Lately, Craig ‘Craigy T’ Thompson, singer-songwriter, musician and document producer, might be discovered juggling a number of instruments together with the same old microphone and music recording gear. Behind a wall of privateness, he could also be discovered hammering, bending and shaping metal or carrying a torch that actually ignites what was as soon as a hidden ardour.

“I have been praying for direction and guidance, and I [have] been hearing the same word resonating from a deep place for years. The word…welding, and every time mi just kiss mi teeth. ‘My yute, wah kinda welding yah talk bout, yah artiste’ was how I answered myself,” Craigy T shared with The Sunday Gleaner.

He made a reputation for himself, welding phrases and melodies collectively, being a part of TOK, some of the influential all-male dancehall teams to land a number of spots on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. It’s no coincidence that Craigy T, as a part of the quartet, sang and deejayed “the fire haffi bun, nuh matter how dem try fi hol’ di fire down, we keep it blazing”. It is the proper description of his newest handiwork.

In full protecting gear, the story unfolds, the favored singer, who can also be the host of Television Jamaica’s Daytime Live, defined, “Setting up a label is one thing, establishing a music career is another thing but building a business that can run independently of yourself and that one can leave to his or her children requires a whole different level of fabrication.”

Craigy T is a HEART/NSTA Trust-certified welder. He informed The Sunday Gleaner that one idle Wednesday, he made contact with the establishment. “I called HEART to enrol in classes and start things off the right way, and the answer I received was not the most forthcoming. They said, ‘Mr Thompson, we are backlogged for the next two years, so I couldn’t get in. I responded in the most positive way by telling the representative to write down my name because I’ve been contemplating about it for a while. I was very interested and would really love the opportunity to become a student of the Welding Level II course. This was during the pandemic.”

The stars aligned in his favour as he obtained a name only some days later (on the Friday of the identical week) that college would begin on Monday and that he needs to be current for sophistication.

The troubadour knew he was transferring in the precise path and soldiered by it.

“I welcome new challenges all the time, and I welcome new experiences all the time. I am alive to live, so I don’t question, especially when I receive direction through meditation or prayer or in that way. I am known to throw myself in difficult situations, and I guess in sink or swim situations. I usually swim very well. So, I did not just want to check a bredrin and learn how to hold a torch and place a welding rod. I wanted to learn the technique of metal fabrication, to do the full 100 or as much as I could do at least. Throughout the process, I also drifted towards construction and dabbled in a few renovations of apartments and stores, but it led me here, to the art where I do the metalwork as well as the woodwork,” he stated. “I had ideas in my head that I needed to get out, and one of the first things I did after learning how to do my first T-joint was to look for things to weld. It was at a time when the world was topsy-turvy, and I found honesty in fabricating steel that I didn’t find dealing with people. It was rational. If you add this much heat here, this will happen, and this will always happen – it’s not like that with people.”

With this new ability, Signature Series by Craigy T, a model that demonstrates the whimsical artistic – his roots and his ardour and dedication – in complicated, welded entanglements of metal and wooden, was born. Soon after finishing the course, he rewarded himself with a piece desk, which he made, after all. The second was a “conversation piece” for his household residence, a desk he named ‘Cascade’, after which, with a once-rusty anchor which was found buried in his mom’s yard, he created one other, as a present to her. He has offered fairly a number of as nicely, together with ‘Steeletto’, a desk formed like a horny shoe, and ‘Emancipation: A Woman Freed’, the bending of the items of flat metal that have been so intricately measured and formed to match the curves of the fairer intercourse.

While reconnecting along with his TOK brothers for upcoming initiatives, and dealing as a tv host, Craigy T, who can also be a father and husband (and martial artist), stays dedicated to a imaginative and prescient which sees him climbing ladders or scaffoldings to finish giant, signature, sociocultural-themed metalworks within the National Stadium or the Jamaica Conference Centre. He is presently finishing a chunk for Tarrus Riley impressed by the reggae artiste’s Baby Blue single, launched final July.

Only Craigy T is aware of methods to make all of the sides that make him uniquely who he’s, work harmoniously as one.

“The ‘Emancipation’ piece is the first of a collection I want to exhibit in February of next year, even though someone has already claimed it. I’m working on that. After that is music because TOK is recording again, and we always had a business to run. I also have my family, my support system. Without them, this is not possible. I know next year is going to be demanding, and I’m going to have to figure out how to schedule that. It is a juggling; I know how to handle that. I don’t know how I do it – find balance – I try my best to use every hour of the day,” he stated.

stephanie.lyew@gleanerjm.com