positive messages are breathed. That is the wandering purpose of the group who call themselves No-Maddz.
All writers, actors and performers — Sheldon Shepherd, Oneil Peart, Christopher Gordon and Everaldo Creary — have been together as a group since they met in high school at Kingston College.
Individually they have accomplished much — from winning gold medals in the JCDC Festivals to winning the Prime Minister Youth Awards for Excellence — they have almost done it all.
However, as a group, they have become a force to be reckoned with in the cultural and entertainment industry. Recently, they released their album, The Trod, which is the first live album in Jamaica since 1984.
With an international tour in the pipeline and a feature performance on this weekend's An Evening with Kenny 'Babyface' Edmonds, what better time to interview these young and talented men.
TEENage sat down with No-Maddz to find out more about the group and all that they have done in their contribution to strengthening the Jamaican culture.
TEENage: How long has the group been together?
No-Maddz (Christopher): From school days. But professionally we've been performing for 10 years.
TEENage: How did you come up with the name No-Maddz?
No-Maddz: In the KC canteen. We just threw out some ideas because we didn't want to enter the festival under the name 'The KC guys'. So, we called out names jokingly then a man jus' shout out "nomads" and we started to laugh. But then we realise that it made sense and we just work with it because we're from different backgrounds and we don't just stick to one thing. We move about, wandering with a purpose. Then we changed the spelling to No-Maddz.
TEENage: How long did it take you to finish the album?
No-Maddz: It took us two and a half hours to record it, about six weeks to edit it, but 10 years to launch it. The official launch was on July 9 at Emancipation Park.
TEENage: Why did you choose to name it The Trod?
No-Maddz: Well, a fi di youths, all a we. Everyone a we have a different experience, a different journey, a different trod.
The members had a chance to give their individual stories:
Singing star
Oneil Edwards grew up in the volatile Greenwich community where he held close the philosophy that of every 10 friends that 'trod', chances are only one will make it.
"Mi neva rich and as such I believed that education was the only way to take me out of that situation," he states.
From as early as the third grade Oneil knew where he wanted to be. He had a natural love for the performing arts and the hard work of his mother only made him more motivated to achieve his goals.
After Kingston College, Oneil continued on the same path with his love for the perfoming arts, but had to cross obstacles to get to where he really wanted to go.
"I taught at Calabar Junior High and it was there that I taught myself music." Oneil would buy music books, read and teach himself to play instruments; ultimately mastering the guitar.
In taking his group to the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) festival and achieving gold, Oneil was sure he was where he wanted to be.
After doing theatre and drama for so long, when he started Excelsior Community College to do the arts, he changed his focus entirely to music, making it his major.
Love eternal
The Franklin Town revivalist church-boy, Everaldo Creary, found himself at a cross-roads where he had to choose between the church and his God-given talent.
His mother was an evangelist and his father was a decon and so Everaldo had already been introduced to instruments and music being at church.
"With all that said, life for me really began at KC," Everardo declared. In 1998, he was a part of the Kingston College Drama Club, as well as the various cricket teams.
Like the other members of the group, his first golden performance was at the JCDC where he delivered a dub poem entitled Mi Feel It Yuh See.
Everaldo went on to study marketing at the University of Technology and it was there he realised that his formal education, religious beliefs and love for the arts were all in contention. He was a deacon at the Zion Episcopal Baptist Church.
"I believe in positive things. If I heard a song I believed it was positive, it would be a problem just because it was not religious. So at school I would be doing something different from what I was doing at church. At the end of the day, I chose what was important to me and that was the positive music; that was full-time No-Maddz."
Steady and sure
Sheldon Shepherd, the 'leader' of No-Maddz, was the first son of his father and second for his mother. Keith Shepherd, his father, was his role model.
As an actor and dubpoet, Keith Shepherd exposed his son to the performing arts, and as such, Sheldon has been performing from the very tender age of three.
Like Everaldo, Sheldon grew up in the Franklin Town community and also found himself attending Kingston College. Shepherd was a member of the basketball team and the drama club where he held captain positions. At grade nine, he started to perform at the JCDC festival.
The first poem he performed was entitled One A Dem Youth Deh, where he copped gold.
"After KC, I went to the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC) to do voice and speech training and this merely helped to polish the raw talent I was given," Shepherd said.
It was his years of experience that made him into the artiste he is today.
The stabiliser
To make the perfect square, Christopher Gordon blended his multiple personalities into the group. As a toddler, he lived with god-parents in Waterhouse and was baptised at age seven.
At age 10, Christopher moved to Golden Spring where he stayed with his father. It was at KC that the performing arts became a big part of his life and he would soon become a member No-Maddz. But it wasn't that easy.
"They said I could not join if I had never performed and gotten a gold at JCDC," Christopher relayed.
Later he proved himself worthy by doing such and the rest for him was history.
He continued on this path in the arts receiving the award for the best actor in the Caribbean. Unlike his other group members, Christopher had the oppurtunity to study overseas at Huntington University in Indiania and he graduated with a honours degree in broadcasting.
TEENage: How are you able to balance theatre and music?
No-Maddz: (Laughs) Bwoy, me nuh kno, we just balance!
TEENage: Describe the feeling you get from performing live.
No-Maddz: There is a high level of satisfaction. We love performing. Performing for us is like a drug and believe me a person's performance is only as good as their last, so we always yearn for the best.
TEENage: So who writes the pieces?
No-Maddz: We all contribute to the composition of our pieces. Everybody add them own part. Oneil play the guitar, Everaldo may use the grater, and we put the ideas together and create a fusion, but Sheldon writes most of the pieces.
TEENage: So, Sheldon and Everaldo, Better Mus Come is your first feature film, how is performing on stage different from performing on set and in front of a camera?
No-Maddz: Film is easier to an extent, only because you don't have to physically put out as much as you would when you're on stage. With film I have the chance to do it over if I make a mistake, but on stage the performer has one shot to get it right.
BY: CHIEFTIN CAMPBELL & MONIQUE CLARKE
All writers, actors and performers — Sheldon Shepherd, Oneil Peart, Christopher Gordon and Everaldo Creary — have been together as a group since they met in high school at Kingston College.
Individually they have accomplished much — from winning gold medals in the JCDC Festivals to winning the Prime Minister Youth Awards for Excellence — they have almost done it all.
However, as a group, they have become a force to be reckoned with in the cultural and entertainment industry. Recently, they released their album, The Trod, which is the first live album in Jamaica since 1984.
With an international tour in the pipeline and a feature performance on this weekend's An Evening with Kenny 'Babyface' Edmonds, what better time to interview these young and talented men.
TEENage sat down with No-Maddz to find out more about the group and all that they have done in their contribution to strengthening the Jamaican culture.
TEENage: How long has the group been together?
No-Maddz (Christopher): From school days. But professionally we've been performing for 10 years.
TEENage: How did you come up with the name No-Maddz?
No-Maddz: In the KC canteen. We just threw out some ideas because we didn't want to enter the festival under the name 'The KC guys'. So, we called out names jokingly then a man jus' shout out "nomads" and we started to laugh. But then we realise that it made sense and we just work with it because we're from different backgrounds and we don't just stick to one thing. We move about, wandering with a purpose. Then we changed the spelling to No-Maddz.
TEENage: How long did it take you to finish the album?
No-Maddz: It took us two and a half hours to record it, about six weeks to edit it, but 10 years to launch it. The official launch was on July 9 at Emancipation Park.
TEENage: Why did you choose to name it The Trod?
No-Maddz: Well, a fi di youths, all a we. Everyone a we have a different experience, a different journey, a different trod.
The members had a chance to give their individual stories:
Singing star
Oneil Edwards grew up in the volatile Greenwich community where he held close the philosophy that of every 10 friends that 'trod', chances are only one will make it.
"Mi neva rich and as such I believed that education was the only way to take me out of that situation," he states.
From as early as the third grade Oneil knew where he wanted to be. He had a natural love for the performing arts and the hard work of his mother only made him more motivated to achieve his goals.
After Kingston College, Oneil continued on the same path with his love for the perfoming arts, but had to cross obstacles to get to where he really wanted to go.
"I taught at Calabar Junior High and it was there that I taught myself music." Oneil would buy music books, read and teach himself to play instruments; ultimately mastering the guitar.
In taking his group to the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) festival and achieving gold, Oneil was sure he was where he wanted to be.
After doing theatre and drama for so long, when he started Excelsior Community College to do the arts, he changed his focus entirely to music, making it his major.
Love eternal
The Franklin Town revivalist church-boy, Everaldo Creary, found himself at a cross-roads where he had to choose between the church and his God-given talent.
His mother was an evangelist and his father was a decon and so Everaldo had already been introduced to instruments and music being at church.
"With all that said, life for me really began at KC," Everardo declared. In 1998, he was a part of the Kingston College Drama Club, as well as the various cricket teams.
Like the other members of the group, his first golden performance was at the JCDC where he delivered a dub poem entitled Mi Feel It Yuh See.
Everaldo went on to study marketing at the University of Technology and it was there he realised that his formal education, religious beliefs and love for the arts were all in contention. He was a deacon at the Zion Episcopal Baptist Church.
"I believe in positive things. If I heard a song I believed it was positive, it would be a problem just because it was not religious. So at school I would be doing something different from what I was doing at church. At the end of the day, I chose what was important to me and that was the positive music; that was full-time No-Maddz."
Steady and sure
Sheldon Shepherd, the 'leader' of No-Maddz, was the first son of his father and second for his mother. Keith Shepherd, his father, was his role model.
As an actor and dubpoet, Keith Shepherd exposed his son to the performing arts, and as such, Sheldon has been performing from the very tender age of three.
Like Everaldo, Sheldon grew up in the Franklin Town community and also found himself attending Kingston College. Shepherd was a member of the basketball team and the drama club where he held captain positions. At grade nine, he started to perform at the JCDC festival.
The first poem he performed was entitled One A Dem Youth Deh, where he copped gold.
"After KC, I went to the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC) to do voice and speech training and this merely helped to polish the raw talent I was given," Shepherd said.
It was his years of experience that made him into the artiste he is today.
The stabiliser
To make the perfect square, Christopher Gordon blended his multiple personalities into the group. As a toddler, he lived with god-parents in Waterhouse and was baptised at age seven.
At age 10, Christopher moved to Golden Spring where he stayed with his father. It was at KC that the performing arts became a big part of his life and he would soon become a member No-Maddz. But it wasn't that easy.
"They said I could not join if I had never performed and gotten a gold at JCDC," Christopher relayed.
Later he proved himself worthy by doing such and the rest for him was history.
He continued on this path in the arts receiving the award for the best actor in the Caribbean. Unlike his other group members, Christopher had the oppurtunity to study overseas at Huntington University in Indiania and he graduated with a honours degree in broadcasting.
TEENage: How are you able to balance theatre and music?
No-Maddz: (Laughs) Bwoy, me nuh kno, we just balance!
TEENage: Describe the feeling you get from performing live.
No-Maddz: There is a high level of satisfaction. We love performing. Performing for us is like a drug and believe me a person's performance is only as good as their last, so we always yearn for the best.
TEENage: So who writes the pieces?
No-Maddz: We all contribute to the composition of our pieces. Everybody add them own part. Oneil play the guitar, Everaldo may use the grater, and we put the ideas together and create a fusion, but Sheldon writes most of the pieces.
TEENage: So, Sheldon and Everaldo, Better Mus Come is your first feature film, how is performing on stage different from performing on set and in front of a camera?
No-Maddz: Film is easier to an extent, only because you don't have to physically put out as much as you would when you're on stage. With film I have the chance to do it over if I make a mistake, but on stage the performer has one shot to get it right.
BY: CHIEFTIN CAMPBELL & MONIQUE CLARKE
