Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter at­tend­ing more than 20 fetes this sea­son, pop­u­lar Slam 100.5 Ra­dio an­nounc­er Chis­lon “Verse” Ban­field, and host of CNC3’s The Par­ty Start car­ni­val pro­gramme, praised the qual­i­ty of this year’s so­ca mu­sic, high­light­ing the strong con­tri­bu­tions from younger artistes.

“We have a lot of new artistes, or I wouldn’t say new artistes, but we have a lot of younger artistes break­ing through, which is very good for the in­dus­try. I think we need a lot more of that,” he said.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at Slam stu­dio on Fri­day, Verse’s mes­sage to young artistes was to keep the pas­sion for their craft, as one hit song does not equate to longevi­ty in the in­dus­try.

“It’s not just about a one-hit and a get-you and a book for five or ten events or a go­ing-on-tour. Make sure you’re in it for the long haul be­cause that is what will make you sur­vive through­out. That is what his­to­ry will re­mem­ber you for,” Verse said.

Verse sin­gled out Jah­mike “Chris­to” Bonas and his so­ca hit Doux Doux Dar­lin and Mela Caribe’s Lost in Trin­ba­go, whom he said were al­ways con­sis­tent with their of­fer­ings. He ex­plained that many peo­ple in the in­dus­try take con­struc­tive crit­i­cism well and keep im­prov­ing, which he said was ev­i­dent with Doux Doux Dar­lin.

“You know, a lot of times peo­ple tend to fo­cus on the ego and not just the pro­duc­tion. So that in it­self will hin­der you if you can’t take con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. How­ev­er, Chris­to is a bit dif­fer­ent,” he shared.

In a phone in­ter­view, Chris­to said he nev­er cre­ates mu­sic with ex­pec­ta­tions of it be­com­ing a hit, adding that he sim­ply makes mu­sic out of love for his craft and for his fans.

“So I just put out the mu­sic for the peo­ple,” he said.

He al­so dis­missed the con­cept of So­ca Mafia, say­ing he be­lieves in good mu­sic, con­sis­ten­cy and hard work, and crit­i­cised artistes who put out mu­sic with­out care or sub­stance.

“Your fan base would build; peo­ple would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly tap in. Once you do the right thing, once you put love in­to your thing, love will al­ways come back,” he said.

While Verse praised younger artistes for their con­tri­bu­tions, he al­so men­tioned the 2026 Road March con­tenders as be­ing Machel Mon­tano, Aaron “Voice” St Louis, and Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez, now that he of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered on Fri­day, say­ing they all have peo­ple in a fren­zy at the fetes. But ac­cord­ing to him, the dark horse in this year’s race is Cap­i­tal by Mi­cal Te­ja and Patrice Roberts.

Voice said he knew Cyah Be­have would res­onate with the peo­ple but nev­er ex­pect­ed it to be part of the Road March con­ver­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, now that it is, Voice has re­leased a chil­dren-friend­ly ver­sion of the so­ca song. So in­stead of “I feel for Woman and Rum”, they will sing, “I said we gonna have fun.”

He said the whole idea with the chil­dren’s ver­sion hap­pened when the song took off.

“We want­ed the peo­ple to love it, but I al­so want­ed some­thing the par­ents would feel com­fort­able play­ing around the kids,” he said.

The Far From Fin­ished singer said the song would not be in this po­si­tion if it were not for the peo­ple, and words can­not de­scribe how eter­nal­ly grate­ful and for­ev­er thank­ful he is for every­thing that has hap­pened with the song and his ca­reer this year. He added that just to be men­tioned with the so­ca kings Machel Mon­tano and Bun­ji Gar­lin is a dream come true.