The Sunday Times Mirror

In the recent past, many a young band has been entering into the music scene in our country. Inspired by many people and many a contest, these artistes have been given an opportunity to come out and do their thing.

This week, we look at a very young band that calls themselves, ‘Beyond Reckoning.’ The band comprises of Warren Balthazaar (18) the lead rapper, Stefan Balthazaar (21) the co-producer, Jason Mathews (18) also a rapper and Dirk James (17) the producer.

Speaking to Warren on how the idea first came about he said, “Jason and I were classmates and we started talking about it in school. So, after we finished our O/Level’s we decided to do stuff in rap music.”

A little bit more about them is that apart from rapping and producing, Dirk owns a studio in his house, Stefan does the harmonising and the vocals and Jason and Warren write the lyrics and rap. For all of them, rap has always been a passion.

While they have mostly done private performances, a notable public performance was ‘Spectrum’ which was organised by the Interact District in aid of tsunami reconstruction, held in July this year.

Warren went on to say, “It will be a big move for us if we get into ‘On Stage’,” and they really seem to be keeping their fingers crossed on that one. They also want to go on a few TV shows in the future.

The band hopes to release their first album in late October or early November this year and they are working really hard to make sure it will come out in time. “We have already finished about five to six tracks and we also hope to release them on the radio soon.” A notable aspect in their album is that about 40% of the music is a mix of Sinhala and Tamil, with the remainig 60% being in Englsh. “The name of our record label is Trilogy Records,” they said. The guys went on to say, “We have come up with around 60 songs but we want to release our 12 best as it is our debut album.”

“My influences are Eminem, Tupac and DMX,” said Warren, while for Jason it’s “DMX and Ruff Ryders.” Stefan’s interests are, G-Unit, Eminem, Dr. Dre and Tupac and Dirk’s “Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, Tupac, Eminem and 50 cent.”

As far as support goes, “Our parents support us a lot and Dirk’s father has helped us immensely with the studio,” said Warren and Stefan.

“We want to help make the local industry of hip hop come up to an international level,” they said, in response to what they want to do in the future, adding, “and we want to work with local artistes.”

About their music, Warren said, “Our beats and lyrics are quite different,” adding, “we work with traditional Sri Lankan beats but also with Western beats.” He went on to say, “We look into what the youth like.” They also added that they focus on current aspects like war and violence.

Also looking at the future, they said that they have been invited to perform in two concerts this month.

“It is tough here for new artistes to break into the scene but if there are more opportunities, artistes can break through,” said Warren and Stefan. “We have to focus a lot on Sinhala music,” explaining how they have to cater to their audiences with regard to what will catch on. “However, we are trying to sign up with a label which will allow us to express ourselves in English.”

“We are a weird bunch of guys who have fun,” said Warren. But at the same time they have other priorities, for example, Dirk will be starting his London A/Levels soon. When it comes to work they do their best but they admit that it is tough to fit in their other priorities and do their recording as well. “From September we want to put more time into recording, to make sure our album comes out as planned,” said Warren. Stefan and Warren also went on to say that they do not have professional studio equipment, “but we have the basics to make an album.” They also said, “We are doing it on our own but hope to find others who can help.”

They have a ‘freestlyer’ who they work with – Shaun Dissanayake (17) – “He will be featured in two tracks on the album,” the band said. He was born in the UK and comes down to Sri Lanka, once a year. A freestyler is one who raps spontaneously and for the moment. They all collectively said that when he raps the lyrics just come out, and that he is really fabulous to listen to and watch. The band also hopes to work with Kavitha Gunasekera (18), on their album. “We are going to feature her mainly on our Sinhala tracks,” said Warren and Stefan.

For all those of you who want to break out into the scene of rap and hip hop, the band has this to say, “do whatever you set your mind on, be original, express yourselves through your music.”