Evan's life

EVAN BELIZE
RING-TING RIDDIM!!!

Evan Belize was born in what then was the British Honduras, and now is BELIZE, to Gwendolyn Fortune and Benel Trapp. His grandmother was from GALES POINT MANATEE, a little peninsula, connected to Dangriga. When he was a child, Evan's mother would take him there for frequent visits. Evan's early world was packed with a lot of true stories told by those great poets: Song, Dance, Rhythm and Vision.




Evan attended church with his grandmother, a SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST, his mother, a Catholic, and sometimes with his mother, sometimes on his own, he attended what was called a Jump-Up Church, the Church of God in Christ. That is where the music in him was uncovered. A combination of black Women, Jamaican, Belizean, and American, put those rhythms together, and he got hypnotized. There was no turning back. Because of that church, he got a chance to perform in many plays early in his childhood.He remembers playing Joseph, and also little Moses. He remembers playing a child who was baptized. And, he has continued to enjoy acting. Many years later, he played MOSES again, this time in Santa Cruz, California. Evan has been a magician, a story teller, a tap dancer, an artist, a builder of boats....
Evan got serious about his music in 1973, when he got his first guitar from an old garbage collector by the name of Mr. Posse. Evan was living with his grandmother at the time. He stopped Mr. Posse as he was passing the house on his way to work. "If you see any guitars in the dump," he told him, "I would like to have one". By the next week Mr Posse appeared at the door, " I found one son. But it will cost you 9 bucks.." This was a lot of money for young Evan. So his grandmother gave him the money. And Evan, the musician, was born.


Since then he has learned to play every instrument which you will hear on his CDs. He played with the best Belizian musicians around in the early 80s.. The first time Evan recorded was with Belize's best writer and composer, Joseph Wagner. Evan was playing bass in a band that took second place in a "Battle of the Bands" contest with Wagner's tune, "Sunshine Wonder." The song, sung by Evan's late friend, ALBERT GILL, went on to be number one on the chart on RADIO BELIZE (now called LOVEFM), which in those days was the only radio station in Belize. Nowadays, if you want to hear a really hot Belizean radio station, take a listen to KREM! Anyhow, the band was supposed to perform in Cuba, but there was an election coming on in Belize, and they didn't go because of politics. Although Evan was disappointed, as it turned out, instead of traveling, they made a tape to send to Cuba. And that was Evan's first time in a studio.



From there, he went on with Joseph Wagner to play on Belize's second BELIKIN BEER commercial(also sung by Albert Gill). He played congos and sang for a high school group, the Road Runners. He played for GLENN BOOD and the Mediators (also known as Glenn Bood and the Telegram) one of the number one bands in the land at that time. He traveled to different Cayes as a guitar player and back-up vocalist for his friend, Albert Gill, better known then as ALBERT ROOTS. He also used to back up other young people in singing contests.



Evan has always been interested in writing. (These days. he writes and arranges all his own material.) When he worked with Joseph Wagner, who wrote his own songs, Evan was very curious about how you write a song. But he never saw Joseph actually write a song. Then one time Joseph told Evan to arrange his own bass line. (Evan was playing stand up bass at the time, using a bass owned by Belize's great bass player, Mr. McGregger of the band Harmonious Harmonists.) And that was a breakthrough for Evan.



Another breakthrough happened when KEN LAZARUS lead singer for Tomorrow's Children, came to the Palace Theater in Belize. (At that time Lazarus had recently been voted number one Reggae Artist in the whole Caribbean.) Evan happened to be sitting right in back of him, EARNEST SMITH and someone else. He watched them write a song and then go straight up on the stage and work it out. That was a great inspiration for Evan. "Now I know how to write a song," he said to himself. He was never interested in playing covers after that. And if he did play one, he always wanted to change it. "... And that got me caught up in trouble," he says.



Evan has been performing since the early seventies. He has performed solo; he has been backed by the Dubstitute band (a team from the Unshakeable Race); he has had his own band, EARTH FORCES, and he has opened for several well known artists. Along with NORMA FRASER, he opened for JULIAN MARLEY. He opened for EEK-A-MOUSE,Desmond Dekker, BLACK ROSES , DUB SQUAD , and many others.



These days Evan has been writing kids' songs, which are easy, and not so easy. Because, he came to realize, "When I write a song for kids, I have to think about the parents too." So, if you were to listen to his Kidsworld CD you would find it very well thought out, with parents in mind. "I had to make some changes., " says Evan. "Take for instance my intro to the song, Grandma. My original lyric went like this, Grandma, O Grandma, oh how I miss you so. I remember when my papa and mama was in the penitentiary for drinking and smoking crack and coke, when you had to take me to school. O how I miss you so. Now I know many kids for whom that was a fact. Not me.(Though my Grandma and Grandpa did take me to school.) But I changed it because I didn't want to hurt nobody."



Evan's favorite Belizean artists, many of whom he met at BIRDS ISLE include "the great" LORD RHABURN, "the great" NELSON DIAMOND, and "the great" Bertie Martines-- not to mention "the great" MR. WILFRED PETERS! And Mr. Tally Bood, Glenn Bood's father."Oh was he good on the trumpet! He reminded me of LOUIS ARMSTRONG," Another musical influence on Evan was "the soulful" Harry Shaw. "He could be singing in English and suddenly he would break out in Spanish." Says Evan, "These days we have all kinds of styles coming out of the Caribbean, out of Africa, out of all the world. In my earlier days I was exposed to Calypso: MIGHTY SPARROW & the Troubadours... LORD KITCHENER.... They were my heroes. I was so glad I got to see Mighty Sparrow & the Troubadours perform live."



Belizean music in Evan's early days was a combination of Brukdon, Lash Weh and Boom an'chime. You can find aspects of all of them in his songs. "I cannot let them go. That's the foundation. But when I write a song, I don't try to write any particular style of song. I just let it be. I believe a song can compose itself, at least that's what I feel. It's all roots with me, so to speak. "



Evan enjoys the music of MIRIAM MAKEBA , LOUIS ARMSTRONG, BELLA CARIB, THE MARLEYS , PETER TOSH and more musicians than you can name.He listens to classical music. He listens to country. Evan doesn't care about listening to any one particular style of music, or being one particular style of musician. "Reggae, I love it! Soca, I love it! Ska! I dig it. Dance Hall. That's it!"



He expresses this thought in a song you can hear on his CD: WE ARE ONE or read in his book: SONGS OF POETRY




Musical Farmer



I don't prejudice when it comes to music.

I no prejudice when it comes to a song.

There are some of them who brag

that all the music come from Africa.

So why they exclude one from another?

All you do is contradict yourself.



I am a musical farmer

I am a musical farmer.



You want to know why? -- I plant my

music in the brain , in the brain

cultivate it in the heart,

in the mind, body and soul.



(Bridge)



I am fighting so hard to make

this one work.

I am fighting so hard to make

this one work.


Can you put jealousy aside

and make this one work?

All I am saying

is come together.



Don't be like crab inna barrel--

as one reach the top, you pull

him back down.

They find fault because they

dislike my progress.

So remember not everyone

will reach that top.



I don't prejudice when it comes to music.

I no prejudice when it comes to a song.

Why exclude one from another?

All you do is contradict yourself.



I am a musical farmer

I am a musical farmer.



Evan Trapp Belize

Copyright 2003