By now, the entire population knows what’s on Aaron “Voice” St Louis’ mind: Woman and woman and rum. His latest song Cyah Behave is now among the 2026 Carnival anthems, and he has even hinted at entering the Road March race. But the infectious tune’s journey started just one month before its eventual release date. In fact, it did not even begin in Trinidad and Tobago.
The instrument-filled, mid-tempo tune describes the ecstasy felt during Carnival celebrations, which leads to having no behaviour. He explains that he “cyah behave” when he’s with his friends and the music hits, urging listeners to raise their hands “if soca give yuh life.” He also takes a jab at those who refer to soca music as noise, saying he’s sure his ancestors will support his choice, “Cause I sure this music is more than noise.”
The catalyst behind the chaos it is now causing at every fete was St Lucian producer Dwayne Mendes. He told Guardian Media he had been dabbling in songwriting for about a year—specifically R&B, afrobeats and dancehall. But after experiencing 2025 Miami Carnival celebrations in October, he decided to try his hand at writing soca.
“I caught a vibe because I went to a few of the events,” he recalled. The behaviour of the masqueraders there—or lack thereof—led to a simple hook coming to mind.
“I just kept thinking, ‘I cyah behave mehself,’ but I couldn’t quite get the melody for it.”
Still, he continued to write around it. And after completing the lyrics, the melody we hear now finally clicked.
“I was like, ‘This is it!’ I just saw stadiums and people opening their arms—that sort of excitement.”
He recorded this demo on November 11. He said he called up his friend, fellow producer and A&R (Artists and Repertoire) representative Stephen “International Stephen” Phillip and told him he had some demos that he needed to listen urgently.
“I went to his home and when I played this one for him, he said, ‘Yeah, this is it.’”
They sent it to three different soca artistes. Voice had been travelling and so he heard it a bit late. But as soon as he did, he told them: I hope allyuh eh sell this yet.
Immediately, the artiste sent it to local producer Mikhail “Mega Mick” Corneal, who said from the moment he got the demo, “It was pace.”
“It was Dwayne just singing over some chords, and I was just as in love with the chorus as Voice was. It sounded anthemic and stadium-like,” he said. He then began what he called the “dissection” of the track to add a more local flair to it. “I got sent that demo on November 29. This song came out on January 7. Everything happened so fast like ‘bow’!”
He said they opted to restructure the song almost entirely but kept the essence of the original chorus and chants. He also brought in musicians Kyle Peters and Joshua Richardson, who did live guitars and bass.
“I blended the bass from both of them because there were parts I liked from each.”
Fellow soca star Kerwin Du Bois also hopped on the project as a co-writer. But it still wasn’t done. Its next trip was to the studio of Alex “Lunatix Productions” Gooding. He explained that he still felt it needed to sound “more Trini.”
“When Voice sent the project, it was bare. It didn’t have any drums or percussion or anything like that… just singing and some of the music Mick already did and they wanted to know which direction to go in.”
Upon the song being rearranged from the original demo, he said he added drums, most of the brass, percussions and some synth.
“I basically did something in each area except guitars or bass.”
Anthony Small provided live percussion and Zenya Bashford, background vocals.
Gooding said it was his idea to add the “woman and woman and rum” part as the song’s intro. He found that the “oh, oh oh” chant would not have grabbed listeners’ attention as much. And that line, now the subject of several memes online, was actually taken from another song Voice had been working on.
“The chant wasn’t fully Trini. It was more of a football stadium vibe. So I told Voice let’s move (woman and rum) to the top because that is our Carnival culture,” Gooding said.
He said the artiste wasn’t 100 per cent sure about it, but he was adamant.
“We had about 16 different versions and it was my first time doing this amount of work in such a short space of time. I was almost scared to make the wrong decision because I wanted what’s best for the track, but we still wouldn’t know until the public heard it.”
He said they only settled on something when they were running out of time—and they went with their gut.
Kasey Phillips of Precision Productions added the final touches as he mixed and mastered the track.
When Corneal first started seeing the reactions on social media, he said he felt validated. “This reaction was crazy. And it was actually between this song and another one… All the back and forth and tinkering was worth it.”
As for Gooding, he didn’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly. He waited. “At first I thought, ‘Hmm. I wonder, boy.’ Then the more videos I saw over the next week was crazy. Voice called me and said, ‘Alex, I never had a reaction like this in such a short space of time for one of my songs.’”
He added, “And it doesn’t have a music video, we didn’t really do much marketing. That’s when you know you have something good, when you don’t have to force it on people.”
He said this was solidified after he experienced Voice’s performance at Soaka, where the crowd “went into a frenzy.”
For Mendes, seeing the videos of crowds singing it word for word made him shed a few tears. He hopes to be able to attend Voice’s show today to experience the “magical moment” for himself.
“It’s surreal. It’s very surreal to see this for one of the first soca songs I ever worked on,” he said. “It’s just how I imagined it. Everyone is singing along to the chant with all the harmonies and it’s so beautiful.”
International Stephen posted on Instagram saying he has always had a good ear for music, especially hits.
“Instantly, after (Dwayne) played it, my eyes opened up and my arms spread wide… We both instantly agreed that this one was extra special.” He praised everyone involved on the project.
