A Cooke with a taste for Brazilian-flavoured football

BY HOWARD WALKER Observer senior reporter walkerh@jamaicaobserver.com

Tuesday, December 16, 2014    

DESPITE coming from a footballing family, young Tahje Cooke was drawn to the sport after watching Brazilians Ronaldo and Ronaldhino strut their stuff on television.

Tahje, who is the son of Anthony Cooke who won nine of the last 10 Match Commissioner-of-the-Year awards and nephew to Kareem Cooke, a former National Under-20 captain, has just led Kingston College (KC) to victory in the ISSA Under-14 competition.

The young midfielder led from the front with a sublime finish scoring the winning goal in KC’s 1-0 victory over Jamaica College (JC) to retain their title.

With KC pressing for victory, Tahje collected a ball just outside the box and showed composure far beyond his 13 years, and struck a sweet left-footer that sailed past the outstretched hands of the JC goalkeeper. It was a goal deserving to win any final.

“I started playing football at pre school, when I saw players like Ronaldo and Ronaldhino on TV and said I wanted to try that and from that point on I started to play football,” said Tahje.

The young midfielder has not looked back since, captaining Vaz Prep in his last year after playing from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. He was also the captain of the Santos Under-13 team where they lost the final to Cavalier last season.

“I get along with the players. I talk to them a lot and they respect me as a captain,” noted Tahje, who wants to one day play professional football in Europe.

His coach Raymond ‘Stampa’ Watson believes Tahje has all the attributes that could take him very far in the game.

“He is amazing when it comes to training; the team will run three laps and he will run four. He has a very good football mind and is very coachable,” noted Watson, who has been coaching him for two years at KC.

Such is the confidence in Tahje’s leadership ability, that Watson allows him to run coaching drills during training sessions.

Having won back-to-back titles with KC, Watson believes Tahje is ready for national duties for Jamaica’s Under-15 team.

“He will be in training whether he makes the final cut or not. I gave him a thumbs up because he can also play left back,” said Watson.

His father, Anthony, said the signs were there early that his son is destined for great things in football.

“I personally think that he is destined for greatness. I saw it from a tender age,” Anthony Cooke told the Jamaica Observer.

He continued: “I remember once coaching Queens Prep and he was there kicking a ball and a gentleman asked me ‘how old is he?’ And I said ‘five’. He said he would like to see him in five year’s time because he looks like he is destined for something.”

“You can see that manifesting. When you have a 13-year-old juggling to 2,762 that is in the public domain (Facebook), but his highest right now is 3,400,” Anthony Cooke noted.

“Juggling builds your concentration. If you can juggle for half-an-hour without that ball dropping… it builds your first touch, it builds confidence and it builds composure,” he explained.

The elder Cooke, who dabbled with football as a player in Manning Cup for KC in 1990 and 1991, is seen as the lesser talent when compared to younger brother Kareem Cooke. Kareem happened to have co-captained Jamaica’s Under-20 team, which had in its ranks Ricardo Fuller, Jermaine Johnson and Leon Gordon, to name a few.

“We are not like the Bell family. They are much bigger and more into football. My side of the family is more into politics. The former Governor General of Jamaica (Sir Howard Cooke) was my grand uncle.

“But my younger brother Kareem Cooke is a talent that Jamaica didn’t really get to see and I know that my son will fulfil that promise,” said Anthony.

But life is not totally about football for Tahje and he has been making his father happy with his school work as he balances sport and education.

He has been on the honour roll at KC, having received the Helen Douglas Award for exemplary conduct and good work.

“Life at KC is very good. The atmosphere is great. It feels great to know that I captained the team and I cause them to win the final with my goal,” said Tahje.

“Right now, I am mainly concentrating on my book work. Education is important, football is not forever,” he noted.

But having played on a K back-to-back winning Under-14 team, the next step is to represent his country and Tahje has his sights set on representing Jamaica at the Under-15 level.

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A Cooke with a taste for Brazilian-flavoured football

Oriel gives Jamaicans a taste of his skills with promotional tour

Contributed

Oriel in a scene from the ‘Serious’ video.

Dominican reggae singer Oriel Barry recently undertook a two week promotional tour of Jamaica.

The tour coincided with the release of Oriel’s mix tape called the Rise of the Revoluteers which was released on September 11.

Oriel did a number of radio and TV interviews as well as live performances, during his visit to the island.

He also undertook the shooting of music videos for two songs Sticks & Stones, which was released earlier this year and Serious to be released on October 7.

Oriel is extremely pleased with the outcome of the promotional tour.

“I’m very happy with the way things went on my trip to Jamaica. Everything was very positive, I did a lot work promoting my music all over the island and the response I received was very good,” said Oriel.

The music video for Sticks & Stones which was released locally last week is already enjoying heavy rotation on a number of local TV stations including HYPE TV, RETV and CVM Plus.

The video for Serious will be released on October 21.

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Oriel gives Jamaicans a taste of his skills with promotional tour

A taste of victory for Nesbeth

Contributed – Nesbeth

Ultra-talented reggae singer Nesbeth is generating a lot of attention in Europe with his latest radio hit, Taste Victory. The singer released a video for the song last week on popular reggae website, reggaeville.com, and racked up more than 8,000 views.

“It’s a great look because it shows that I have a growing fan base in Europe, and after the success of Ole Gangalee, I want to continue that trend with Taste Victory and the fans are responding to that favourably,” he said.

In the meantime, the video for Taste Victory has hit the Tempo Cross Caribbean Countdown charts. Fans can visit http://bit.ly/VOTE4NESBETHand vote for Taste Victory on the CCC Music Poll.

Taste Victory is his first recording for the UK-based Entertainment Soul imprint.

“Is a song full of optimism for the future, while reflecting on the reality of not such good times in the past. I believe this powerful video will resonate with a lot of true reggae fans,” he said.

The video stylishly portrays this theme of struggle and victory by depicting the reggae star as a boxer who is staged in the ring to battle with his negative past selves. Of course, the star is victorious and the sweet refrain is sung over and again, ‘…now I can taste victory.’

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A taste of victory for Nesbeth

A taste of homelessness

MONDAY, September 12, 1988 was turning out to be like any other heavily overcast day in Hampshire, a community in the rural hills of North East St Catherine. Only if the weatherman’s forecast of a severe storm system called Gilbert had not turned out to be true.

By the time it touched 10:00 am, the rain was so intense… more like piercing the structure of our small, concrete house that overlooked most of the other dwellings in the heavily vegetated community.None of us knew what to expect from Gilbert. After all, my mother, the only parent present at the time, had not “really” experienced a hurricane. Born in 1950, she was only a year old when the dangerous Hurricane Charlie swept across the island in August 1951, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Maybe that’s why we didn’t budge.There we were — my mom, all seven us (three girls and four boys), and my older sister’s boyfriend; who was visiting for the first time, and what a welcome he got!Our bellies packed with fried dumplings and steamed cabbage and looking forward to our next meal of curried chicken, which was already seasoned and left to marinate.We did not get much time to think about our next meal. Gilbert had other plans. The winds began and soon became more intense.Signs of worry began to show on my mother’s face. Gilbert’s winds got stronger. The zinc sheets on the roof began to creak, and soon water began streaming through the sheets of solitex — a synthetic material used in ceilings.Gilbert’s winds, like a skilled carpenter, had begun to unfasten the zinc roof sheet by sheet, forcing us to run from room to room seeking shelter from the water.It wasn’t long before we ran out of options. There was no hiding place. We had to take the soaking.Tears began streaming down my mother’s face. Reality had set in.The roof on the grille-less verandah was spared, but one would have to be highly skilled to dodge the green pears flying like missiles from a nearby tree.Having no option, we waited for Gilbert’s winds to “die”, all the while getting updates from our small radio wrapped in a sheet.When the coast was clear, literally, and we emerged from our roofless house, the destruction was evident. Gilbert also proved to be a skilled landscaper. Huge trees that were marked to survive a lifetime were uprooted. We had a panoramic view of the community; in people’s backyards that were once hidden from the public glare. Privacy was the least on anyone’s mind.Night was drawing nigh and we had to seek shelter. And that shelter was nowhere in our vicinity as all our neighbours had suffered similar ordeals.What made it worse, we had no road, no yard. Just one massive landslide, a disadvantage of living on a hillside.To “escape”, we had to jump from our verandah metres below in a mud heap. My older sister got stuck and had to be rocked out by her boyfriend. But, we could not laugh, at least not then, as we were too frightened, perhaps.With our only possessions in the form of a rust comforter and some candles, we all began to run. We asked where were we heading, my mother’s reply “jus’ run!”When we reach the first intersection, we all looked at her. She stood, tears still streaming down her face. She was at a loss for words. We thought about our aunt about a mile away, but were soon informed that she, too, had lost her roof, evidenced by the fact that her husband was seen standing outside with a mattress on his head.Then being the quick thinker she is, my mother gave my brothers each a candle and ordered them to “find somewhere to sleep”.My brothers did not resist. They had always been this obedient. They went south, we went east and ended up at the door of a woman, Ms Gray. We banged on the door, she allowed us in.All soaked, we soon found out that we were about the sixth family at this one house. We made ourselves comfortable on the floor in a corner of the living room. No one could sleep. We just wanted to see daylight… too worried where the boys were.When daylight finally came, we couldn’t wait to go back “home”.Destruction was all around. In the midst of all the rubble was a shed in which our goat Muriel was housed. She was untouched, eating pimento leaves right through the storm.One thing that brought a smile to my face was to be “re-united” with my brothers — one of whom was wearing a dress, the only dry piece of clothes he could find. They had found shelter in a church building.Here, the planning began to repair our roof. But first, we would have to find the zinc sheets — some blown as far as half-mile away.Another task, was to get my sister’s boyfriend, an only child, out of the community and back to his mother in Kingston. He had been stuck in a women’s pink-and-black striped pyjama for two days, walking around with his clothes in a plastic bag to keep them dry. A solution was found. My mother begged a ride on a front-end loader to “a spot where he can get a bus”. I guess that would be Bog Walk, several miles away.The three days that followed were dedicated to clean the silt from the house, clear the landslides and help our father, who had by then ‘returned’ to repair the roof . At nights we headed in different directions to sleep.Wandering sheep we were.I could not attend school for nearly two months. And electricity was only restored in the area a week before Christmas.Oh how we wished for some ‘protein’ other than the tinned foods that became a staple on our plates.Looking back, we thought, why didn’t my mom seek shelter in our shop, which was just several chains from where we lived?Only she can explain.Gilbert, you were one wild soul.

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A taste of homelessness

The sweet taste of getting paid to play

AMIDST calls from the Development Bank of Jamaica to look to the microfinance industry to address unemployment and calls from the HEART Trust/NTA to consider skills training as a means of avoiding joblessness, Damien Baddy, Cameca Samuels and Lesley-Ann Welsh have each successfully turned their hobbies into moneymakers.

Recently, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) released figures which showed an increase in the unemployment rate, that up to April this year stood at 16.3 per cent, when compared to 14.4 per cent for the same period last year. All three have managed to exclude themselves from this net however.For Baddy, his creative passion has blossomed into him doing professional videography and photography under his LookYah outfit, though he majored in psychology while attending the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee, United States of America.“The first digital camera I had was a cellphone,” Baddy told the Jamaica Observer, adding that he got his first taste of the technical aspects of photography through two electives he completed while in college.“I used my cellphone’s camera to take pictures and people were always impressed with the images I took.”The 33-year-old is American by birth, but his mother is Jamaican, so when he decided to relocate to Jamaica in 2005, it seemed a natural fit. By this time he had acquired his first professional camera, a Canon 20D.“When I came to Jamaica, I had a laptop and a camera,” said Baddy. “Originally, I came to Jamaica to start a learning institution, which saw me completing a Diploma in Education Administration at the University of the West Indies. It is still my long-term goal, however, my love for photography soon morphed into videography.”To date, Baddy has done several projects with organisations like Youth Upliftment Through Employment, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, as well as behind-the-scenes photographs and films for artistes like Sizzla and Shaggy. He was also uniquely positioned during Hurricane Dean in 2007, as Baddy told the Observer that several of his pictures were featured on CNN and in the New York Daily News.He admitted that it has not been smooth sailing, however, but he believes the opportunities to volunteer, network and gain valuable production experience in Jamaica are countless.“Mi nah guh lie, it is kind of rough in terms of making a profit,” said Baddy. “Profits can be made however you have to get your name out there and maintain quality standards, because with the advent of the digital age there are a lot of people with cameras and the right equipment.“What makes the difference is you knowing how to use it, trying concepts that have never been done, and being fearless when it comes to using different angles and lighting.”Samuels told the Sunday Observer that, after working with Super Plus configuring supermarkets, she developed a love for coordination and project management, and while watching TV shows on Home and Garden TV, she decided to merge what she knew with what she was watching, into a career. She now describes it as her “greatest pleasure”.“I’m an interior contractor/creative consultant. I implement and design interior finishes. I also have a workshop that fabricates the stuff I design,” said Samuels, the owner of Living Things. “It’s profitable and I have good clients. My work is my hobby so I’m always working. I enjoy seeing spaces come alive.“It’s been an amazing journey,” she added. “I’ve been given surreal opportunities that have made me feel happy to be alive in this time, to think it and then to be able to do it.“Challenges are a part of life and should be handled accordingly, as part of growth and experience. Keep going, keep getting better amidst shortcomings,” Samuels said.Welsh, the owner of media production and entertainment business Anubis Communications, describes herself as “primarily a storyteller who thrives on creating enjoyable experiences for people”. She explains that these “stories manifest in writing as scripts for advertisements or copy for print and online media [campaigns]; sometimes they become live performances or community-based Arts projects”. She said that after being recruited as a production assistant for a feature film by her mentor, she “loved the unpredictability and pace of the entertainment business, so I stuck with it and never looked back”.She told the Sunday Observer, “We’re steadily building our credibility and portfolio. At the moment, thankfully, we get paid enough to get by, with the help of disciplined financial management.”However, Welsh did not knock a regular nine-to-five before trying it.“I realised early out — before leaving school — that I was not cut out for the ‘plantation’ life that is the nine-to-five,” she said. “I need to be able to work outdoors, have a chance to engage with people and to mix things up to keep boredom at bay. I tried out a desk job for one year, just to make sure I was sure. The sheer joy, fulfilment and freedom that come with doing what you love and earning from it is all life is about for me. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”None of the three have had regrets about choosing to do what they love and earning an income while at it. They each recommend that people consider turning their hobbies into income-earners to escape the unemployment cloak.“This is me. This is my choice,” Samuels stated firmly. “People can turn their hobbies into a business. But of course, there are some fundamental components [or] best practices to give you best results — passion, attitude and good business skills, as well as networking.“Having a great product doesn’t guarantee success. Put it out there for people to partake of it. Be present in your decision-making. Research your market and the dynamics of what you bring to the table. Make sense of what you’re doing,” she further cautioned.Baddy echoed the sentiments of Samuels to the Sunday Observer, but also advised, “Don’t be afraid to learn, never give up, be patient with yourself, and seek peace of mind.”BADDY… people were always impressed with the images that I tookSAMUELS… it’s profitable and I have good clientsWELSH… I was not cut out for the plantation life

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The sweet taste of getting paid to play