When he began his ‘Letter of the Day’ series on social media application Tik Tok, Guyanese Kwame Simpson, known as ‘Wello’ and ‘Raga Rebel,’ didn’t expect much to come from it.
However, Simpson, 26, shot to popularity on Tik Tok in late May when he started the series, which highlights distinctly Guyanese pronunciations and usages of words.
Simpson, who was born in New Amsterdam, Berbice, where he spent most of his youth, has been living in the United States of America for the past ten years.
He lived on a farm in Berbice until he moved with his parents to St Maarten then back to Guyana before finally taking up residence in New York.
He told Stabroek Weekend that he came up with the idea to create content on Tik Tok during quarantine after the global pandemic hit New York. “So I went on it because I was bored and the quarantine came… I had nothing else to do and I wanted to entertain myself,” Simpson said. He noted that when the pandemic hit, that gave him a lot of free time as the clothing store that he operates was forced to close as part of safety measures in his state.
Simpson explained that he conceived the ‘Letter of the Day’ series after seeing a post on social media about the way certain Caribbean nationalities speak. “I noticed people doing like the meaning of words from like Jamaica… and I was like, ‘Oh that’s cool. I never really heard or seen too much Guyanese ones, so I just did the first one (Letter A) at random and everybody was like they need more,” he revealed.
Simpson stated that initially he didn’t think that it would be something big but upon request he continued going through the alphabet.
“I was like what should it be and everybody’s like saying stuff like the Jamaican words and the other type of words and I’m just like ‘Everybody hear duh before… so I need something else, nobody don’t know Guyanese words.’ We’re very like underappreciated and overlooked sometimes, so I said let me hit them with some Guyanese things,” he recounted. After his entry for the letter ‘B,’ persons kept requesting that he do more and it later became a local sensation.
He happily noted that despite his having lived a considerable time in the United States, his Guyanese accent has always remained and he still considers himself a country boy.
‘The clown’
While explaining the process behind selecting words to use for the different letters, he said that he waited until it was time to record the videos and that helped with keeping the content fresh and relevant to what was going on around the time.
“I’m really, really proud of what it has become so that’s why I wanna stick to just doing it when I’m about to shoot. I don’t choose the word the day before. I might have a couple of ideas of what it is but I don’t choose until I start to shoot and look for the background pictures,” he explained, while adding that editing the videos wasn’t much of a challenge as he had help from others who are more knowledgeable of the ins and outs of the mobile app.
Simpson noted that he had always been interested in making content as he even went to school for theatre since his parents thought that he wanted to be a comedian. He added that in his family he has always been the “clown,” making everyone laugh.
He noted that he fell in love with theatre after moving to the US. He eventually started college for theatre and arts but left to pursue fashion. “I never really left the entertainment environment, I kept performing but once the pandemic hit I had much more time to focus on entertainment, acting and just the videos,” he explained.
Fashion
Simpson and his wife have launched a fashion business, The Raga Closet, which he said came from his being called a ragamuffin during his youth.
“So that always stuck with me and when I thought of what I would name a brand that would represent me properly I thought Raga, so The Raga Closet came about,” he noted.
Additionally, he revealed that he got into fashion and thought himself how to sew and the brand just represents his style, which he says is free, risky, comfortable and very fashionable. He said the response has been very positive. “It’s really become like a part of Brooklyn culture because not only is it an art space, not only is it just a store but we offer community workshops and they’re all donation-based. So community workshops on how to sew, how to revamp your clothes and that’s what we’re all about,” he said while adding that the brand is also about revamping clothing and that he says comes from culture
Simpson stated that his plan initially was to make a name for himself in fashion and then parlay that and transition into acting on a larger scale. He always keeps his interests connected as he does short films for his clothing store and even wears clothes from his line in his Tik Tok videos.
Additionally, he said that he would love to expand the brand to Guyana and even other Caribbean countries and to incorporate “Caribbean swag” in the brand.
Simpson does not know exactly what the next step will be for him with the conclusion of the “Letter” series but he intends to keep the teacher character that he developed for the videos, although he has considered doing another list from Z back to A, with extra classes on using words in sentences and even adding some more skits to keep it going. “They fell in love with the videos and the character as well so I’m building this character that people really love. So I think that’s next,” he said, while adding that he would also like to get into music as that was the initial plan prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
