Video message from Tim Reid
By Essiba Small
Veteran Hollywood actor Tim Reid, who has been credited with over 100 roles over his 40-year career – and is best known for his roles on WKRP in Cincinnati (as groovy DJ Venus Flytrap), Simon & Simon (Marcel “Downtown” Brown) and Sister Sister (Ray Campbell)—was in Trinidad last week to promote his LGCY (LEGACY) Network.
According to its website, LGCY is an independent source of entertainment content that offers a historical, cultural, and contemporary view of the African Diaspora.
The network was launched in August exclusively for the Caribbean, and initially started streaming on Liberty Latin America’s (Liberty) Flow Video Streaming and Video on Demand Platform.
The launch followed a year of partnership between Reid and the UVI (University of the Virgin Islands) research and Technology Parks through its inaugural Entrepreneur-in-Residence programme, which played a role in facilitating the launch of LGCY, a statement provided by Reid said.
“Globally, media is undergoing dramatic changes as it continues to expand and define the social and cultural perceptions of billions of people on a daily basis,” Reid said.
“I believe that in this atmosphere of media consumption there stands a critical need and opportunity for new strategies and models for those of us, ‘storytellers’ who passionately seek to tell diverse and culturally significant stories.”
The actor has been coming to Trinidad for the last seven years, in part to see his friend, animator and multimedia producer Camille Selvon Abrahams. He is still active in Hollywood, albeit on the other side of the camera, as a director.
His latest project is a movie on the life of once-popular psychic Miss Cleo, featuring rapper Lady of Rage in the title role.
“This is her first major film role,” Reid said of the rapper, who was a regular on the Steve Harvey Show sitcom.
Reid is currently in talks with distribution companies to have the film aired in cinemas.
Throughout his career, Reid always wanted “to create and explore a culturally unique view of people and events that mainstream media has often overlooked, stereotyped or forgotten”.
For the past few years, Reid has been travelling and working with a group of filmmakers all over the world, including Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the US. He believes that even though the needs and problems of people in the African diaspora are the same, no matter what part of the world they live, the bringing together of the African diaspora is not easy, because “we’ve been conditioned to do the opposite of that”.
Reid wants to find new ways of conditioning the minds of people of African descent, so they wouldn’t have to rely on the mainstream media’s version of their history and that connecting and re-conditioning “our minds as a people, we can be more useful and helpful in rebuilding our communities”.
LGCY promo
“Young people need to know about their ancestors. When I came here, I saw everyone watching cricket; young people need to know the impact of cricket and how important it was in expanding the revolution culturally, for those who were brought here for labour.
“It almost united us.”
Asked if he feared LGCY might come across as alienating to other races in a multi-ethnic Caribbean population such as ours, Reid laughed.
“We don’t control the media. We don’t control the propaganda and you’re worried about alienating?”
“We need to uplift and inspire us.
“If we could stop and take a deep breath and look at where we come from…. if that don’t put a smile on the face …”
LGCY will feature documentaries, lifestyles and fashion, stories from the Motherland, comedy, sports, animation, movies and other specialities.
It is Reid’s hope that the channel will grow and attract creatives to submit their content. But he added that the content has to be of a high standard.
“Everyone with an iPhone think they are producers,” he said.
“If we have to compete with Netflix, we will have to increase its quality of the content.”
Reid’s advice for young producers is to put culture first and themselves last.
“We have to take pride in what we creating. Don’t create for yourself, create for communities. “My superpower is my love for culture.”
