Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter
Fire Pashon is working on gaining recognition in Jamaica. - CARLINGTON WILMOT
WHEN YOUNG DJ, Fire Pashon came unto the scene, not even her father, Sugar Minott, knew who the new sensation he kept hearing on the radio was; he only agreed that she had talent.
"When my father went on tour, I did some shows and when he came back he was hearing about this 'Pashon', but he didn't know who it was, but he said he liked how the person sounded," she said.
Fire Pashon, whose correct name is Tamar Minott, has been around since 1998, and came out with Put Down the Gun that year. "It was more dub poetry than anything, but it did well," she said. But then she re-emerged in 2003 with her song Real Fire Woman on the Chrome riddim and more recently Grudgeful on the Applause riddim.
FAMILY RESISTANCE
Fire Pashon, a grad-uate of the Wolmer's High School completed sixth form at Holy Childhood High. She says at first her decision to do music was met with some resistance from her family.
"My father didn't like the idea at first, because he always said it is a rough business so he wasn't recommending it. And my mother, is always saying, whenever there is some obstacle or something, she is saying 'you know you don't have to be doing this, you have your subjects," she said.
Still she says that didn't deter her from pursuing the thing that she wanted to do the most, which is to DJ. "I wouldn't change anything. From ever since, I wanted to do music. I remember them putting me on the sound box to DJ when I was eight, and I grew up listening to my father's sound Youth Man Promotions play every Thursday and Tenor Saw, Tony Rebel, Garnet Silk and them man deh were always there. So growing up, really that's all me see."
Fire Pashon has come a far way from deejaying on her father's sound box, because she has been touring the world and enjoying every moment of it. But there is a downside says, because she always misses her two kids. "The first time I leave them I went to Japan for three weeks and I called them everyday, and the worst thing is that the phone cards were so expensive. I will call them and be like 'You eat breakfast already? What colour shoes you have on, you like it?' and things like that. But I get a lot of help from the teachers because they know what kind of job I do," she said.
"But touring is good because it puts money in your pocket, and here in Jamaica, people don't really want to pay you because you are not a big artiste," she continued.
Fire Pashon who just returned from touring in the U.S. is now touring in Germany. She, however, says her main focus remains trying to make a name for herself in Jamaica.
"I am trying to get on more riddims, but it is hard. When I check producers they say it's full or it gone off already. Then you have the others, who are like 'tru is Minott's daughter so she shouldn't have no problem', but I do. I have to work as hard as anyone else to make my name," she said.
"So with everything that happens, I have to just put my foot down and say look I'm here. Pashon is here," she said.
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