From soundboard to spotlight: Keshav releases Attraction EP

KNOWN for being half of the production duo Jus Now, producing soca hits like Big Bad Soca and Truck on D Road by Bunji Garlin and Junction by Machel Montano, Keshav Chandradath Singh has now added "artiste" to his several titles in the music industry.

Singh, who has loved music since childhood, is now gradually giving listeners a taste and feel of his musical style as a singer.

In more recent years, he has worked on popular tracks including Freetown Collective’s Feel the Love, Kes The Band’s IzWE, and Garlin’s The Struggle.

He also produced the 2022 Live Again and Rice Pot riddims, and the 2019 Badang riddim with Rakka. He even had one of his collaborations (Winner Walk) featured in an Apple ad.

He told Newsday that just before the covid19 pandemic began, he was working on an album, as he felt it was finally the right time to begin this new journey.

“I started off writing, but now I just go behind the mic, and much like my bredrin Bunji Garlin, I deal with what I feel and it comes out on a mic. I might go back and change a line or melody or something.”

He said when the world seemingly came to a standstill as the pandemic intensified, the time he spent writing and creating music “felt like years. In the beginning of this process, I felt like I was making up for lost time, since I’m sort of a late bloomer in this regard. But for me, I always wanted to do this and it was the plan all along.”

In total, he wrote around 45 songs.

On March 12 – his 39th birthday – he released the EP Attraction on streaming platforms, with a launch party in the evening at the Dalai Llama, One Woodbrook Place, in Port of Spain.

The four tracks – Got Me Like, The Light, Swing, and Come My Way – were all written, produced, mixed and mastered by Singh and feature a mixture of pop, synth wave, Afrobeat, dancehall and soca.

He told Newsday he wanted to help listeners to experience “what it’s like to see love and attraction in my head, in a really simple way.

“I’ve had my brushes with and emergence in love and attraction and I wanted to put together something that felt like an authentic experience of different sides of love. From just meeting somebody, to being connected to them in an intense way – they’re very inspired by moments.”

His favourite track is The Light, which sounds as if it came straight out of a movie or video game from the 1980s.

“The main synth line is one of those things that just came to me. I was just sitting down being still. And it’s when I’m being still that some of the most powerful melodies, riffs, lines, whatever they are, come to me, and this thing hit me like a tonne of bricks.”

Singh has always known he wanted to explore being an artiste, crediting a lot of his inspiration to music from the 80s.

“I used to listen to Michael Jackson, all the pop stuff that was out at the time, like many young boys and girls did. The 80s was a very exciting era for pop music and the music industry. It was larger than life at that time, and that stuff definitely left an impression on me.”

In addition, he said he grew up in a musical family, with local legends such as Andre Tanker, Lancelot Lane and Ras Shorty I being regulars at his home.

“That also left an impression on me and it (music) is kind of just a language I grew up knowing and learning, being close to it.

“Through my parents, again, I met 3canal, SuperBlue, Machel Montano, Ataklan, when I was just entering my teens, and I always consider them mentors.”

His father, Chandradath Singh, was an ambassador for TT for several years, in addition to being a musician, and his mother, Anita Chandradath Singh, was also involved in the performing arts industry as a stage producer and on-air personality, among other things.

But Keshav said he wanted to focus on being a producer for long enough, since there was already “momentum” there.

“I thought, 'Ok, let me establish myself and have a firm footing, because having a firm footing and establishing yourself in the music industry is a very rare thing.'”

Before this EP, he had released three vocal tracks – The Wickedest, Warm Sun and Move.

Warm Sun, he told Newsday, was him trying to find a bridge between his typical soca material and the tracks he wrote for the album.

The newer songs, he said, “are a lot more moody, intense and artistic, so Warm Sun is a bridge between those two things and different sides: the dancey, drumming, colourful ‘in your face’ side and the thoughtful, moody, love-oriented side.”

He said the feedback to that single was so encouraging that it pushed him even further to release an EP.

How does it feel to produce, mix and master your own EP?

For Singh, it was a “pure” process, “…In the sense that I’ve been a collaborator for so long, working within myself and collaborating with myself is a lot smoother...I don’t have to articulate anything outside myself. It makes it a holistic, potent process.”

He said the EP launch was amazing, as performing live is something he has always had dreams about.

Asked what he has had to get used to as a singer, he referred to something soca artiste Kees Dieffenthaller told him, that performing "is like a racecourse, and you’re learning the course every time.”

He said simple things like controlling breathing and how to use his energy properly were important things he focused on.

“Learning to pace yourself while still giving the most you can, learning things like making sure to hold the mic right…Simple fundamentals is what I’m really bent on making sure I execute properly.”

Throughout the performances at the launch, the audience was very supportive as they cheered him on. His parents were enjoying themselves, dancing in the audience, until he brought his dad on stage so they could drum together.

He said his parents are “great advisers, and discerning, having been involved in the performing arts for so long. They have a lot of constructive criticism.

“I was so happy they were here to see it, because they live in Miami and I don’t get to see them often.”

At the launch, his cousin Chad Ramkhelawan told Newsday he sees Singh as an inspiration.

“Our family just has this creativity. I’m very proud of him,” he said.

Other local producers and artistes at the launch included DJ Private Ryan, Travis World, Chromatics, Roger Roberts of 3canal and Jimmy October.