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Thursday, July 17, 2025

UK Soca Monarch comes to the source

by

20140112

Rodell Sorzano was born at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal 24 years ago but mi­grat­ed to Eng­land in 1998 when he was eight. To­day, as Trini­boi Joocie, he is the reign­ing Pow­er and Groovy So­ca Monarch of the Unit­ed King­dom.

Back home for Car­ni­val, Sorzano said he "main­tained roots" with his home­land and its mu­sic and cul­ture be­cause he mi­grat­ed from Trinidad as "a cul­tur­al per­son."

Rem­i­nisc­ing, he said: "I was one of the youngest pan play­ers in Trinidad be­fore I left, play­ing for Nu Tones in Ari­ma, and men­tored by Clive Bradley. I played with the band as its youngest play­er the year it won Panora­ma in 1998 with High Mas. I made all the news­pa­pers then, im­ages I have kept and cher­ished.

"My mom and sib­lings took me to Eng­land and I con­tin­ued play­ing pan for Ebony steel or­ches­tra, the num­ber one steel­band in the UK. The pan mu­sic has al­ways kept me in touch with Tri­ni cul­ture. I won a per­form­ing arts schol­ar­ship, due to out­stand­ing grades I achieved in col­lege and stud­ied at De Mont­fort Uni­ver­si­ty in Leices­ter. I grad­u­at­ed in 2001. Since then I have ap­plied my knowl­edge, aca­d­e­mics and tal­ent to so­ca mu­sic."

In 2011, Machel Mon­tano and pro­duc­er Ker­nal Roberts saw Sorzano per­form­ing in Lon­don at the Ca­lo Fes­ti­val and they were im­pressed. "They in­vit­ed me to Trinidad that same year to re-record the track I per­formed. The name of the song was Beast In Me, com­posed by me. Ker­nal re­pro­duced the song and I even­tu­al­ly won the So­ca Monarch ti­tle in the UK in 2012.

"That was a suc­cess­ful step­ping stone for me. In ad­di­tion to con­certs across Britain and Eu­rope I al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T in Switzer­land at the Pa­leo Fes­ti­val, along­side renowned artistes like Tony Rebel and Queen Ifrica.

"Last Car­ni­val, I re­turned to Trinidad and per­formed on the Syn­er­gy School Tour as well as oth­er events, in­clud­ing Red Edge fete, open­ing for Bun­ji Gar­lin. I was al­so a front­line artiste for J'Ou­vert band Last Band Stand­ing, pro­duced by Mar­lon Brizan. From the ex­po­sure and suc­cess of Trinidad Car­ni­val in 2013, when I re­turned to Lon­don I was fea­tured on every­thing."

In 2013, Sorzano per­formed at ten band launch­ings in Lon­don, as well as 11 Eu­ro­pean car­ni­vals, in­clud­ing Berlin, along­side Kes. He al­so opened for sev­er­al acts, in­clud­ing Blaxx, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Machel Mon­tano, Ron­nie Mc In­tosh, Kes, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, Mar­cia Grif­fiths and Dru­patee; and al­so per­formed at three In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions for Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia and T&T. Last year, Sorzano was the re­cip­i­ent of an award from the T&T High Com­mis­sion for his con­tri­bu­tion to so­ca mu­sic in Eu­rope.

De­spite his suc­cess­es in so­ca mu­sic, Sorzano has not turned his back on his pan prowess. He played with Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars in 2007 and 2008, and re­mains com­mit­ted to Ebony in Lon­don.

In Lon­don, Sorzano in­tends keep­ing him­self even more busy in 2014. In ad­di­tion to teach­ing per­form­ing arts at a sec­ondary school, he runs his com­pa­ny–Joocie Camp.

Sorzano ex­plained: "Joocie Camp is a col­lec­tion of young, tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­u­als in the dis­ci­plines of dance, act­ing, mu­sic pro­duc­tion, graph­ic de­sign and oth­er stuff."

Sorzano, who turns 25 on Ju­ly 16, an­tic­i­pates a bright fu­ture for him­self in the arts. "I in­tend to con­tin­ue break­ing the bound­aries by per­form­ing so­ca and com­pos­ing," he said.

"My in­ten­tion is to take so­ca mu­sic where it has nev­er been be­fore, push­ing in­to the main­stream UK mar­ket. What I would like to do is en­sure that pro­fes­sion­al­ism is main­tained at the high­est stan­dard.

"For 2014, I am sure­ly go­ing to en­ter the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion. My song is en­ti­tled Iz We, pro­duced by Josh 'J Press da But­ton' Prescod, mixed and mas­tered by Pre­ci­sion Pro­duc­tion. This song tore up the UK scene and I plan to bring that en­er­gy here to Trinidad."


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