By Aviso Paul
People usher in the Christmas season in different ways, and the Cox family, better known as Y3K, is doing so by means of Christmas music which they described as challenging to make, but something which nevertheless has always been their dream.
The seven siblings – Yurie, Kwasi, Keifa, Keiven, Taiesha, Tianna, and Daniel Cox all grew up in the church; their father was the pastor. According to them, the church automatically drives a demand for good musicians, they all stepped up to the plate and with time, hard work, and dedication, quickly developed a keen ear for sound. Now they can skilfully play at least two instruments each.
Even though they grew older and went on their own, their love for music never stopped and so they are back at it again this year for the Christmas season with a sweet melody called “Christmas With You”. This song was written by a few of the siblings as well as a couple close to the family who recently got married.
Keisanna Cox-Parasram, the main writer of the song, said that it emerged from her husband’s idea.
“How this specific song came about is my husband was initially writing a love song and I said let’s turn it into a Christmas song and he asked if that’s possible…,” she recalled. “So when I started writing, just like that the words started to come to me because during those times I was thinking about how I feel about Christmas and that’s when I got more inspired…I also spoke to my brother about it and then he put in his part and then he invited some of our other friends and they also put in their part… In their part, they were singing about the first Christmas together since in reality they had actually gotten married about three weeks ago…so everybody was basically combining how they felt about this time of the year.”
Meanwhile, Kwasi, who is also featured in the song, told The Scene, “We have been in the music industry for quite a while. Since I was seven, my entire family used to perform on stage at the cultural centre and some of us even performed at the GTT Cellink shows. From that GTT show, we opened for the Ne-Yo show in Guyana in 2010 and in 2015 we went overseas to represent Guyana and the Caribbean at the One Billion Rising show.”
Kwasi noted that although Guyana was not a country that pushed its musicians, he has seen many changes occurring for the last few months. He hopes that he, his siblings and friends could be part of those changes.
“Currently there are two things that we are hoping to accomplish and as such we’re asking for support. We would like to perform at the Christmas Village this year. We would be glad if the Government can reach out to us because we would love to perform for our people. Another thing, we believe that our Christmas song can make it on the international stage again and so we are again asking the government and appealing to the public to help us to go overseas again to promote our song for the month of December. Being a group that has already gone out there and represented our country… we’re trusting that we can do it again.”
The singer and songwriter stated that their band performs mainly Christmas songs, which he described as “hard to make”. They already have the experience of singing and performing on the international stage, and once given the opportunity and support from the government, he said, they will put Guyana on the map of internationally recognized Christmas songs because they are certain that they have the ability to do so.
“It’s hard to make Christmas songs in the first place… Because if you look we have tons of musicians but every Christmas we keep playing the old ones because indeed they are excellent,” Kwasi said. “But it’s also time that we explore our potential as musicians, songwriters and singers and see how far we could go with Christmas songs.”
The new release, “Christmas With You”, by Keisanna Cox-Parasram featuring her brother Kwasi Cox, her sister Tianna Cox and their friend Travis Retemyer can be accessed on Keisanna’s YouTube account ‘Keisanna Parsaram’, also on Spotify and Distrokid Hyperlink.
Meantime, Y3K will release a new album after the festive season.
