3 more heavyweights in power soca jump-up

Aaron “Voice” St Louis 
PHOTO BY SUREASH CHOLAI
Aaron “Voice” St Louis PHOTO BY SUREASH CHOLAI

POWER is back. Those are the views of Shurwayne Winchester and Aaron "Voice" St Louis who, within the last three days, dropped new songs Come Back and Pandemonium.

On Tuesday at 6.30 pm St Louis released Pandemonium – a song produced by Travis "World" Hosein, written and performed by Voice, Dingaan Henry and Nyelon Williams. By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the song had over 60,000 views on YouTube with more than 3,600 thumbs up on the platform.

St Louis said, "Power is back. I wanted to give a contribution to power soca this season. We are giving the people songs they could free up themselves."

When asked if Pandemonium would be a contender for Road March, he said that was not for him to decide but for the people.

In fact, he told Newsday, winning Road March was not his goal when singing Pandemonium, but rather to make his contribution to Carnival 2019.

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Winchester said his new song, Come Back, was his ode to the return of power soca.

He said, over the past three years, he had noticed a decline in power soca songs. He saidn many soca artists preferred to use a groovy beat rather than power for their songs to be palatable to an international audience or have longevity after the Carnival season.

Winchester said, "Groovy songs could play throughout the year. Trying to keep soca to a certain standard, less and less power songs were done. This year, 2019, after looking at what was being done, I think, individually, each act just realised we need to start doing power – it was never a discussion. We are hearing more calls for power from the masqueraders."

Come Back, Winchester said, was written for the masqueraders to enjoy and lose themselves when feting.

"The masqueraders are the ones who are calling for a change. I want you to throw your hands in the air. Connect to a rhythm. Connect to a line, 'Carnival
is mine, all mine.'

"I want them to think, 'The baseline in the song reminds me of a rhythmic line in the pan.' I just go with my heart and go with what I feel. You're not supposed to think, you're supposed to feel good."

Winchester said since the song was released on Monday, he received a lot of positive reactions on social media. His introduction video on Instagram got 111 likes. One person said on the post: "Love the track bro. We ready!! I will be blazing this one hard."

He said it was particularly well received among his international audience.

Destra Garcia also released a new song on Tuesday called Stage Party. Within a day of its release, Destra's song had over 25,000 views on YouTube with more than 1,500 thumbs up. Her Instagram profile had over 22,000 views.

One person said on YouTube loved not only Stage Party but most of Destra's play list. He said, "Destra's vocals are on another level this season boy. Mind blown with this song, LOVE IT!!!! 'Soca saved my Life' with FUN' at a 'Stage Party getting the Wine of the century QOB play list full"

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"3 more heavyweights in power soca jump-up"

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