Bermudian DJ Featured In Billboard Magazine
Bermudian DJ Collas, who hides his identity behind Gombey masks when he’s performing, is featured in a new Billboard magazine survey of performers who conceal their identities on stage to let their music better define them.
Collas runs the popular US-based sound system Noise Cans, which specialises in a mash-up of Caribbean beats with modern day electronic dance music.
He says some of his fondest memories from childhood revolve around the Gombeys.
“I would remember hearing the bass drum, the snare, the whistle [and] it was like they were calling you,” music trade journal Billboard quotes him as saying.
“Sometimes, we would run out of the house [to] see our friends following, other times there would just be random natives skanking, jumping, moving.”
The DJ says his modern interpretations of the classic Bermuda Gombey masks “bridges the spirit of authentic Gombey with modern day art, music, lights and straight-up rebellion.”
“The mask is culture, vibe, energy,” he says. “It allows you to create and feel as free as you want to be.”
Other masked musical men profiled by Billboard include Daft Punk, deadmau5 and Marshmello.
The enigmatic US dancehall star, whose Noise Cans project debuted in 2014, has released more than 20 tracks on various music platforms in the last five years. His outfit been profiled on Britain’s BBC Radio 1 and featured in such publications as Vogue and Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner newspaper
“I look at it like Noise Cans is its own Gombey troupe, making music and still using that vibe and that really unique style in the performance element as well,” Collas told Vogue. “The mask just gives me this energy, this newfound power, this freedom. And some people look at it like, ‘We don’t know what that that is, but it’s cool.’”
You can read the full Billboard article here.
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