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IRIE. How did you come up with the name Third World?
Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore: When we first formed the band, we hadn’t really come up with a name. We were just throwing ideas around. A friend of ours, Clancy Eccles, who had been very closely associated with the PNP and Michael Manley, came up with the name. At that time, there was a big thrust about Third World countries and that whole business. He suggested to us one day why don’t you name the group Sons of the Third World. It’s the Third World of the poor preservation. Even though they are poor preservation, they are nations that have a rich culture. You have nations in Latin America. you have nations in the Asian communities.You have nations in the Caribbean. So we figure, yeah, that would be cool because having the background of playing so much R&B while we were coming up, it would be great to mix all those cultures together so we figured the name suited us in a way. So that’s why we went ahead with that. And when we signed with Chris Blackwell, was when the whole idea came came about forgetting the Sons of the Third World and just Third World.
IRIE. We love the album PATRIOTS. Every track is IRIE! Is there a chance of Third World stepping outside of Reggae to work with artist and bands in different genres?
Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore: All of the members of the band right now have a great love for all kinds of music. We are very open to doing music with other genres of bands. We really don’t have any kind of hangup for working with any musical genre. It’s very interesting that you mention Patriots. It’s the greatest undiscovered underrated reggae album in the history of reggae music. I think that album is an incredible album. How that album was not nominated for a grammy is absolutely extraordinary. It leads one to really think about the process by which all that stuff is done. If you look an the album with Capleton, Tarrus Riley, Stephen and Damian Marley, Martha Griffith, Tessanne Chin, Gregory Issacs, Toots. And the thing about it is that the content of the music on it is good too, it’s not just the names.
