iSound

My name is Michael Lionel also known as Xkaliba. I was born on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands on April 7, 1975. I am the son of an Antiguan/Christian mother and a St. Lucian/Rastafarian father. As a young child growing up, my two sisters would go to church with my mother while my brothers and I would stay home with our dad. While spending time with dad, we were educated and motivated by the great reggae of the 70’s and 80’s era. As a child going to elementary, I was singing and listening to songs by some of the early legends. Artists like Bob Marley and the Wailers, Burning Spear, Steel Pulse, Big Youth, Third World, and Culture were my first reggae influences. During elementary, I was never chanting. I was a fan of the reggae music that I heard before any other genre music, rap, R&B, calypso, gospel, etc. My older brother, seven years older than me, Pulse, was already chanting. Pulse had a friend in our neighborhood, “Seferally” project, named Danto. Danto had a sound system a...