He’s black, beautiful and multi talented in addition to being blessed with a perfectly sculpted torso and a seemingly independent pelvis that thrusts and wriggles within black satin trousers. Magnet Man sells sexy sounds and is as unabashedly macho as only a true Bajan can be.
He is also rather lovely, still being young enough not to have been cruelly shaped and totally hardened by the industry. Magnet Man displays his steady rise to fame only within the ‘bling’ department, with ownership of a few jewel encrusted watches, a fistful of Liberace-size rings, along with the odd encrusted monogrammed belt.
He is also a fine singer, songwriter, musician, dancer and producer, and can mimic any singer from Shaggy to Coldplay. In 2007 he launched his acting career with a part in the movie Chasmogamy with Nicolas Cage.
I met Magnet Man as he was happily ensconced in a Paphos villa with wife Image and agent/manager Jurunku. Both women obviously take great care of their ‘star’ making sure he is rested, protected and sufficiently chilled before taking to the stage, most recently as James Blunt’s support act.
I asked him if he was nervous about performing live, and what he did to prepare himself for such a big gig. “I don’t really get nervous, but I do get very excited, I can’t wait to get out there on stage. I don’t have any rituals except not to eat anything before I sing, as that will affect my voice but, I do fill up on lots of fruit juices and then I’m ready to go”.
So much for the image of the rock n roll life style, neither he nor his entourage drink alcohol nor do they smoke, and about the only drug you will ever find in this guy’s dressing room is a pack of Aspirin.
Further bursting the hell raising rock star bubble, is this man’s dedication to helping African children, having taking his lead from Nelson Mandela, who stated that his avowed intention was “to ensure that every child in Africa goes to school”.
Magnet Man then wrote arranged performed and produced the hit track ‘Eskape to the Muzic’, which became the hit campaign song for UNICEF and his own charity called Make a Difference. After launching the track in Germany in one night alone, he raised €184,000 for the charity. This summer he will be singing it again at a concert in London to celebrate Mandela’s 90th birthday.
Born into a poor family whose ancestral roots began in Africa, Magnet Man’s relatives were brought over to Barbados in slave ships. “I am also looking for my own family roots every time I travel to Africa and I know myself what a big difference a basic education can offer a child, so I am very proud to be able to help build schools, get equipment, dig wells, basically to help give young people in the very poorest areas a glimmer of hope that there can be a future for them and their families, through education”.
He may well be a magnetic field on stage attracting a strong, almost rampant female fan club, but with his ‘other’ side, one feels is even sexier and certainly guaranteed to last a lot longer than his overworked pelvis.
