Nigel Teles­ford

Na­tion­al Freestyle Cham­pi­on and so­ca star Akeem “Preedy” Chance has re­turned from Japan with a re­newed sense of pride and pur­pose, af­ter show­cas­ing his mu­sic to en­thu­si­as­tic new au­di­ences across the Pa­cif­ic.

“Japan was love­ly,” Preedy said in an in­ter­view last week, en route to To­ba­go Car­ni­val. “The peo­ple, the cul­ture, the en­er­gy—every­thing over there is very re­spect­ful. They love so­ca so much be­cause it lit­er­al­ly makes them feel warm and hap­py in­side.

“They’re not an over­ly ex­pres­sive peo­ple be­cause they place a high val­ue on con­trol, calm, and tem­pera­ment. But on the oc­ca­sions when they do choose to let loose, so­ca is the per­fect sound­track—it gives them the en­er­gy, joy, and free­dom to just break away.”

Preedy said he and his team were warm­ly re­ceived and felt “at home” in Japan.

“It was in­spir­ing to see peo­ple from the oth­er side of the world singing our songs, danc­ing, and em­brac­ing each oth­er with joy and love—the way we do at Car­ni­val time. It was re­al­ly heart-warm­ing and eye-open­ing, and it def­i­nite­ly mo­ti­vat­ed me to keep on jam­ming.”

His first re­lease for Trinidad Car­ni­val 2026, a track apt­ly ti­tled “Jam­min”, has al­ready found favour with DJs, fete-go­ers, and So­ca lovers. The of­fi­cial mu­sic video—re­leased ahead of Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val in ear­ly Oc­to­ber—has since racked up more than 265,000 views on YouTube in un­der two weeks.

“I had the idea for this song for a while,” he said. “It has that build-up and that en­er­gy, and pro­duc­er Smid­dy made the mu­sic just per­fect to suit the rhythm and the fre­quen­cy. So far, the peo­ple are re­spond­ing well to it. To­ba­go will be a good test—so look out for the jam­min’ on the sis­ter isle this week­end.”

The “King of Vibes” and self-de­scribed “Sauce Boss” al­so teased an up­com­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion, hint­ing that fans at­tend­ing his Acoustic Ex­pe­ri­ence next month might be the first to hear it.

“I’ve had this one ready for months,” he shared. “We de­cid­ed to hold it back since last Car­ni­val be­cause Blaze Fire and the oth­ers were do­ing so well—we didn’t want to con­gest the scene. But those who come out to sup­port me at the Acoustic will prob­a­bly get a lil’ taste of it. I wrote it with a spe­cial friend in mind, and we came to­geth­er, shot the video, and have just been wait­ing for the right time to drop it.”

Preedy is dou­bling down on his cre­ative in­de­pen­dence by stag­ing his own show—Preedy’s Acoustic Ex­pe­ri­ence—to kick off No­vem­ber.

“I’ve been host­ing my own events for a while,” he ex­plained. “The acoustic ones are spe­cial be­cause they give fans a dif­fer­ent feel and a deep­er con­nec­tion to the mu­sic. Out­side of the Car­ni­val pace and fre­net­ic en­er­gy, the acoustic shows re­al­ly al­low all the emo­tions to flow be­tween us.”

Preedy’s Acoustic Ex­pe­ri­ence takes place on Sun­day from 4 pm to 10 pm at Hayes Street, St Clair. Lim­it­ed tick­ets are avail­able on­line at is­landet­ick­ets.com and through com­mit­tee mem­bers.

Look out for more mu­sic from Preedy soon, and check out the video for “Jam­min” on YouTube

Fol­low @iland_boy_preedy on In­sta­gram and oth­er so­cial me­dia plat­forms for up­dates and good vibes.