Love and Hip Hop star Karlie Redd wants to put out soca album

American television personality, rapper, model and actress Karlie Redd might be known to be messy on Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta but when it comes to soca, she is far from that.

Redd released a new soca single with soca artiste Jadel (Jardine Legere) called Messy. The song was released on January 15 and credits fellow soca artiste Akeem “Preedy” Chance and Vincentian singer/songwriter Shavsha Callum as its writers. Jonny Blaze, Stadic and Wetty Beatz are its producers.

While Redd is known for rap, she is also known for heavily representing her Trinidadian roots (her mother is Trinidadian).

She also has another single with soca artiste Destra Garcia called Heavy Bumper which was recently remixed with Jamaican artiste Beenie Man.

Redd’s main mission is to cement soca’s place in the mainstream music market.

In an interview at Newsday’s Pembroke Street, Port of Spain office, Redd said the concept for the song was born out of being known for being messy on the show.

It was written last December at a producers’/writers’ camp she hosts annually in Trinidad and Tobago.

“We had different writers from all over TT come in, for like three hours, and write a song. It was a nice writer’s camp and it was going good. This song came about from it.” Stadic and Blaze were also a part of the camp.

Redd said Preedy came in and, “He was like ‘messy, messy’ and I said, ‘You should write it since everyone calls me messy,’” Redd said.

For the duo, messy has many meanings: it refers to Redd's TV personality, Carnival and the mess of J’Ouvert.

Jadel was recommended as a good voice to add to the song as she was “really talented,” Redd said. Her team then reached out to the Jam Day singer.

Redd found Jadel "too humble and sweet" and she invited her to Atlanta. They shot the video there.

Jadel was elated when she got the call but also kind of shocked.

She said recording the song was easy as it was catchy.

“She sang it really well and I realised I did not have much work to do on the song. I just had to fill in my parts,” Jadel said.

For Redd, Jadel’s personality and strong work ethic – willing to do the promotion to ensure the song’s success – made for a good musical partnership.

“Jadel really put in the groundwork with each song,” Redd said.

“Sometimes you work with other artistes and they don’t put in the groundwork. They don’t pose. But that is what you have to do in this day and age,” she added.

Jadel also agreed, saying, “Exactly, you can’t just expect to just put a song and expect it to take off. It won’t it will just stay there,” she said.

Their promotional work has been fruitful with the song getting airplay on Atlanta’s WHTA 107.9 FM.

They also hope their promotional work in TT pays off and it becomes among the popular songs for this year’s J’Ouvert celebrations.

“The song was released a little while ago and based on this press it is bringing extreme awareness to everybody. Everybody is going to be tapping in…,” Jadel said.

All of this also supports Redd’s wider goal of ensuring that soca becomes a worldwide genre.

“I am pushing for it as much as I can with my platform. My goal is to one day wake up and say, ‘Oh my, we have our own genre of music and finally get a Grammy,” Redd said.

Both Redd and Jadel believe that soca achieving a Grammy is about greater acceptance.

“Proper exposure is what we need,” Jadel said.

Redd believes that acceptance can come from greater collaborations especially with US artistes.

“Don’t feel like it is just TT. We need to collaborate with people in the states and get out there more,” she said.

Dancehall artistes, Redd said, benefited from their collaborations with US artistes.

She also thinks that the time is right for soca to become more widely known especially with the rise of Afrobeats and soca and Afrobeats sharing similar musical roots.

But to achieve that, Redd plans to keep working and singing soca.

She even hopes to add a single featuring herself, Jadel and Nailah Blackman to her soca repertoire.

Initially when VH1’s Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta debuted in 2012 the show did not know how to market her, Redd said.

“I would tell the show I have this Caribbean song, I have this beat and they would look at me like, ‘What are you talking about.’

“But now is the time, especially because Caribbean music is really taking off.”

The duo first performed Messy at Slam 100.5 FM Eye Slam concert and Redd described it as fun. They also performed it at Xperience fete on January 20 at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy.

Redd hopes to eventually put out a soca album.