Dorsh

Just the other day Dorsh touched down in NYC and almost immediately The Couch Sessions linked up with the headliner for first Summer Soul Sessions as well as his manager, Rio. After all the variety one’s ears can witness in Neapolitan, our interviewer , Aln Yves, was definitely prepared to dive in and really shed light on the man The Couch Sessions has decided to put at the helm for Summer Soul Sessions. From his intimate history with Reggae and Ska, to his childhood stories and thoughts concerning credibility among musicians today, Dorsh more or less left no stone unturned.

Couch Sessions: So you’re a singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, you mix, you master, you DJ. What’s your main thing? Haha

Dorsh: Haha. Um, I’d say my main thing is probably the producing.

Couch Sessions: Yeah?

Dorsh: Yeah. I’m a Renaissance Man in the studio and then everything else spawns from there but I really like being behind the board and controlling the sound of it all.

Couch Sessions: How’s does that affect your live performances? Do you…

Dorsh: You know, it affects it in a huge way because I believe that a really good show depends on the sound of it. I mean you can really put out the energy and dance around and have everyone on key but if it doesn’t sound good then you know what I mean… and I run into a lot of problems with smaller venues where the energy is there, everyone’s there and then the sound is just subpar. You know and you can’t, people are like it doesn’t sound like the album or I can’t feel this or I can’t feel that and I just hate to hear that. So it’s really important, the sound.

Couch Sessions: So you talk about being a Renaissance Man, so who are your influences, from the past and who do you like now?

Dorsh: Oh man, I often tell people I wish I was born in the fifties. So that I could be 21 when the seventies camse, hang out with Todd Rundgren, Marvin Gaye, man, I’m a huge fan of soul music. I would say reggae also. My grandfather is credited as being the originator of reggae music. It started with ska and then it went to mento, then rock steady. So between ska and mento and rocksteady, mento and rocksteady you get Bob Marley, so if you go to the hall of fame of the music in Jamaica it starts with my grandfather and then it goes to Alton Ellis and then John Holt, then a few other guys in between and then it hits Bob Marley.

Couch Sessions: What’s your grandfather’s name?

Dorsh: Eric Deans

Couch Sessions: Eric Deans, that’s crazy!

Dorsh: He started a school there in Kingston that’s still there today, well he didn’t start it but he was one of the main teachers there. It’s called Alpha boys School and it’s a school for basically kids that didn’t have any money to go to any other kind of school and basically they just gave them instruments and taught them the basic English curriculum and put instruments in their hands and a lot of those guys, 6 or 7 of those guys, I forget how many were in the original Skatellites (sp?), but they all graduated from that school, he curated the first internationally known reggae band, before the Wailers, it was called the Skatellites , the first band to leave the island and play abroad. He was actually made big by Cab Calloway a famous American jazz musician. They went to Cuba, to Trinidad, all over, England. I just feel like knowing all of that, to go back to the question, my soul is deeply rooted in the stuff that got us to where we are now, you know what I mean? Like I like things that are going on now but I’m always going to go back and say, take me back to that old funk, that old soul, that James Brown, that Temptations, that Delphonics.

Couch Sessions: That’s so crazy man. I hear it in your music. I was tyring to think I’m like. “Je t’ aime” reminds me of a cross between Sade and Groove Theory.

Dorsh: Haha ok. It’s funny I was listening to Smokey Robinson’s “Oooohh Baby Baby” and he’s doing that falsetto and I was just sitting back and I was like ma - Couch Sessions