Donovan Watkis blends spoken, sung words

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Donovan Watkis is taking the less-travelled production road with his Rox-Starz Entertainment, a subsidiary of his company, MGR Entertainment. With Rox-Starz further divided into recording and production arms, he is blending the spoken and sung words.

Later this year, two years after Rox-Starz's official debut with Donald 'Iceman' Anderson Live in Performance, the company will present Iceman's double disc, Breadfruit Tree, which showcases both his music and comedy. The intention is to really push it next year for Jamaica's 50th Independence celebration. Plus, when The Gleaner spoke with Watkis on Wednesday, he was en route to do studio work with poet Racquel Jones.

"With the spoken word, I see an untapped market both here and abroad," he said, noting that outside Jamaica there are persons who have served that market. I am into creativity, so I want to do it differently. If I want to do something, and 10 people have done it already, that does not make me special. I would be a learner, not a creative person," he said.

Even as he shapes the product, Watkis keeps an eye on the legacy he intends to build. "You see how King Jammys created that era of dancehall that is so special? I want to create an era," he said.

Came to do law

Watkis got into the creative arts through the spoken word and the all-important personal touch from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. After high school at Titchfield, Port Antonio (Watkis glows as he says that Portland is the most beautiful place on earth), he headed off to Kingston in the standard rural-urban drift. "I came to Kingston to do law. Instead of picking Norman Manley Law School, I picked Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts," he joked.

That was despite having limited drama experience, and his mother preferring the Caribbean Maritime Institute. He was also accepted for accounting studies, but while the other institutions sent a letter of acceptance, "Edna Manley called me. I said, 'This is personal'!"

There wasn't a drama course at Titchfield, but a drama club, so Watkis leaned on that experience in choosing Freedom Song and Mama's Speech from Trevor Rhone's Old Story Time for his audition. First, though, he auditioned for a tough critic - his mother. "She laughed, so I know I won, because she does not laugh so much," Watkis said.

His mother was with him figuratively at the interview as well, as after Freedom Song (at the end of which he was on the floor, crying) for Mama's Speech "I just played my mother". It worked, as Watkis said out of 200 persons auditioning two got though that day - and I was one".

The spoken word had an influence at Edna Manley as well, Watkis saying that his creativity started to blossom in his second year, under the tutelage of Eugene Williams. "I started to think outside the box. I started reading widely. I was attending the Poetry Society of Jamaica meetings (at the Edna Manley College's amphitheatre), watching the good poets - Mervyn Morris, Blakka Ellis, Mutabaruka," he said.

Eventually, travelling outside Jamaica also helped - and the input of one of the poets he admired.

"I started to do dancehall poetry in those early days. Blakka said that's regular, you not putting a different spin on it," Watkis recalled.

And he put a different spin on his drama involvement as well. "I realised that actors don't make a lot of money. I realised the creative industries need business services more than talent. Talent is a dime a dozen in Jamaica," he said. "The business side requires focus, someone with a vision. I thought I had that." Plus, he had the entrepreneurship example from his mother.

So far, Watkis has done work with JamBiz, several state-run events including Mello-Go-Round, the Festival Queen Competition and the Prime Minister's Youth Awards, in addition to his own events after "starting unofficially" in 2004. Although it is a young business, Watkis is already looking towards succession - and not very far, as he is sizing up his very young son.

"I intend to give him the company when he is ready. I am looking at at least 18 years of running it, and I am looking at giving him the tools - if it is his choice," Watkis said that preparation including piano lessons.

He knows that there will be breakthroughs, just as digital music platforms like iTunes were not around when he was a youngster. "I want my son to be a part of that, something new," he said.

Still, he wants him well grounded. "They will be past iTunes and so on, and I want him to know where it is coming from, but very up-to-date in terms of creativity."