AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

Because Trini to the Bone is a feature on individuals, all six members of Freetown Collective will appear one by one over six weeks, starting on May 30 with one co-founder, Lou Lyons, and ending with the other co-founder, Muhammad Muwakil, on July 4.

My name is Lou Lyons and I am the co-founder and one of six members of Freetown Collective.

I am a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer.

Originally from Pembroke, Tobago, I lived there until I was 21.

I now live in Tunapuna.

Both places shaped the person speaking in the present tense.

There was deliberately no television at home in Pembroke because my parents wanted to cultivate a culture of intellectualism and reading.

I come from a classic nuclear family, mum, father, one sibling.

But my grandparents were directly in the next yard. And my cousins and uncles in the next village over.

I have a family myself, my wife Nickeisia and daughter Naeema Lyons.

Music was the first thing I developed a fantasy towards.

My father would tell me, “Don’t touch my records!” But when he was out, I would be listening to his soul, and R&B LPs.

I’m actually named after one of my parents’ favourite musicians, Lou Rawls, a baritone.

Barry White is probably my favourite of my parents' musicians.

There is something about this heavyset black man dripping with Jheri curls, grease on his face, conducting a 24-piece orchestra. What gives you the right to take soul music and make it symphonic?

I was just drawn to that. I hear the influence of his music in my writing voice to this day.

At school, I hated maths. But I’ve since grown to believe in the language of maths. I read everything I can about maths. I ask anyone good at maths mathematical questions. I believe the only true language is mathematics. It explains everything, music, art even language itself! That mathematical precision of our existence screams of a divine order.

Whoever we ascribe that divine order to is what some of us would call God.

I grew up Seventh-Day Adventist, mostly vegan. In Pembroke, we ate the stuff we planted, from the soil to the table. And I absolutely hated it.

But I am thankful that I had that I had that early diet.

Of course I rebelled. I had and loved a whole meat-eating chapter of life.

But I returned to being vegan more because giving up something you enjoy instilled in me a certain level of discipline.

Today, I am closer to Rastafari than Seventh-Day.

But there is a lot of commonality between all religions.

One of the first novels I read and really enjoyed was Moby-Dick.

My father insisted we read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and write a book report on it, to prove we’d read it.

But I'm kind of ashamed to admit the book that had the biggest impact on me was Think Big by Dr Ben Carson. Yes,

that Dr Ben Carson. Yes,

Trump’s Dr Ben Carson.

[caption id="attachment_957267" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Lou Lyons says music was the first thing he developed a fantasy towards. Photo by Mark Lyndersay[/caption]

But the book is