JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

Off the stage, 41-year-old, moth­er of six Janeile Os­borne is a hum­ble, spir­i­tu­al woman who walks con­fi­dent­ly along a path strength­ened by faith and tribu­la­tions.

On the stage, as a reg­gae artist, Queen Omega is a mes­sen­ger.

It’s in front of a mi­cro­phone and crowd when Janeile’s gift and pur­pose come alive.

For more than 20 years, the Queen has graced stages across Eu­rope and oth­er parts of the world, forg­ing a rep­u­ta­tion as one of reg­gae’s most pow­er­ful fe­male voic­es.

Yet, back home in Trinidad and To­ba­go, many are still un­aware of a spe­cial tal­ent that was shaped in San Fer­nan­do.

It’s a ca­reer that be­gan at the age of nine years old - en­cour­aged by her beloved moth­er.

“I think my ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing in Ken­ny Phillips Mu­sic Lab (in Palmiste) re­al­ly helped me to be­lieve in my­self as a singer be­cause I was born with this voice. I did 12 & un­der and I did Par­ty Time, you know…And I did the cir­cuit that any young singer would do,” Queen Omega re­called dur­ing an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian at Re­tail Ther­a­py Cloth­ing Store in La Ro­maine.

Queen Omega in studio for her new album.

Keya Thomas

“Peo­ple from all over the Caribbean came to work at Ken­ny Phillips Mu­sic Lab. It was such a beau­ti­ful ex­pe­ri­ence. Dur­ing my school years, I was go­ing to ju­nior sec­ondary, and al­so se­nior sec­ondary, I would go plen­ty of times af­ter school in the evening, some­times late night ses­sions, to go and do back­ground vo­cals. So, yeah, I think that re­al­ly helped me to un­der­stand this is what I was born to do.”

The Rasta­far­i­an songstress’s break­through came in late 2000 while per­form­ing for the band Solomon at the Caribbean Mu­sic Ex­po in Ja­maica.

“I re­mem­ber be­ing on the stage and every­body was talk­ing. And when I went on the mic, every­body stopped talk­ing. They came to­wards the stage and they were like - who’s this woman here? who is she? And they were talk­ing in their pa­tois. Every­body was amazed by my vo­cals. And that stood out for me. I was like, Yeah, boy, yeah, I'm Queen Omega, I can do this,” the Rasta­far­i­an said about the mo­ment she knew mu­sic would be­come her ca­reer.

Moved by her unique voice, mu­sic pro­duc­er Mick­ey D took her to Lon­don the fol­low­ing year to record.

That ex­pe­ri­ence re­sult­ed in her de­but al­bum “Queen Omega” and she’s nev­er looked back since.

Pop­u­lar tracks like - Gan­ja Ba­by; Fra­grance of Love; Se­lassie I know; Love Each Oth­er; Me Beg Yu; Keep the Faith; Per­fect Com­bi­na­tion with Bu­ju Ban­ton, as well as oth­ers, pro­pelled her to long-last­ing suc­cess in Eu­rope.

Then, five years ago, mil­lions of peo­ple were ex­posed to the pow­er of her voice through a Youtube mu­sic video by french, dig­i­tal mu­si­cal artist MANUDIG­I­TAL.

Sit­ting on a chair, armed on­ly with a mi­cro­phone in front of a field San Fer­nan­do, the Queen, in one take, sang to a spon­ta­neous dig­i­tal, key­board beat by MANUDIG­I­TAL.

3.9 mil­lion peo­ple have viewed the video, while the au­dio ver­sion has been streamed mil­lions of times on on­line mu­sic plat­forms like Spo­ti­fy and Ap­ple Mu­sic.

“Let­ting the whole world know…This is how we flow…Don’t call me lo­cal, I’m in­ter­na­tion­al­ly blessed with my vo­cal, I tell you this…Don’t call me no lo­cal artiste, when I’m an am­bas­sador in this reg­gae busi­ness,” Queen Omega sang ef­fort­less­ly, en­light­en­ing those who didn’t know about the scale of her tal­ent and ac­com­plish­ments.

Janeile "Queen Omega" Osborne.

Keya Thomas

Fast for­ward to to­day, and the vo­cal­ist who start­ed off per­form­ing ca­lyp­so and so­ca is on the verge of re­leas­ing her sev­enth al­bum.

It will be re­leased un­der the French record la­bel, Ba­co Records in ear­ly 2023.

The al­bum’s first sin­gle “Fittest” came out in Ju­ly and its mu­sic video has been viewed, to date, more than 113,000 times on Youtube.

The sec­ond sin­gle “Wise Queens”, fea­tur­ing lo­cal reg­gae artists - Jal­i­fa and Kushite dropped on Sep­tem­ber 14th.

Shot in south Trinidad dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the all-fe­male video for the track al­ready has more than 54,000 views on Youtube.

“Wise Queens is just a song that’s, first of all, ex­press­ing who I am, you know, as a woman in the in­dus­try. And it's al­so a song to em­pow­er all women. Be­cause you know, women we have in­tu­ition, you know. We feel things and we see things be­fore it hap­pens. We have the nur­tur­ing spir­it, the car­ing spir­it. So that song, there's just a salute to all the fe­males,” Quee­nie, as she’s known af­fec­tion­ate­ly by her fans, said with a proud smile.

“When I was work­ing on the project, I was like, yo, I need to do a col­lab­o­ra­tion. We spoke about it, and Kushite and Jal­i­fa names came up. It was so per­fect. Every­thing just linked and synced at the right time. We were there vibesing it and we record­ed it to­geth­er.”

Queen Omega said, “Wise Queens” and the oth­er songs on her up­com­ing al­bum show­case her ver­sa­til­i­ty as an artist, as well as her mu­si­cal growth since her last project - the EP “Stars Align” in No­vem­ber 2021.

She wants lis­ten­ers to be in­spired by the al­bum’s mes­sage of feel­ing good about one­self, es­pe­cial­ly with so much suf­fer­ing lo­cal­ly and abroad.

“That's where true free­dom is, you know, feel­ing good about your­self and liv­ing good. My mes­sage is al­ways pos­i­tive. It's easy to go on the oth­er side. And it's easy to sing sec­u­lar mu­sic, but be­ing who I am, car­ry­ing the name Queen Omega and you know, be­ing a ras­ta woman, be­ing a reg­gae am­bas­sador, in the in­dus­try, you know, this al­bum just speaks about lov­ing your­self and be­ing strong be­cause we all go through tri­als, we all go through tribu­la­tions, but there's a war­rior spir­it in each and every one of us. And I think this al­bum en­cour­ages this,” the Rasta­far­i­an said.

Fresh off a month-long Eu­ro­pean tour of France, Spain and Eng­land, Queen Omega is hop­ing to tour dif­fer­ent cir­cuits come next year.

While she’s grate­ful for the ado­ra­tion of her Eu­ro­pean fans and ex­pects to tour the con­ti­nent in the com­ing months, her heart is set on per­form­ing in Africa and the Caribbean.

“I want to I want to bless my Caribbean peo­ple. I love alyuh, you know. I want to be able to touch Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, and Guyana be­cause it's my peo­ple, you know what I'm say­ing? I want to go and see sistrens and bredrins like we. So, I’m look­ing for­ward to that,” she said.

Queen Omega, performing her song Don’t Call Me Local during IBA II Mothers Day Concert at Naparima Bowl in San Fernando on Saturday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

The Queen is al­so look­ing for­ward to see­ing a re­turn to, what she called, more pos­i­tive lo­cal and re­gion­al mu­sic.

Af­ter all, she said, mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly Caribbean mu­sic, has al­ways been a ves­sel for so­cial change and up­lift­ment.

“Mu­sic is ther­a­py. Mu­sic is med­i­cine. I mean, if we tru­ly un­der­stand that, then I think we would have less derog­a­tive mu­sic and less neg­a­tive mu­sic. Mu­sic is such a se­ri­ous weapon, it can be a weapon, you know?” the reg­gae artist plead­ed.

“I think with more pos­i­tive mu­sic, it will help re­lease them good vibes in peo­ple's brain and peo­ple's minds so that peo­ple could feel good and be good. You know, be­cause when you start your day with a good vi­bra­tion, for in­stance, you feel good dur­ing the day. And this is the pow­er of mu­sic, reg­gae mu­sic, and that's why I choose to do reg­gae mu­sic…Word song is re­al­ly pow­er­ful you know and I un­der­stand that and I en­cour­age mu­si­cians, artists…Tri­ni bad artists, alyuh, come on. Let us see if we can get some more pos­i­tive mu­sic out there be­cause the is­land is nice you know and we can make a big dif­fer­ence.”

As an ex­am­ple of a lo­cal mu­si­cian achiev­ing in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess, the Queen urges up-and-com­ing mu­si­cians to find them­selves.

She said the most im­por­tant thing is to find their own space, so they can dis­cov­er where they fit in the puz­zle of the in­dus­try.

“You have to know where you fit to make this pic­ture or make this world a par­adise. I al­ways say this earth is re­al­ly beau­ti­ful, you know, it's just we and the sys­tem we live by, will make it seem like it's like falling and it's so cor­rupt­ed and every­thing, but we can make a change, it takes one you know. And as a mu­si­cian, you know, com­ing out there, I would en­cour­age young artists, you know, re­al­ly find your­self on un­der­stand that mu­sic re­al­ly is for heal­ing. It's very ther­a­peu­tic,” she said, look­ing di­rect­ly in­to the cam­era.

“For me, it's ful­fill­ing be­cause it's my pur­pose. it’s my jour­ney. This is what I have to do. So, when I'm in front of these 1000s of peo­ple is like, yes, Queen. This is it here. Do your work. Ful­fil your pur­pose, you know, and it is, every time I go be­fore a crowd, I feel ful­filled, I'm re­mind­ed that I am do­ing what I'm sup­posed to do. And that feels so good on the in­side. Oh, gosh, it's a beau­ti­ful thing.”