T&T so­ca group Kes the Band has an­nounced that their sin­gle Co­coa Tea is of­fi­cial­ly un­der con­sid­er­a­tion for the Gram­my Awards. The track has been en­tered in the cat­e­go­ry of Best Glob­al Mu­sic Per­for­mance, mark­ing an­oth­er step for­ward in the group’s mis­sion to take so­ca mu­sic to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

The an­nounce­ment, which was made on the band’s Face­book page, comes as the Record­ing Acad­e­my’s first round of vot­ing to de­ter­mine this year’s nom­i­nees is cur­rent­ly un­der­way, run­ning un­til Oc­to­ber 15. If suc­cess­ful, Kes could se­cure a his­toric nom­i­na­tion, fur­ther so­lid­i­fy­ing the pres­ence of Caribbean mu­sic on the glob­al stage.

The sin­gle Co­coa Tea was pro­duced by Tano and fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions from sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tors in­clud­ing Mi­cal Te­ja, KC Kasey, Kp Musiq, and In­ef­fa­ble Records. The track blends the group’s sig­na­ture so­ca rhythms with a mod­ern sound, show­cas­ing the ver­sa­til­i­ty and reach of the genre.

Kes, led by front­man Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, has long been a dri­ving force in tak­ing so­ca be­yond the Car­ni­val cir­cuit, per­form­ing at fes­ti­vals and con­certs world­wide. The band has con­sis­tent­ly ex­pressed its com­mit­ment to el­e­vat­ing Caribbean mu­sic and cul­ture, us­ing every plat­form to spread its sound to new au­di­ences.

In a state­ment ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Gram­my con­sid­er­a­tion an­nounce­ment, the group ex­tend­ed grat­i­tude to the pro­duc­ers, en­gi­neers, mu­si­cians, and artists who con­tributed to the song, adding: “So­ca mu­sic to the world.”

If nom­i­nat­ed, Co­coa Tea would join a grow­ing list of Caribbean works recog­nised by the Gram­mys, re­in­forc­ing the glob­al in­flu­ence of the re­gion’s mu­sic.

The an­nounce­ment drew scores of well-wish­es from fans of the band and for the front­man, Di­ef­fen­thaller, on Face­book.

Many fans were op­ti­mistic that the band would be suc­cess­ful and said the in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion was well-de­served.