlingwindtree

And in my case, I’m also all funeral-ed out, having put to rest both my Grandmothers (over 14 years back), my lifelong music/songwriting partner (9 years ago), my best friend from high school (10 years ago), my Godmother (4 years ago), my Godbrother who was barely a couple months older than me (3 years ago) my Godmother’s big brother who was like an Uncle to me (2 years ago), and my Dad (4 years ago), one after the other.

And those are just a few. 🤦🏾‍♂️

I’ve been to way too many funerals in the last couple decades honestly.

Just last month I had to pass on going to the memorial service for my favourite high school teacher - a man who literally helped me start walking the path to being the “woke” POC I am today by teaching me the History of the Pan-African Diaspora that was (deliberately) NOT available in our textbooks back then.

I could go on and on, but you get the gist.

For someone in my 40′s I feel like i’ve done way more than my fair share of mourning. I need a break from funerals and death. 🙅🏾‍♂️

[mistavybe]

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A post shared by Mista Vybe (@mistavybe)

"Blak Mayl is $hok, $hok is Blak Mayl." ✊🏾 A young Mista Vybe at the height of his "Ting 4 D Road" success, reunites with group members Jaazz and @marka03 to discuss the legacy of the late, great $hel $hok who founded the group. (video © @danidieff, big up @triniwildindian for the interview). Full video linked on the Mista Vybe FB Page (https://www.facebook.com/mistavybeworld/posts/10155538872506802). #RIPShelShok 🙏🏾

[mistavybe]

Here’s my long overdue #2017TopNine IG post. I’m grateful to the many folks from all over the world who contributed to my year in #2017. It’s gonna take a lotta tags and hashtags to cover all of this so please bear with me lol. Happy New Year and eternal gratifude for whatever way you touched my life, because if you’re tagged here you helped me make an impact on 2017 (and beyond) in some way. Blessings and thanks go out to: @DeniseBelfon @sj_rm @machelmontano @kc_kasey @precisionprod @direalshaggy @billboard @bazodeethemovie @mystiefemme @chekothari @ladyelena_ @shradah @londonfuture @deyoungmasters @colenystrom @untitled51 @thefader @loopnewstt @fetetv @trini_tia @jenna.deleon @marka03 @danidieff @triniwildindian @sunshinenadiva @xsammysunshinex @indivadom @iamsmash @iamsmashmusic @868krich @jimmyoctober 🙏🏾🕺🏾🎉🎊 #2017topnine #SONGWRITING #Soca #EDM #CDM #Dancehall #WorldMusic #Work #DeniseBelfon #SaucyWow #SunneryJamesAndRyanMarciano #MastersAtWork #MAW #Trini #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #Caribbean #EuroDance #Ragga #Ultra #UltraMusicFestival #UltraMiami #UltraMiami2017 #Remedy #RemedyRefix #MonkMonté #MachelMontano #AfroSoca #AfroBeat #Zumba #Trini #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #Caribbean #WestIndian #WestIndies #Carnival #C2K15 #MistaVybe #VybeMuzik #YoungVybe #Tobago #ILiveWhereYouVacation #poolside #pool #IslandLife #RIPHorace #RIPShelShok #ThrowbackThursday #KeepWukkinIt #StLucia #Lucian #Vincy #StVincentAndTheGrenadines #Bim #Barbados #Bajan #sundivas #keepwukkin #onetheband #love #UnderMe #EyeSlam #HipHop #WorldMusic #TheRichLife #C2K17

[mistavybe]

Favorite hairstyles I’ve had 💇🏾‍♂️👦🏾🧔🏾

💇🏾‍♂️ Classic 80’s high top fade haircut, Circa 1988. You can’t tell by looking at it (because it was dry af that day after a whole day’s worth of running around pre-photo), but my hair is actually S-Curled in this pic lol. Def needed more Luster’s Pink Moisturizer and some S-Curl Activator gel that day 🤣... but you get the gist. This was a pic of all the members of the very first band I ever joined - M-Voice. (I’m the guy in the yellow/orange t-shirt with the nerdy glasses, btw 😳🤓) #RIPShelShok (he’s the tall ass dude with the headphones on 🎧)

💇🏾‍♂️ 100% natural (“Play from Kid N’ Play”) high top fade... Pic taken of me during my Kisskidee Karavan performance at the National Stadium in 1993. S-Curls were over by then, thankfully lmao. 🙏🏾 (Yes, i’m shirtless. No, I don’t want to talk about it. 🙈) Special shout out to my barber, Slick, from back then! He was so good, we got him gigs trimming all the stars who came to record at Caribbean Sound Basin studio Trinidad in the early 90’s (Tony! Toni! Tonë!, Teddy Riley, Guy, BlackStreet, Diddy and his crew, etc).

💇🏾‍♂️ I’m guessing this was somewhere between 1994 and 1995 because I know for a fact these short “straw curl twists” (i’m in the guy in the middle) was what I was rocking when I signed my major label record deal with the boy band I used to be in, and that was 1994 for sure lol. Straw curls were the hot commodity back then for young black men. 🤷🏾‍♂️ I was going someplace more dressy in this photo, clearly, because usually in my day to day casual look i’d rock the straw curls with a bandana on, Karate Kid style lmao. 🤕

💇🏾‍♂️ Joe Le Taxi music video with Sharlene Boodram, back in 1997. Fun fact: most people thought I had dreadlocks between 1996 and around 2000, but the reality is they were just really long twists lol. I kinda hated the process of combing them out and re-twisting but at the same time, my dad had previously disowned my older half-brother for several years after he grew dreadlocks, soooo... it was either twists back then or be homeless. I went with the twists lol.🤷🏾‍♂️

💇🏾‍♂️ 2000 - 2011. I rocked what we in Trinidad call cane-rows (Americans call them cornrows) for pretty much a solid decade. Initially I just asked whatever chicks I was close to that could braid hair to “hook me up”, until eventually I found an awesome natural hair stylist (love you Safi!) who kept me in impeccable styled week after week, including the ‘do in this photo shoot. She only had one rule: “This is my hair, you’re just the one wearing it, so take care of properly until you bring it back to me to wash and re-style, Mister Man! 😡” And that’s exactly what I did lmao. 🤷🏾‍♂️

💇🏾‍♂️ 2011 - Present. Eventually, I felt like I aged out of younger styles like the canerows and twists and had to let it all go. Best decision ever. Nothing is more satisfying than hopping in the shower and shampooing your hair in 5 minutes flat, being able to instantly towel dry the hair, slap some jojoba oil in there, give it a quick brush and be out of the house in mere minutes if necessary lol. After years of sleeping in du-rags, constantly re-applying gel and/or anti-frizz spray and (a black hair tradition) having to pat the hell out of my hair if it itched for fear of runing the style if I scratched my scalp... my current low fade is the best thing ever. 🙌🏾 I don’t see myself doing anything crazy anytime soon.

This has been a Vybe hair retrospective. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk lol. 👋🏾

[mistavybe]

Reposting in honour of today marking 9 years since my brother in music, Shok, left us. Still feels like yesterday smdh. #Repost from @mistavybe back in 2013: ・・・ From Dr. Beat to $hel $hok. From 2713 to the SkyLine. I remember it all, bro. Hard to believe my friend Sheldon Benjamin passed *9* years ago today... Time truly does fly. #RIPShelShok! #memories #MVoice #CSB #BlakMayl #KisskideeKaravan #Midem #OYeh