Archive for the 'Up and Coming' Category

Soca Monarch Semi Finalists

Carnival is coming closer and closer.So many nice new tunes are out there already – it is hard to keep track of them all. We are anxious to see (and hear!) which one will make it on the road this Carnival and who is going to be the Soca Monarch 2009. Who is your personal favourite?
Below you can find a list of the Semi-finalists for this year’s International Soca Monarch competition which will be held at the Arima Velodrome Sunday 8th February.

(IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
GROOVY SOCA MONARCH:
1. Fay-ann Lyons-Alvarez
2. Kerwin Du ois
3. Edwin Yearwood
4. Patrice Roberts
5. Biggie Irie
6. Patch
7. Hunter
8. Zoelah
9. Tizzy
10. Chucky
11. Blaxx
12. Iwer “De Boss” George
13. Nadia Batson
14. Zan
15. Pelf
16. Benjai
17. Peter Ram
18. Tracy D
19. Sean Caruth
20. Shal Marshall
21. Farmer Nappy
22. Erphaan Alvesx
23. Shayne Bailey
24. Sugar Raye
25. Esther Dyer
26. Skhi
27. Fireball
28. Alicia Lee
29. C’Donia
30. Cassi
31. Ansel Joseph
32. Gary Jackson

(REIGNING GROOVY SOCA MONARCH: SHURWAYNE WINCHESTER)

POWER SOCA MONARCH:
1. Fay-ann Lyons-Alvarez
2. Shurwayne Winchester
3. Patrice Roberts
4. Iwer “De Boss” George
5. Berbice
6. Olatunji
7. Nadia Batson
8. Terri Lyons
9. Blaxx
10. Blaze & JW
11. Lil’ Bitts
12. Benjai
13. Tony Prescott
14. Super Jigga TC
15. Choppa
16. Trevor Gore
17. Blazer Dan
18. Nnika Francis
19. Knycky Cordner
20. Soca Tech
21. Russel Cadogan
22. Jermeeka Mundy
23. Ivy
24. Ninjitsu
25. Tyra Matthews
26. Anslem Douglas

(REIGNING POWER MONARCH: BUNJI GARLIN)

(via Soca 91.9fm / Trinibashment)

Digicel reveales this year’s Rising Star.

Digicel’s newest Rising Star is the dominican Tarina Simon. She competed with Antiguan Daina Barnes, as crowd favourite from early on in the competition and walked away with 10 000 US$ and a recording deal with CRS Music.

The “reveal show” featured last year’s winner Kyron Baptiste who perfomed together with Peter Ram Ram’s tune ”Woman By my Side”.

Scrappy (Montserrat) album available now

ScrappyAlthough carnival in Montserrat is no summer carnival but is celebrated between Christmas and New Year there are Soca-related news from the island’s 2005/06 Soca Monarch Scrappy.
The promissing son of the island, who also became Junior Calypso Monarch twice before he left Montserrat, currently resides in London where he is just about to release his third album „Soca Is Life”. And this only days after his second solo album „Dreams Are Reality” became available at all major download stores like iTunes, Napster, Juno and many more, after signing contracts with Europe’s biggest Soca label Faluma Digital.

The young artist who just turned age 25 last week, is not only singing but is also writing and producing most of his tunes and runs his own production label called Danger 1 Productions. By being such an all-rounder Garvin „Scrappy” Johnson qualified to be one of the fresh and upcoming artists distributed digitally by Faluma, beside many big names like Krosfyah, Mastamind, El-A-Kru and Madd.

Malo – Guyana’s reigning Soca Monarch

Not many of you might have heard of Malo. Marlon ‘Malo’ Webster is the reigning 2007 Carib Soca Monarch of Guyana. He took the title this year on Sunday 18 February with the song “Give it to me”. According to our knowledge he has no web presence, but we have two video clips for you:

Malo’s Soca Monarch show
Malo live at Soca Storm on May 19 2007

Free Shammi Tune

ShammiSoca artist Shammi, famous for the “Soca Bhangra” tune with Bunji Garlin, is working on new material. Some of his new tunes will be heard this carnival. Other productions lead to the international market: His work with King Heartbeat Productions is being released in Japan next month and there is interest from a producer in Poland to do some collaborative work and distribution.

Get your free Shammi tune now [mp3/3,2MB]

Mistah Shak

Mistah ShakMistah Shak just released his new tune called “Bombing”, which is dealing with terrorist attacks all over the world. Voiced on a new riddim entitled “De Showdown Riddim” produced by Orin “Octane” Wilson (Riccochet Productions), who is working on a riddim compilation with tunes by other artistes. Vocal Production was done by Shawn Da Ma$tamind Noel.

Although Mistah Shak has contributed music to the carnival seasons, he’s working on music which is not linked to festivals:
If we want our music to reach to greater levels, we need to take the chance and start putting out good music all the time, at any time it feels right. There is no other genre of music in the world that is confined to being released depending on any particular festival or occasion. So this was just our attempt at putting out what we think is a good, timely song, dealing with a very serious, global,social issue.

What can we expect in the near future? Mistah Shak is recording new tunes with his brother,”Da Ma$tamind”,”Octane” and Daryl Braxton. He and Duranty, founding members of “Surgeon Blade Panel”, are exploring ways to put an full album together.

Jandy’s “Ah Little Bit” Roadmix

JandyThe NY based soca singer Jandy just finished the Roadmix by Outbreak Productions of her blazin’ track “Ah Little Bit”, which was originally produced by Drew Sutherland of St Vincent.

[listen]

 

Karen Veira’s “U Don’t Know”

Karen VeiraListeners of St. Vincent’s Hot97 already know it: “You dont’ know” by Karen Veira, which had massive airplay over the last weeks. The slow jam tune is the debut release of the 18-year-old songstress outa St. Vincent.
Produced by the man Kubiyashi and Non-Fiction Recordings, who gave us the strongest riddim for this summer so far, the Lava Slide Riddim.

[listen]



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