SAN­DRA L BLOOD

UK-based so­ca artiste, pan­nist and ed­u­ca­tor Trini­boi Joocie (Rodell Sorzano) has re­turned home to share his time, tal­ent, and ex­pe­ri­ence with the next gen­er­a­tion of Trin­bag­on­ian cre­atives—and to per­form at this week­end’s To­ba­go Car­ni­val.

Joocie will meet with stu­dents and com­mu­ni­ty groups, trac­ing his jour­ney from play­ing pan in Ari­ma to be­com­ing a Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val am­bas­sador, Voice UK se­mi-fi­nal­ist, and a cel­e­brat­ed so­ca artiste in Eu­rope.

“This vis­it is deeply per­son­al,” Joocie said of his tour.

“Every­thing I have achieved abroad start­ed here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I want young peo­ple to see that their cul­ture, dis­ci­pline, and cre­ativ­i­ty can car­ry them any­where in the world.”

While in Trinidad, Joocie will vis­it schools in his home­town of Ari­ma, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T’s Mu­sic Pro­gramme, and var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions. His To­ba­go itin­er­ary in­cludes work­shops at sec­ondary schools and youth-fo­cused ses­sions on mu­sic, mar­ket­ing, and cul­tur­al pride. He al­so plans to share new mu­sic with fans dur­ing his stay.

Joocie re­cent­ly re­leased the groovy crossover sin­gle In­vest­ment, pro­duced by Vee­ny Beatz, just in time for To­ba­go Car­ni­val. He al­so fea­tures on Wet­ty Beatz’s Uni­verse 1 Rid­dim with the track Sick. Both songs high­light his con­tin­ued evo­lu­tion as a ver­sa­tile artiste bridg­ing Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

Be­yond his per­for­mances, Joocie’s vis­it in­cludes cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tions with lo­cal artistes and pro­duc­ers, ap­pear­ances with pop­u­lar so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers, and meet­ings with the British High Com­mis­sion in T&T to ex­plore up­com­ing cul­tur­al projects link­ing both na­tions.

Among his many ca­reer high­lights are per­form­ing Lord Kitch­en­er’s Pan in A Mi­nor with a 100-piece steel­band at Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s Plat­inum Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tion in 2022, head­lin­ing his own Joocie Thurs­day con­cert at Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val, and com­pet­ing in The Voice UK, where he ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals per­form­ing orig­i­nal so­ca hits such as Obeyah and Bot­tle Over Head—the lat­ter earn­ing over three mil­lion views on YouTube.

Joocie’s in­ter­na­tion­al ré­sumé con­tin­ues to grow. In June 2025, he per­formed at SXSW Lon­don and lat­er rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the in­au­gur­al Uni­ty Cup in Lon­don, a four-na­tion foot­ball and cul­tur­al fes­ti­val fea­tur­ing T&T, Ja­maica, Ghana, and Nige­ria. In Oc­to­ber 2024, he teamed up with Zim­bab­wean star Nut­ty O (Car­ring­ton Chi­wadzwa) for the Afro-so­ca fu­sion sin­gle Sub­stance.

“As an ed­u­ca­tor, I feel a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to share all I’ve learnt on my jour­ney,” Joocie added. “Cul­ture gave me my foun­da­tion, and ed­u­ca­tion gave me the tools. Giv­ing back to T&T’s youth is my way of en­sur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion has both.”