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Friday, July 25, 2025

Evo­lu­tion of a so­ca artiste...

My name is Jaiga

by

20140119

Jaiga who?

If you're hear­ing that name and try­ing to fig­ure out who is the new so­ca artiste with such a fa­mil­iar voice, it's be­cause the voice be­longs to Ter­rin Cal­len­der, the so­ca artiste for­mer­ly known as Su­per Jig­ga TC.

In re­cent years, the San Juan na­tive has been mak­ing the tran­si­tion from DJ to tele­vi­sion host, to singer and song­writer.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, he ex­plained the rea­son for the name change and his fo­cus this Car­ni­val sea­son.

"I have al­ways want­ed to change the name but TC or Su­per Jig­ga stuck with my fans and the right op­por­tu­ni­ty to change it nev­er re­al­ly pre­sent­ed it­self un­til now," said Cal­len­der. The 96.1FM DJ and pre­sen­ter re­called some years ago while wait­ing on a flight at Lon­don Heathrow Air­port, a con­ver­sa­tion with a Brit about so­ca mu­sic sparked the idea to change his name.

"I met this woman and we struck up a con­ver­sa­tion and I let her lis­ten to some of my mu­sic on my lap­top and when she was leav­ing she asked me what my stage name was, so she can tell her friends and when I told her Su­per Jig­ga TC, her re­sponse was: "Don't you find that's a bit much to re­mem­ber?"

"That's when I re­al­ly de­cid­ed to change it," he said.

Cal­len­der who penned the in­ter­na­tion­al hit What I Want, sung by Syn­er­gy So­ca star win­ner Fire­ball in 2008, said the name Jaiga was ac­tu­al­ly a name he was called by a close friend who would mock his then so­bri­quet, Jig­ga.

"Every time he saw me he would say what's hap­pen­ing Jaiga–a play on the name Jig­ga. "Then Shal (Shal Mar­shall, his on air co-host), joked about it on air one day and at the same time my home­boy who does all my graph­ics, Lee Ale­ong, heard him while dri­ving home; went home and did an amaz­ing graph­ic with the name and it just stuck," said Cal­en­dar.

He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, the change was a big risk, as many fans still search for him on­line as Su­per Jig­ga TC. But the 36-year-old said the risk was worth tak­ing.

"I want­ed to go hard once I changed the name, so that peo­ple will even­tu­al­ly get in tune with it. It's tak­ing some time as my fans are still fa­mil­iaris­ing them­selves with it but I am not too wor­ried," said Cal­len­der.

The word Jaiga is a unique word, a search for it on­line, comes right back to Cal­len­der. So what does it mean?

"I want Jaiga to mean love," Cal­len­der says.

This year, Cal­len­der has put out his first full al­bum. He co-wrote five of the ten songs in­clud­ing Keisha, Home­land, Juice, All I Want and Don't Turn Around.

Cal­len­der is sit­ting out the com­pe­ti­tions this year, and is fo­cus­ing his en­er­gies in oth­er ar­eas.

"I have not en­tered any com­pe­ti­tions this year. I just re­al­ly want to fo­cus on the brand and my younger fans so they can grow with Jaiga."


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