Agent Sasco Recalls Lessons From Buju
As told by dancehall deejay Agent Sasco, Reggae artist Buju Banton is the one who taught him how to hold a microphone correctly.
While speaking to Yendi Phillipps about his journey as a dancehall artist in her latest episode of Odyssey with Yendi: Untold Journeys—released on YouTube on Sunday—Agent Sasco dropped a couple of lessons he learned from Reggae’s Gargamel, one of which was the proper way to hold a mic.
“Most times you see people pon stage and dem cover up a the cone [of the mic], right,” Agent Sasco said, recounting the moment he got the lesson from Buju. “The man say, ‘Juvenile, why yuh think the man dem design dem microphone with the long stick pon it? Hold the mic dung yah so’.”
The Winning Right Now artist, formerly known as Assassin, explained that covering the microphone would distort the sound, so holding it the way Buju instructed is correct.
“Credit Buju for that!” an upbeat Agent Sasco said.
Of course, repeating Buju’s words in a raspy tone as he detailed the encounter, Agent Sasco did a striking impersonation of The Gargamel.
Earlier in the interview with Phillipps, he said the first time he saw his name on a vinyl record—which is an important milestone in an artist’s development—was because of Buju.
“I was still in high school, a song named Revamp; mi nuh remember the words…I remember mi deejay fi Buju the first time, him listen, and him listen, and him say: “Juvenile, it bad, but a three song dat.’
“Mi say, ‘How yuh mean?’ Him say, ‘Too much lyrics man’,” a laughing Agent Sasco said, raising his hands and holding them some distance from each other as he added, “the verse dem long suh”.
“Him [Buju] say, ‘I know what’s going on still; you’re still in school, you have a lot to say. You’ll figure it out’,” Agent Sasco recalled.
Buju Banton had put out his first song, and for Agent Sasco, it could not have got any better than that.
As a youngster, Agent Sasco said although people would tell him he was talented, he didn’t think becoming a dancehall artist was for him as he thought the art form was reserved for a special set of people. He also said he had a different level of respect for the art form and for people who do it.
“Growing up, every community have a million and one aspiring deejays and so you know, it was kind of like, ‘Am I just another aspiring deejay?’ You know, when does it get real? So to see, your name pon a record is one of the milestones. Big up Gargamel Music for that!” he said.
The Anywhere We Go artist admitted, too, that it took him some time to fully appreciate what Buju meant when he told him he had “too much lyrics” in the song.
“You go through stages of your development as an artist and one of the time, trying to prove yourself, you want mek an impression… so you want people to be like, Yea… full a lyrics’, but then after that you need songs and you need people to be able to sing along, songs that can stay with people, so you want hooks now. And then after that, it is content for me,” said Agent Sasco. “You mature from one type of content to something else.”
He said he has grown to appreciate those lessons, adding that “is nuff things Buju teach mi”. Agent Sasco didn’t detail much more, but said that Buju taught him other things such as having a responsibility in terms of how “yuh carry yourself and relate to the music”.
Watch the full interview below.