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Keston “Young K” Paul, with calypsonian Crazy at Synergy TV, on January 5, where they performed Rub It Up on Synergy Nights. Photo courtesy Kathy-Ann Paul
Cougar warning: Young K is just a baby. The slick rapper spits some risqué lyrics on Crazy’s saucy new track Rub it up, but he’s only 17. Born Keston Paul, he is the youngest son of veteran soca arranger Leston Paul. Despite that heritage, he is drawn to hip hop. In an interview at the Guardian on January 12, Keston credited this to the influence of his half-brothers, Taurian, 22, and Avery, 20, who are part of a hip hop group called Outsiders. “When I was small, I could remember, I was into soca and Michael Jackson but when they bring out Outsiders, I start feeling it. They didn’t show me how to rap but they brought me into it,” said Keston.
Enter calypsonian Edwin “Crazy” Ayoung, who recorded Rub It Up at Paul’s studio in Mt Lambert. “Their father, I working with him over the past 30 years,” Crazy said in a telephone interview on January 13. All my hits come from him. The young one came to me and I say, ‘Look, boy, this is the son of Leston Paul.’ He have a lot of songs, all he need is hooks. “When he look at me, I see fire in the boy eyes. The boy did a good job. He have a bright future.” Rub It Up is a song about a man who discovers someone has some delicious-smelling “junk in the trunk” and invites the person to rub it on his face. Keston’s rap goes, in part, “I know what you want to do when you come along... let me hit that, shake that, break that.” Using hip hop is a change for Crazy, who confesses he knows a few names in the genre but none of the music.
“Everybody using that Jamaican influence but we decide to go a different direction with hip hop.” The gamble has paid off, so far. “The song getting a lot of airplay,” Crazy said. Keston rhymes and freestyles effortlessly on command, despite being diagnosed a slow learner as a child. He cites some of his hip hop influences as Tupac, Big Pun and Eazy-E—all gangsta rappers, and all dead (although Keston will argue Tupac is still alive). Asked whether he listened to a lot of gangsta rap, he quickly responded, “I listen to legendary rappers.” He is focused on finishing a Servol programme in business communication at the Barataria High-Tech facility. He hopes after Carnival his famous father will finish the track they started last year and get his music career going in earnest. In the meanwhile, look for him on stage at Kalypso Revue with Crazy. “I want to carry him in the kaiso tent on the weekends. He still in school, so I don’t want to interfere with (that),” Crazy said.
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