About
If you’ve ever lived with him, worked with him, conversed with him, or perhaps even engaged in a repartee of which he was never one to shy away from, then you may have been stamped with a lasting impression similar to that of his high school teacher, who had responded in amazement to an enthusiastic request, “You believe that anything is possible, don’t you?” Today, his unwavering response to that would be the words of his heroine Selena Quintanilla, “Always believe that the impossible is always possible.”
It is with this faith and the continuous downloading of the lives, courage, success and imparted wisdom of his icons Selena Quintanilla, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and many others, that he is able to muster up the zeal and relentless determination to audaciously fight amid the disappointments and economic constraints, to turn a boys reverie into reality; to leave a legacy in music.
His name is Zordon, born to a vibrant family in Chester District, St. Ann, Jamaica. Being the middle child among seven children in a middle-income household, he learnt to be satisfied with little and grateful for abundance. His family taught him how to be jovial and giving even on his bad days. These traits have earned him many friends, guardians, and have created opportunities that helped to propel him in his career alongside his melodious voice. From an early age he was not shy to new adventures and experiences and enjoyed most of all his regular trips to the river with his cousin. “As a child growing up, I loved to hang with my cousins and younger siblings. Our favourite places to go were to the river and into the bushes to hunt whatever fruit was in season.”
But no experience quite sharpened the trajectory of his life like his first encounter with the late singer Selena. “I was around 7 years old and it was one summer afternoon when the movie Selena was aired on TV. The movie preview showed a very beautiful woman, who danced and sang with a lot of passion and elegance. I had never seen anything like that before. Each time the trailer aired I got excited. I had no idea who Selena was, nor did I know that the movie was telling the story of a real person’s life. So yes, I thought J. Lo was Selena, until my mom told me the little that she knew about her. At the end of the movie I saw for the first time the face of a woman that I will forever love.” After seeing the movie, he began to sing her songs repeatedly at home, and after some time his mother took note of his voice. “It was as a result of watching Selena and singing her songs loudly that my mom noticed that I had a voice and that’s really when my journey to music actually started”
“I started singing in church. I started around 8 years old and I sang at every possible funeral my mom would attend. After every performance people would tell me how great I was… It felt good knowing that I had something special that separated me from those who were good at sports, dancing or academics. Music was where I shined.” It was after years of singing at church, funerals and other events, that he started to consider music as a possible lifelong career.
At the age of 16, Zordon began to attend the New Generation Accapella Choir Camp at Cranbrook rainforest, where he camped for four consecutive summers. This experience taught him the importance of taking care of his voice and pushed him to develop his own singing abilities. “I was around kids who had greater vocal abilities than I had, so I was pushed to showcase what I had and work on what I was lacking.” It was also here that his appreciation for music came. After New Gen, he started to perform at Jewels Runaway Hotel. “My dad had gotten the opportunity to for me to do Staff and Guest Talent Show at the Jewels Runaway Bay Hotel every Wednesday. These were very exciting and important times for me. I was performing to persons from different parts of the world. It was around this time that I wrote my first song Welcome to J.A. From that time, I started making music, while slowly developing my writing and composition skills”
In 2016, he started the University of the West Indies where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Language Communication and English Language Education. During his studies, he briefly joined the University’s Choir and served as the elected President of UWI Mona’s Pop Society, where he organized rehearsals for upcoming performances on campus. He also accepted personal invitations to private events to perform as a part of the evening’s entertainment. He enjoyed performing his own renditions of old classics such as Sorry by Tracy Chapman, Turn Your Lights Down Low by Bob Marley and the Wailers and By Your Side by Sade since they were not only well received by the mature audiences he often performed for, but were the type of songs he too enjoyed the most.
During the summer of 2018, Zordon was encouraged to enter the Noranda Community Council Amateur Talent Show, a competition sponsored by Noranda Bauxite Ltd. to provide a platform for residents in St. Ann to showcase their talent. He received the full support of his family, and after weeks of delivering vibrant renditions of reggae and dancehall songs, he was left speechless on August 30 when he was declared the winner.
With this energetic momentum, he stepped into his final year of university and worked to create a new music band by collaborating with the musical talents he had met over the years. He named the band ‘Preston Sound’ and they performed at various events being held on and off campus.
He continued to perform his favourite classics at these events, while throwing into the mix an energetic delivery of popular reggae songs such as News Carrying Dread by Chronixx and Affairs of the Heart by Damian Marley. In-between practicing, performances, course assignments, exams and daily chores, Zordon found solace in zoning into a recorded concert of one of his favourite artistes like Selena or Diana Ross. “When I listen to a song, I block out the whole world and listen and I’m lost in that song. That’s the exact feeling I want for my audience when I sing, when I perform… When I think about a performance, I don’t worry about the size of the crowd, or who doesn’t like me… What worries me is changing the mood of an audience. I believe that if I am not able to change the mood of an audience and make them forget everything else, then I have failed as an artiste. I want to be able captivate my audience and make them happy. That is my aim.”
Today, Zordon is on his way to leaving an indelible mark in music history, one that is not easily defined by any existing genre of music. He strives to be himself, to be seen as himself and to be accepted as himself, as he produces melodies, songs, and a legacy on the international stage of the music industry.