Nailah: 'It was lit'

“It was lit.” That was how singer Nailah Blackman summed up her 2019 Carnival season.

Speaking with Newsday Tobago on Thursday after her performance at the Calypso Rose- Forever Young concert at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex, Blackman said: “It was really, really good. It was lit, I must say. Lit is the exact definition of my Carnival season.”

For Car­ni­val 2019, she dropped a few songs, but that was not all.

Among them was Brave, her en­trance in the pow­er so­ca are­na, writ­ten and sung by Blackman, Sekon Sta and Er­phan Alves, along with Iron Love fea­turing the Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion and pro­duced by An­son Sover­all.

In 2018, Blackman, 23, re­leas­ed Sokah, which paid trib­ute to her grand­fa­ther’s lega­cy, and O Lawd Oye.

In June 2018, her po­si­tion in the mu­sic world was cemented when she was nom­i­nat­ed for a BET Award in the Best New In­ter­na­tion­al cat­e­go­ry, although she didn't win.

She also staged her own con­cert, Sokah Ori­gins, which in­clud­ed per­for­mances by over 25 artistes from all over the Caribbean, in­clud­ing her close friend and mu­si­cal Ja­maican coun­ter­part Shenseea, with whom she has record­ed.

In 2017 she re­leased her breakout hit Work Out, fea­tur­ing Kes the Band.

It's no co­in­ci­dence Blackman has a pas­sion for mu­sic, be­ing born in­to a mu­si­cal­ fam­i­ly. She is the daugh­ter of ca­lyp­son­ian Ab­by Black­man, and her grand­fa­ther was the late great Garfield Black­man, Ras Shorty I.

For Rose's concert she wore tiny white shorts, strappy black high heels, and a white jacket designed by Daniel Clarke of Black Rock, Tobago, creative director of the brand Fluorescent Black.

“I met him today (Thursday) for the very first time and he introduced me to Fluorescent Black and I am honestly so impressed by him. I feel honoured to be wearing a piece of his,” she said.