Grammy-winning J’can musician writes TV show - Fabian Cooke offers slice of West Indian realities in first season of Arnold’s Caribbean Pizza

ARNOLD’S CARIBBEAN Pizza is the latest sitcom added to the local television timetable. Interesting as it may be to watch regional migrants turn their hands in an American pizzeria, local audiences should take pleasure, or be excited to know that the main writer of most of this first season’s episodes is Grammy Award-winning Jamaican musician Fabian Cooke.

“It was a natural progression, only because of music videos and stuff,” he told The Gleaner.

Cooke’s career kicked off as a teenager, after settling in Studio One as their youngest-ever staff drummer. He then moved to New York in 1980, then again to California in 1987, where he laid a foundation in the international music business.

Cooke’s musical credits include work with Ziggy Marley (on Grammy-winning albums Family Time and Live), Eddie Murphy, Snoop Dogg, Ciara, Ini Kamoze, K-pop groups Big Bang ad 2NE1, Third World, Steel Pulse, Born Jamericans, Wailing Souls, and others. Prolific as that shortened list is, Cooke also got himself involved in television. His music in film credits include the Hakuna Matata single from The Lion King (Rhythm of The Pride Lands), Titan A.E. and Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.

Record Label Deal

In his early California days, Cooke had a record label deal and was thinking about releasing visuals. But at the time, music videos were an expensive undertaking.

“I would spend money with different people making music videos and still not like what I saw. So I started buying equipment, cameras and all kinds of stuff, to make my own music videos. Before I knew it, I had everything to make movies, shorts films and stuff like that,” he shared.

After spending some time behind the scenes, Cooke collaborated with Harvest Studios, headed by executive producers Bentley Kyle Evans and Trent Gumbs. It became a relationship that fused his music talent and film-making interests. Cooke volunteered to make the title track for one of the studio’s sitcoms. “I said, bring me one of your shows, I’ll show you what I can do. You don’t like it, you don’t owe me anything. And if you like it, put me on!”

He continued: “They brought me three shows. I did them, and we just never looked back. We just teamed up. I became the music department. It started out as me making music, and it moved to going on set and recording, mixing the shows, doing the laugh tracks, all the audio. Everything,” Cooke said.

Harvest Studios currently has two shows on air, In The Cut (starring Dorien Wilson, Ken Lawson) and Family Time (starring Omar Gooden, Angell Conwell).

“We’ve been doing this eight years. We’re in season seven and eight of both those shows. At one point, we had four shows on the air,” Cooke added, with mention of Harvest Studios’ Love That Girl! and My Crazy Roommate.

For the next big idea, the executive producers shot the pilot for Arnold’s Caribbean Pizza, and Cooke composed the music. Two years passed, and Gumbs finally got a bite. “Trent came back and said, ‘I’m getting a buzz on this thing. Why don’t you do it?’ At that point, he was talking about me directing and everything,” he shared.

Cooke reached out to local writers, but “it’s tough when you’re not talking with a major budget”.

His Vision Came to Life

“I’ve had people say they’re interested, and then you don’t really get any results.” So he took matters into his own hands.

“I remember being frustrated and said, let me just start writing. And I wrote two episodes. I turned it in to Trent, and he really liked it. From there, it started growing. I had a vision of what it is I wanted to try and do. I didn’t want to make another hardcore Jamaican thing that only Jamaicans could understand,” Cooke said.

His goal was to create stories that were not too heavy; that were light and fun. “Who knows where it’s gonna end up? But that was where it started,” Cooke added.

Viewers can find out just how skilled Cooke’s pen is, and join in on the fun of Arnold’s Caribbean Pizza on Tuesdays at 8 p.m., on FLOW TV.

kimberley.small@gleanerjm.com