When Fireball isn’t laying down tracks in the studio—he recently teamed up with Squeezy Rankin on the single Gorilla Glue—you’ll usually catch him in the kitchen, bubbling up another pot for his business, Firechef Cuisines.
Cowheel is the clear bestseller, but beef runs it a very close second. Pigtail and chicken foot have their loyal fans too. The corn soup pulls a crowd, and his callaloo soup is climbing fast because it’s loaded with meats and vegetables.
If you’ve been around Oropune Gardens on select evenings or Kafe Blue on a Saturday, you might have spotted the new fish broth on the menu. Customers are loving it.
He and his fiancée Jo started the business eight years ago. Everyone kept telling him his soup was the best, until he tasted hers and realised it was even better. So they did the only sensible thing—put their skills together and called the whole thing Souperb Soups.
Rohan Richards, 46, is the former Success Laventille Composite School student whom everyone knows as Fireball—a name international ears already knew back when his 2007 smash “What I Want” ruled the local airwaves and climbed to number six on the charts in France.
He started cooking at 14 while growing up on Picton Road in Laventille. The real passion kicked in at 16. “That’s when I started getting good feedback and compliments, which was very encouraging,” he tells We Life and Culture. “I never stopped since then. It was during that period my eldest brother and I learned to make soup from our father.”
Running Firechef Cuisines while still hitting the studio is second nature. “That’s really my two lives dey. Music and food,” he says.
Rohan and Jo keep things healthy and consistent in both taste and texture, with bold, balanced flavours that he says is what sets Souperb Soups apart. “We know it’s impossible to please everyone, so we just make a soup that’s hard to dislike and easy to come back for. The base is blended and the ingredients are prepared separately in such a way that when it all comes together, it is rich and smells amazing. It is always very hot and tasty.”
They still cook the old-school way, drawing from his dad’s recipe and Jo’s mum’s, so the two combine into a good pot. His customers keep returning, sending voice notes, texts, and WhatsApp messages that have been truly encouraging. He notes that some even try other popular soups to compare against theirs, and the feedback is always positive.
Here’s a little secret Fireball shared with us: they’ll soon be offering frozen soups, so all you have to do is heat them up and lunch (or dinner) is sorted.
A typical soup-making day? A few hours of prep — making their own green seasonings, cleaning meats, peeling provisions, cooking the peas, plus the extra ingredient: love. “We cook as if we’re cooking for our family every time we’re in the kitchen.” His personal favourite is the split-peas version because he loves the consistency it brings.
Building a business hasn’t been easy. The hardest parts were finding a good location and figuring out how to cut through a crowded market. But the passion for good food and the smiles on customers’ faces have made all the sacrifices worth it.
If you haven’t tried Souperb Soups yet, Fireball’s got a deal that is hard to refuse. Try it and don’t like it, he’ll pay for it himself. “So far I have never had to pay,” he jokes.
