Above: Simon Baptiste, photographed at Ellerslie Park. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.

BitDepth#1457 for May 06, 2024

Simon Baptiste, already known for Question Mark Entertainment, his business partnership with Carolyn Pasea-Pogson, which nurtured the career Kes the Band (currently with DG Management) and more recently, successfully worked with actor Michael Cherrie on his casting in the film Shirley, has even more going on.

On December 31, 2023 and January 01, 2024, Baptiste announced the end of his spirited discussions about the state of the entertainment industry in TT and the region on Facebook.

Which, it turned out, wasn’t the same thing as saying he was going to stop talking about it.

He’d realised, as any serious creator and commentator eventually must, that dumping rational thought into a social media platform wins only momentary attention at best and most often just disappears entirely.

The first step came in November 2023, when he hosted the launch of ODOS (One Degree of Separation), an effort to unite Caribbean creators with those working in the diaspora at an event at Queen’s Hall.

The collaborative concept began in a time of self-doubt, which he expressed in a Facebook post on January 02, 2022 as he looked back on a year he described as “deeply frustrating.”

Baptiste began putting together a group of creatives and invited industry stakeholders and gatekeepers in Hollywood to talk to them in Zoom calls.

The ODOS aggregation grew from ten to 70 in short order and there’s now a website, getodos.com, that formally invites participation in the 500 strong group.

The site also hosts a preview peek into what’s next for the project.

In a meeting on Tuesday, Baptiste revealed the next step that he’s planning for ODOS, a slick print magazine to be called Island Lime, that he is positioning as both a point of nexus for regional creatives and a print pitch for the talent that’s long been fostered and exported from this archipelago.

It’s an issue he feels strongly about. Recalling a conversation with Scott Sardinha, who works with Will Smith, he said, “We talked about the concept of not just about being Trinidadian and being Caribbean and what that means, all these neighbours. Yet we haven’t really built a spirit of embracing each other. We wanted to combat that.”

ODOS now reaches creatives representing 53 countries, almost a third of the global count, though there’s some crossover because of diaspora effect, people born in the region but living elsewhere.

There are at least 12 Caribbean countries represented in the group, including Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica and St Vincent.

“I knew the islands had talent and I knew there were people out there doing things. The sort of creatives or executives who are making moves who are doing dynamic things and what I know now compared to what I knew three years ago…now I feel empowered.”

The sprawling group is knitted together by a WhatsApp group that he polices diligently for indulgent personal posts.

“It’s serious business. No jokes, no happy birthdays, no holidays. I can’t get rid of Christmas, because apparently, if I do, I’m Scrooge.”

What’s an ODOS member? “They are selfless. They want to help each other; they want to share their stories. They want to be able to do a workshop for free, for its members, it’s more of a pay-it-forward system.”

The Michael Cherrie casting was high profile, but most of the work that ODOS does is about quietly creating job opportunities and supporting creatives.

At least one major music placement in a tentpole summer film is still in negotiations.

“There’s power to us helping one another versus looking for the handouts.”

Why Island Lime?

“There are no real publications that speak to who we are as creatives, who we are in the world and really takes advantage of the IP [we create].”

“We have a three-year plan for it. The first year is to publish quarterly. In the second year, bimonthly. In the third year, we go monthly. It’s both physical and digital, so we plan a website presence in which you can read feature stories. The print distribution for the first year goes directly into the hands of gatekeepers and tastemakers.”

“We need a year to build. The thing about entrepreneurship is that when you put out the first magazine, by the time you’ve done that, you’ve gone through so many different phases of failure. You can compile what worked so that when you get to the second edition, you’re a little bit more fluid. Then, you hope to repeat that until there’s some level of flawlessness to the process.”

Baptiste and business partner Pogson are investors, along with a few angel investors who are interested in making the project happen.

“We will have 12 months to make sure that we can start turning it into something, so there will always be that level of pressure because people will only finance you for so long. You must have a very short memory in this business as an entrepreneur. You can’t let your failures wear you down.”

In a subsequent email, Baptiste clarified his explanation of the intent of the new magazine, “Island Lime is an arts, entertainment, and lifestyle magazine that also explores IP in the world of creative and investigative storytelling. The Caribbean is a treasure chest for original stories that stretch from the seemingly mundane to the fantastical.”

“It will explore music and its positive effects on the schooling system, the relationship of film to our gang culture and those who are using it to positively change communities, how arts and entertainment is changing the landscape and introducing foreigners to our islands and how our creators are using technological advancements in AI to make better fashion, music and art.”