LIFE AFTER CHOICE FM FOR MARTIN JAY

Sunday September 29th 2013 I sat in the swankiest of studios in Leicester Square and I presented The 23rd Anniversary Caribbean Affair Radio Show. At the time I didnt know that it would be my last ever show on Choice FM but I knew something wasnt right as you can hear from my very last link.

The morning of Monday 30th September 2013 I received an email asking me to attend the offices of Global Radio on Wednesday 2nd October and it was when I attended the offices on that Wednesday morning that I was told that my services were no longer required. Please let me make it very clear that I had no issue with this, I could have heard those words anytime in my 23 years at Choice FM. Regardless of whether I had an issue with it or not, hearing those words cut deep and I got on a train from Leicester Square straight to South Harrow where I sat down with my Mum and my son Duane and tried to process what would my future hold now that there was no more Choice FM and if I am honest not many options of where I could go.

The support I had from family and friends was superb but it wasnt enough to stop me from sinking into a deep depression that lasted a few months. As I type this and think back I must have been one unbearable soul to my family.

Today is Carnival Monday in Trinidad and many people are feeling it, the fact that they are not in Trinidad and the fact that even if they were in Trinidad nothing would be happening. In Trinidad that lovesick feeling is called a TABANCA and it a very real and painful experience to go through. Let me see if I can describe accurately my CARNIVAL TABANCA FEBRUARY 2014.

I am unemployed but I am getting the odd DJ job here and there but it is not covering my share of the bills so my wife Pauline is having to support me at this time which she does without question. I cant possibly think about going to Trinidad carnival and have to accept that I will miss it for the first time since 2007 (the year I got married). I remember feeling so low one day that I even selfishly considered whether not being on this earth would be better for me. I came to the conclusion that I was so broke I couldnt even afford to take my own life which ironically depressed me even more.

Let me put this carnival tabanca into perspective for you. 1992, 1993, 1994, (1995 I miss due to the recent birth of my son), 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, (2007 I miss due to the fact that I am getting married in May) 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. I experienced all of those carnivals in Trinidad it was part of my social calendar and so to be faced in 2014 with the predicament that I simply will not be able to go because I cant afford to was a hard one to accept. My brother Vinny Ranks is on his way, my wife Pauline is on her way and so is my daughter Rochelle. We are now in the times of social media and every time I went on Facebook it was a post from one of those three people I have just mentioned. I couldn’t come off Facebook because there was stuff that I needed to do and Facebook is where I needed to do it.

I am already in a depression, I am on a driving ban, so I cant just go out and clear my head, and this TABANCA is beating me up left right and centre but in the midst of all this thanks to a recommendation from my old Choice FM colleague MASTERSTEPZ I am on my way to DUBAI for the first time ever to DJ. This booking I will never forget because whilst being at such a low point I still had the opportunity to do something amazing. This was my reminder that “what is for you is for you”. This was the beginning of my revival.

March 2014 I went to Dubai and had a fantastic experience playing at this Poolside Party alongside MASTERSTEPZ and DJ CROWNPRINCE (who I now consider to be a friend). I did my set, the promoter was happy, he paid me enough money to pay my mortgage that month and the following morning I got on a plane and headed back to the UK. Shortly after I got back I get a call from BERESFORD MACK who used to read the news on Choice FM and resided in the North London area not too far from my home. This was a life changing phone call.

Beresford says to me that there is an organisation in Tottenham that looks after people with learning difficulties and the Chief Exec is someone that can make things happen so he thinks it’s a good idea for me to go and meet her. I have absolutely nothing to lose and so I go to this meeting at a place called HARINGEY MENCAP. My first impression of this Chief Exec is a loud cockney fag ash Lil who knows how to use every swear word under the sun and this is purely because as I am entering her office she is on the phone to someone who is winding her up. “Martin meet Ang” said Beres and this was the moment that my life changed for the better. I started volunteering at Haringey Mencap in April 2014 and by June 2014 I was working part-time earning enough to pay my monthly mortgage and maybe have £15 left over.

In February 2021 I am still working at Haringey Mencap and if you want to find out more about them you can go to www.haringeymencap.com and look at the website that I built for the organisation (something that I am proud of). Ever since meeting Angie various things have happened but in general this lady has been like my real life fairy godmother just continuously putting great opportunities before me and in return all I have to do is make the occasional mac pie for her. I have learnt so much from her about how to deal with life and about how to deal with the fact that everybody is so different, so treating the same makes no sense whatsoever.

Let’s go back to October 2013 for a bit and I am dealing with the fact that my life of being a radio presenter has come to an abrupt halt. A couple of internet stations had offered me slots and one DAB station also. Each one of them was offering me times like 1am in the morning and I said to myself Soca music is still not being taken seriously and why would I go to any other internet station other than the one that my brother owned BAKAHNAL RADIO.

I dont make the switch to Bakahnal Radio immediately it takes me a good 6 weeks to decide whether or not I am going to do this any more and then in late November 2013 I message my brother and say let’s do this and I begin my life on Bakahnal Radio. The contrast from being in a professional studio to sitting down in my living room and doing a show was huge and at times in the early days I use to wonder whether anyone was listening to me at all and that use to bug me quite a lot.

March 31st 2015 I get admitted to hospital with a pulmonary embolism and this episode is reminiscent to someone taking their car into a garage to get their exhaust pipe fixed and having to change brakes, change spark plugs and change oil filter also. I was in a bad way, diabetic, high blood pressure and high cholesterol to go with this clot on my lungs. My love for fizzy drinks especially a bottle of original lucozade was killing me literally and I had to curb that quickly. I started walking a lot and changed my diet and in the first few months after coming out of hospital I dropped a lot of weight. I had taken a good few weeks off from the radio and even though I was well enough to continue I just couldnt find the zeal to go back on air and I started to think maybe this was the right time to hang up my headphones and call it a day.

One Saturday I am in West London and I am walking near the entrance to Shepherd’s Bush market and this elderly lady touches my arm and says “are you felling better now ?” I turn to her and say yes maam I am feeling better thank you but I am kind of confused because I have no idea who this lady is, she then replies “I cant wait for you to be back on the radio. I doh miss a show ever, you brighten up my whole week”. I got back to North London on that Saturday and put a post on Facebook JOIN ME ON BAKAHNAL RADIO TOMORROW FOR THE RETURN OF THE CARIBBEAN AFFAIR. I told myself that even if there was just that elderly lady listening to my show that was enough for me and I promised myself to just keep on being consistent and also very positive in my attitude.

Shortly after coming out of hospital in April 2015 I was told that there was to be a new addition to our family and that person would be arriving in December and when she did arrive my life got upgraded from economy to business class. I stopped worrying about people that had let me down in life and I started to focus on my family unit. My relationship with Nyrah who is now 5 years old is a very special one. Due to the fact that I was only working part time, when Rochelle went back to work I had the honour of looking after Nyrah on a Monday and Tuesday and so we spent some quality hours together from a very young age. Nyrah is my antidote in a way that is very difficult to explain but it is very safe to say that she changed my life a lot.

Being consistent on the radio is important to me and from the time I went back on air in 2015 I made sure that I was on air every Sunday and if I couldnt do a live show I would pre record. I was beginning to feel the love more and more as the months and years went by and our team on Bakahnal Radio was beginning to feel a lot more like a radio station. Do you remember me saying that my fairy godmother the Chief Exec of Haringey Mencap made things happen for me ? February 2018 was another turning point when I was offered a job by NIBURU LONDON as a media co-ordinator and someone that teaches people how to create podcasts and how to be a presenter. This offer had come about through me working at Mencap and Angie highly recommending me. I thoroughly enjoy what I do with NIBURU LONDON I have the most amazing colleague and together we have delivered some amazing courses to people with learning difficulties and also people that are on the autistic spectrum. Learning about autism has been eye opening and it really makes you stop and think about how you treat people.

Let’s move onto 2020 the year in which I will celebrate 30 years of The Caribbean Affair and 50 years on this earth. I had some big plans like many of us but it wasnt to work out as I planned it turned out much better. Friday March 13th my family and I are on our way to Orlando Florida for a holiday and this was in fact one of the last flights from England to the USA before the President at the time with the dodgy hair piece closed the borders. In fact everything we touched closed down after we had been there Disneyworld, the malls, the restuarants and eventually the country started to close down and this meant that our trip was cut short and on Wednesday 18th March 2020 we were heading back to London arriving on the Thursday morning. Whilst on that flight I started to think if everybody was going to be at home maybe I should do a pop up breakfast show just to pump some positivity into a very uncertain time.

Friday 20th March 2020, I start the Late Breakfast Show as a one off special that quickly becomes actually let’s do this all next week as well to this is going to be a regular feature until further notice. The feedback from the listeners, the topics that we are discussing I feel alive on air like never before. By this time my brother has made me co-owner of Bakahnal Radio and with this energy that I am getting back I start to put things in place. Easter Monday 2020 we did a live show marathon where all the DJs had a 5 year era to play from and it was a huge success.

All I am interested in doing now is bringing positive vibes to our listeners with great shows. I am not 100% happy with how the station looks and feels but I know how to fix that and who I can turn to. Gamal Goodwin of GProductions is someone that I was recommended to by Tshala Wilson who was residing here in London for a few years and then returned to her native Antigua and Barbuda.

Gamal has produced most of my fliers and of course he built my website djmartinjay.com so I knew he was the one to help me pimp the station as it were. First job lets get a new logo.

The next job was to start thinking about building the website and I gave Gamal my ideas and on Sunday 14th February 2021 at 2pm when I was handing over to Vinny Ranks on air the next phase of Bakahnal Radio The Caribbean Powerhouse was born. Click on the image to be taken to the website.

I am ready to embrace this next phase of Bakahnal Radio and take it to the next level we have a great team and we are still building and recruiting more DJs so that you can have more live entertainment. If you like what you see then help us grow subscribe to our youtube channel, join us in the chat room on the website and let everyone know that Bakahnal Radio truly is a Caribbean Powerhouse.