NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Lo­cal pro­duc­er David “Mill­Beatz” Mil­lien be­lieves T&T has one of the rich­est pools of mu­si­cal tal­ent in the re­gion. That be­lief in­spired him to cu­rate and ex­ec­u­tive-pro­duce Gen­er­a­tion Next, an al­bum he hopes will show­case the coun­try’s emerg­ing artistes and song­writ­ers to glob­al au­di­ences.

Of­fi­cial­ly re­leased on June 26, the 18-track al­bum blends so­ca, con­tem­po­rary pop, R&B and dance­hall, among oth­er gen­res, to cre­ate “com­mer­cial­ly vi­able records ca­pa­ble of com­pet­ing in to­day’s in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic land­scape.”

The al­bum fea­tures artistes in­clud­ing Mela Caribe, Chris­to, Paris Coutain, Jal­i­fa, Ze­bee and Kristi­na James.

Known for pro­duc­ing pop­u­lar tracks such as In­di­an Gyal by Machel Mon­tano and Dru­patee and Crim­i­nal Wine by Lyrikal and Patrice Roberts, Mil­lien has nev­er lost sight of the im­por­tance of work­ing with young, up-and-com­ing tal­ent.

He told WE En­ter­tain­ment that he had been think­ing about do­ing a project like Gen­er­a­tion Next for sev­er­al years. Re­flect­ing on his 16 years as a pro­duc­er and his work with many “in­cred­i­bly tal­ent­ed” artistes, he want­ed to cre­ate a bridge be­tween lo­cal tal­ent and in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

“I kept ask­ing my­self one ques­tion: How can I cre­ate some­thing that not on­ly re­leas­es great mu­sic but al­so cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for the next gen­er­a­tion?” he said. “I re­alised there were so many gift­ed young artistes in T&T who de­served a big­ger plat­form. That’s when the vi­sion for Gen­er­a­tion Next re­al­ly be­gan to take shape.”

Plan­ning for the project be­gan in 2024 along­side fel­low pro­duc­er Omario “Mar­i­ooo” Matthews, who is signed to Mil­lien’s record la­bel. Mil­lien said they se­lect­ed the songs they felt best rep­re­sent­ed the al­bum’s vi­sion.

“My man­age­ment team and I lis­tened back to count­less record­ings, in­clud­ing songs cre­at­ed over the last cou­ple of years, and se­lect­ed records based on qual­i­ty, au­then­tic­i­ty, com­mer­cial ap­peal and how each artiste con­tributed to telling the over­all sto­ry of Gen­er­a­tion Next. Every artiste earned their place be­cause they brought some­thing unique to the project.”

So, what made 2026 the right time?

Mil­lien be­lieves Caribbean mu­sic is re­ceiv­ing greater glob­al at­ten­tion as peo­ple around the world em­brace Afro-in­spired mu­sic, so­ca, dance­hall and Caribbean cul­ture in “ways we’ve nev­er seen be­fore”. He wants T&T to play a role in shap­ing that move­ment.

“This al­bum is about cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for artistes be­fore the world dis­cov­ers them,” he said. “Rather than wait­ing for some­one in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to recog­nise our tal­ent, we’re tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to present it our­selves. I be­lieve we have artistes who can com­pete glob­al­ly, and I felt it was time to cre­ate a plat­form that re­flects that be­lief.”

Mil­lien said each fea­tured artiste brought their own per­son­al­i­ty, life ex­pe­ri­ences and mu­si­cal style to the project, which was part of what made it spe­cial. Be­cause there was “no pres­sure” for every­one to sound the same, he said the re­sult was raw and au­then­tic, and he is proud of all the artistes in­volved.

“The di­ver­si­ty of sounds and sto­ries is ex­act­ly what I hoped the al­bum would rep­re­sent. It show­cas­es not on­ly tal­ent­ed singers and writ­ers but al­so the ver­sa­til­i­ty that ex­ists with­in T&T’s mu­sic scene.”

The abil­i­ty of lo­cal mu­sic to reach glob­al au­di­ences has long been a top­ic of dis­cus­sion. But Mil­lien said the chal­lenge has nev­er been a lack of tal­ent, but rather ex­po­sure, in­fra­struc­ture, con­sis­ten­cy and ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Prais­ing T&T’s mu­sic in­dus­try for its “world-class” tal­ent, he said many artistes sim­ply need the right plat­form, guid­ance and team to sup­port them.

He said the feed­back from the pub­lic and fel­low in­dus­try mem­bers has been in­cred­i­bly en­cour­ag­ing, as peo­ple are con­nect­ing with his vi­sion.

The project even caught the at­ten­tion of hip-hop star Bus­ta Rhymes, who re­shared one of the tracks on In­sta­gram with his more than five mil­lion fol­low­ers. Spo­ti­fy al­so fea­tured the al­bum on two of its cu­rat­ed playlists, while Au­diomack high­light­ed it as one of its best songs of the week.

“That sup­port has giv­en me even more con­fi­dence that we’re build­ing some­thing with long-term val­ue,” Mil­lien said.

A mem­ber of the New York chap­ter of the Record­ing Acad­e­my (Gram­my) since 2021, Mil­lien hopes to sub­mit the al­bum for con­sid­er­a­tion for the 69th Gram­my Awards, sched­uled for ear­ly 2027.

“While Gram­my con­sid­er­a­tion does not guar­an­tee a nom­i­na­tion, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the process sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­pands vis­i­bil­i­ty and in­tro­duces the project to a broad­er net­work of mu­sic pro­fes­sion­als, in­dus­try lead­ers, me­dia out­lets and de­ci­sion-mak­ers world­wide,” he said.

The al­bum is iden­ti­fied on stream­ing plat­forms as Vol­ume 1, sig­nalling that Mil­lien sees the project as the be­gin­ning of a larg­er se­ries. He said that, if the sup­port con­tin­ues, he hopes it can be­come an on­go­ing ini­tia­tive to in­tro­duce a new wave of tal­ent every year.

“Right now, my fo­cus is giv­ing Vol­ume 1 the at­ten­tion it de­serves and cre­at­ing as many op­por­tu­ni­ties as pos­si­ble for the artistes in­volved. Once we’ve ac­com­plished that, we’ll be­gin build­ing the next chap­ter.”

Gen­er­a­tion Next is avail­able on all ma­jor dig­i­tal mu­sic stream­ing plat­forms.