Cherisse Moe

In 2005, he let the whole world know that "socks and draw­ers" were not at the top of his Christ­mas list with the in­fec­tious, hu­mor­ous so­ca parang, Mr San­ta Claus."It was an anal­o­gy for get­ting those unimag­i­na­tive gifts for Christ­mas. It's like if you're in­to fash­ion but they give you fish­ing gear," he joked.Stat­ing that the track has now be­come "a mod­ern clas­sic," he says "peo­ple have come to ex­pect a parang song from me every year."And he does not dis­ap­point. Since then, Re­my Rem­Bunc­tion, chris­tened Roland Ed­ward Marc Year­wood, has re­leased a string of pop­u­lar Christ­mas hits, in­clud­ing Saman­tha Claus– a part two to Mr San­ta Claus,Ju­bi­la­tion, Baila La Parang and the fan favourite, Macafouchette-a com­i­cal take on the lo­cal tra­di­tion of "parang­ing." This year, the 30-some­thing-year-old is at it again with the so­ca parang, Jin­gle Dance, which has al­so been grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty."The great thing about Christ­mas mu­sic is that it has legs for years and years to come. Peo­ple re­dis­cov­er songs every year," he says.

Mo­ti­vat­ed

Al­though he's be­come known for his amus­ing parang songs and mu­sic videos, the Vi­su­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions grad­u­ate of North Car­oli­na Cen­tral Uni­ver­si­ty has been an in­te­gral part of the lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try since the 1990's, when he came on the scene as part of the orig­i­nal Kisskidee Kar­a­van, with the group Mel­low Dy­nam­ic En­ti­ty (MDE). De­scrib­ing him­self as "a mul­ti­me­dia artiste," Re­my Rem­Bunc­tion al­so en­joyed a short stint as a car­toon­ist at the T&T Guardian's pub­li­ca­tion, The Zone and lent his lyri­cal tal­ent to the lo­cal Gospel group The Black­man Fam­i­ly, con­tribut­ing to their 2004 al­bum, Christ­mas with the Black­mans.The Pe­tit Val­ley res­i­dent, a graph­ic artist by pro­fes­sion and the own­er of Rem­bunc­tion Pro­duc­tions, says his pas­sion for the arts keeps him mo­ti­vat­ed to con­tin­ue im­prov­ing his craft.

Life ex­pe­ri­ences

Does he share the pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment that the parang and so­ca parang gen­res are on their way out the door?"Def­i­nite­ly not," de­clares Re­my Rem­Bunc­tion, who says he draws in­spi­ra­tion from "life ex­pe­ri­ences" and mu­sic vet­er­ans like David Rud­der, The Mighty Shad­ow, Scrunter and Kitch­en­er. "I've been do­ing a lot of work with the Vi­va Nue­va Parang Group and I can tell you the parang com­mu­ni­ty is alive and well."Peo­ple need to un­der­stand that the art form has just evolved but the on­ly con­stant is change."Vow­ing to do his part to take the in­dus­try for­ward, he as­serts, "I'll con­tin­ue to ex­plore all av­enues of my artis­tic abil­i­ties. I like to do mu­sic that pleas­es the peo­ple, that's my main ob­jec­tive." So, what's next for this so­ca parang man? Re­my Rem­Bunc­tion says big things, in­clud­ing re­leas­ing a so­ca track called Ten Mil­lion Woman, as well as a chut­ney so­ca, which he has not yet named.