Yankey Boy, who is best known for his 2013 hit, Rumours, was born Kevon Heath on January 10, 1981. He was raised in the ghettos of East Trinidad from Pinto Road, Arima and Get Well Avenue. Elevating himself from the ghetto was always his dream. Growing up, Heath adopted, and has continued to utilise a personal slogan in which he strongly believes in. This slogan reflects directly upon him; his motivational slogan is “too positive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated.”
Heath started playing pan in 1995 with Arima Senior Comprehensive School Steel Orchestra where he excelled to become a three-time Junior Steelband Music Festival winner. He also received a scholarship for reading and writing music at UWI, St Augustine. Heath then relocated to the US in the year 2000 where he has then since and calls Brooklyn, New York his new home.
The 31-year-old has a vision set on one goal and that is to become the best singer/songwriter that his culture has to offer. It was about ten years ago, in 2005, that he decided to start writing. Since then he has done numerous recordings with Studio 53 and Premiere Studio, working alongside artists like well known artistes Khari Kill, Zeblon, I-Sasha, Jah Bami, Mr King and Mr Slaughter. He now records from his own studio; a studio he developed as a means and way to get his music and recordings out there. Heath calls his Studio 6 to 1, based on his area of Brooklyn where he works alongside artistes like Khari Kill.
The soca artiste got his name from the ghettos of Trinidad and once he migrated to New York, his trips back home were mainly to donate time, money and effort into the well-being and upbringing of the ghettos he once called home.
Heath describes himself as a man with “a sense of humour, a sense of style and is willing to surpass all struggles and obstacles that stand in his way on the road to perfection.”
Believing that there is nothing or no one that can stop him from achieving what he wants, he is willing to work harder than ever and dedicate more time than time itself has to offer in achieving the one thing that the bad mind and the negative aspects in life don’t want to see him achieve and that is success.
For Carnival 2016, the Yankey Boy’s song is titled This Carnival. (PRB)
