After robbery, show goes on

PHILIP TAYLOR, president and founder of Taylor Mayd Musik (TMM), producer, songwriter and engineer, who has been in and out of Trinidad in the last year, in search of up-and-coming artistes from TT, was beaten, robbed and and had his life threatened, after Machel Monday show on February 5.

Reliving the ordeal for Newsday Taylor said he and his film crew were at Machel Monday, but because they had some confusion getting their passes online, they weren’t able to get the interview they wanted with Voice (Aaron St Louis). Voice is one of the feature artistes on the show Trini 2 the World which Phillip’s team is producing, and is actually doing the soundtrack for the show. Armed with equipment but having no passes to film the concert, Phillip and his crew decided to enjoy the show instead.

Trini 2 The World is a new, high-quality show scheduled to air on HBO in September, featuring five young, upcoming, talented Trinis, while Machel Montano and Bunji Garlin join Voice for the soundtrack.

Taylor left the show early, leaving at the artiste VIP entrance on Ariapita Avenue side, going towards the Audrey Jeffers Highway.

His phone was dead so Taylor could not call a taxi, but asked a police officer to help him get a taxi.

One came by and the officer told him he should be okay and opened the door for him to get in. There were two other passengers and Taylor reasoned that if the police told him the taxi is a good one, he figured he would be okay, so he went in.

However, on his way to his home in Petit Valley, the driver stopped at the NP gas station across from the police station and Starlite Plaza in Four Roads, for one of the occupants to get something to drink.

With that station closed, Taylor said, the other passenger suddenly wanted to go to the bathroom so the taxi pulled into a side street.

After they all got back in the car, they headed to the other NP gas station opposite Dominoes which was opened, but instead of going to the gas station the driver pulled off to go on the highway, making a left turn before stopping the car.

Taylor related: “I don’t know where they stopped the car but the passenger on the left of the driver pops me in the face, breaks my nose, says ‘give me everything that you got’, and the guy to the left pulls out a gun and cocks it and shows me it’s loaded and said ‘everything, everything’.

“They made me empty my pockets of everything, started to laugh saying, ‘we’re gonna kill him, we’re gonna kill him, ha ha, we are gonna take him up in the hills and we are gonna kill him’ and then they said they are going to kidnap me after that and take me out, and God knows what was gonna happen.”

Having been relieved of all his personal items Taylor said on seeing some other cars coming on the highway he elbowed the door, opened it and rolled out of the car before they got on the highway, and instead of the robbers coming after him, they panicked and kept driving away from him.

“After that I walked home a couple blocks away, in shock, not believing what just happened. They got my wallet, licence, credit cards, keys, phone… I went to sleep in shock and woke up the following day and it was like, did that really happen?

“It was just totally surreal but they definitely wanted to murder me.”

Despite the ordeal Taylor said the real negative side of the incident was that he had to terminate his rental lease because he obviously didn’t feel safe.

And, that he did, after making a report to a CID officer at the Four Roads Police Station later that morning.

He also had to shut down the shooting of the show for the rest of the Carnival season.

“Obviously having my life in danger is not fun but cancelling what was supposed to be the very beginning of our shoot of our shows was probably the most negative business aspect of what happened. I had to completely move around the operations so that wasn’t cool,” Taylor said.

The day he left Trinidad, temporary Government Sen Ndale Young visited him and apologised on behalf of TT, saying it was really sad what happened, especially as Taylor and his crew were working really hard to create a platform for artistes in TT.

Young offered to help in any way possible, but Taylor returned home in the US.

Still in the US, Taylor revealed that Young, who is in the Chamber business, has since decided to get on board as a director on the board for Trini 2 the World and will help Taylor liaise with the Ministries of Culture and the Arts, and Tourism, to get involved and also to get sponsors. He said Young is also looking at the installation of security cameras at strategic locations to avoid similar occurrences.

“The security camera initiative is just in the forming stages now, but the concept is to place them at Hasely Crawford Stadium entrances and exits, as well as the streets and parking surrounding the stadium. Also, on all mas routes and Ariapita Avenue for Carnival 2019. The idea is to have a live feed for Trini 2 The World that we can access for footage for the show, as well as to monitor crime or any questionable incidents,” Taylor said.

“So that is something we are working on, and in the next couple of weeks, hopefully something positive comes out of this, even though it was a little jarring and ended my Carnival 2018, but we’ll come back stronger, and we’ll come back with a purpose to do something positive and keep pushing forward with the project Trini 2 the World and move forward with the show.”

The television crew also includes Thomas Wendell, a videographer from London who works with BBC, Discovery Channel and also does filming with Bunji Garlin and who was in Trinidad shooting a video with Bunji and Shenseea, and who was also getting all the video footage during Carnival for the first episode of Trini 2 the World. Also Zalia Hart who runs Toronto Carnival in Caribana and was doing the hosting for artiste interviews that night, during Machel Monday. Other team members are Don Bartholomew, director of the Trini 2 the World reality show on HBO; Jean Le Phare, head, Urban Department, TMM; and two-time Grammy nominee Robert Venable, head of Pop Rock Department, who also owns Off The Wall Studios.

Their goal is to build new career paths for local artistes outside the local genre, and to give TT artistes a platform both to have visibility and their music heard internationally, and for their records to be sold outside of the Caribbean market.

Because of the incident that segment of filming has now been pushed to April.