Ex­cept for the Cleve­land In­di­ans base­ball cap he wears, there is noth­ing that dis­tin­guish­es Jue­lio Nel­son from the young peo­ple who have gath­ered in the apart­ment he shares this Car­ni­val with so­ca singer Su­perBlue. There is no sign that the qui­et, unas­sum­ing arranger and pro­duc­er will go down in the an­nals of so­ca his­to­ry with Su­perBlue for co-ar­rang­ing and co-pro­duc­ing Fan­tas­tic Fri­day, one of the biggest come­back songs in T&T Car­ni­val.

"I think I was des­tined for this op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with Su­per," says Nel­son. "Work­ing with Su­per has brought my name in a dif­fer­ent light. It got peo­ple to know about me. Peo­ple are now start­ing to no­tice the work I did with Blaxx, Denyse Plum­mer and Iw­er George. Fan­tas­tic Fri­day is the biggest song I did so far."

At 26, it might seem that suc­cess came to Nel­son rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly. Not so, he says. "I've been at this since I grad­u­at­ed from Moru­ga Com­pos­ite at 17. I knew back then that mu­sic is what I want­ed to do for the rest of my life."

Nel­son came from a mu­si­cal fam­i­ly. His fa­ther, Gilbert Nel­son, was a gui­tarist with his own band.

"My fa­ther had all of Su­perBlue's records. My favourite was Hel­lo," says Nel­son. Nel­son's fa­ther died when Jue­lio was on­ly 12, but that didn't de­ter him from pur­su­ing his dream. "My fa­ther al­ways want­ed his chil­dren to do bet­ter than him."

Like Su­perBlue, Nel­son feels that mu­sic is root­ed in a sense of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. That's why his favourite line in Fan­tas­tic Fri­day is "Thank God for so­ca." "We wouldn't have so­ca if it wasn't for God," says Nel­son. Un­der­ly­ing Nel­son's qui­et fa�ade is an un­shake­able con­fi­dence. He has nev­er felt in­tim­i­dat­ed by big names in the record­ing busi­ness.

"I just do what I feel. I go with what I feel. In Fan­tas­tic Fri­day I want­ed to blend Old School and New School." At the be­gin­ning of Car­ni­val, Nel­son moved his Nu Gen­er­a­tions Stu­dio from St James to an apart­ment that he would share with Su­perBlue for the Car­ni­val. He has set up his stu­dio equip­ment in a tiny room that four peo­ple can squeeze in­to.

Next to the equip­ment is a bed–the on­ly fur­ni­ture in the room, which is kept freez­ing cold for the record­ing equip­ment. This is where Nel­son sleeps. The hum­ming equip­ment lulls him to sleep when he's not record­ing.