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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: MR SIPP

Interview, by Mike Stephenson, took place in the artist’s home state of Mississippi in October 2019. Many thanks
go to Peggy Brown of Hit The Road Entertainment for all of her help and support.

My name is Castro Coleman, born August 25 1976 in McComb, Mississippi. I was born and raised in Magnolia,
th
Mississippi, which is strange as we had a McComb
address so that’s a struggle right now as Magnolia
is claiming me and McComb is claiming me, but
I’m from both of them. I started playing music at
the tender age of six, starting in the church. My
family was, and is, very religious; there are a bunch
of pastors and preachers and missionaries, deacons
and so on and so forth. I started playing in the
church, I never ever in my life wanted to sing, I
was playing guitar. I started playing in the late part
of my sixth year and early part of my seventh year.
The discovery of me being able to play guitar was
at the age of six. I could play before then, but I was
so small and they wouldn’t listen to me. I’m from
a musical family and when I say that, I say that
strongly, as everybody in my family plays or sings
or writes music and I will also say that I am one of
the least talented ones in my family. I always say
it but people don’t believe it, but it’s true but I am
the most fearless one in the family, the one that
will take chances.
© Mike Stephenson
I started travelling and playing with my aunt Grace,
my mother’s oldest sister, she had a family group.
It was her and another one of my aunties, which was one of her baby sisters, and her three daughters and they had a
group called Grace Cain And The Mellownettes, which was one of the most primary groups here. They were awesome
and it was a big deal for me to be playing with her. She is also responsible for sitting my parents down and telling them
to listen to me play, because I had been telling everyone I could play but they didn’t believe it. I was by her house one
day and her husband was playing and when he set his guitar down I picked it up and I went to playing what he had been
playing as I could hear it and they came in and it was like “wow” and they asked if my mum and dad knew I could play
and I told them I had been trying to tell them but they wouldn’t listen. So she put me in the car and brought me back to
my house and told my parents to sit down and asked my dad where his guitar was and she grabbed the guitar and put it
in my hand and she told them to listen and I started playing and my mum started crying and my dad sat there with his
mouth open. The rest is history.

From there I started playing with my auntie Grace Cain And The Mellownettes and from there in school my brother
and I did talent shows and stuff like that in the schools and we joined up with this choir when I was in the ninth grade,
Mercy Dee Mass Choir from Kentwood, Louisiana and I made my very first national television appearance on the Bobby
Jones Gospel Show playing guitar for this choir and we did some touring during the summer and from there, as I got
older in eleventh grade, I started finding interest in doing my own thing. So my brother and my cousin who is my aunt
Grace’s oldest son started putting our heads together and started coming up with music. So my auntie would let us open
up the band for her. We all sang and played and she let us open up for her to the point to where we would start singing
after her as a lot of people started to request that, so we would sing after she finished her show. My twelfth grade year
we recorded a three song demo and presented it to the Williams Brothers, Blackberry Records, and we actually got our
first record deal in 1994 with Blackberry Records; that was major as the Williams Brothers were the top of the gospel
field. If you were connected to those guys you were connected. The name of our group was Vive and we were a five
piece and we cut the record, did the photo shoot, did the album cover, set the release date and watch this. The group
broke up. Two of my cousins that were in the group got drafted together and my brother got married and moved to
Memphis, so that left me and my little cousin who was tenth grade at that time. So we couldn’t go through with the

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