Patrick 'Pahjo' Joseph identifies with soca

Patrick “Pahjo” Joseph believes it is never too late to do anything and so he has a flourishing music career at 40. The Guyanese born, UK-based singer/songwriter has a new single with Vincentian singer Shertz “Problem Child” James called Identity, released through UK independent label, Caricom music.

The song is being released August 30.

The song speaks to how people identify themselves, and says no matter who you are, Carnival welcomes you
. Part of the chorus says: “This is my identity, I identify as a drinker, I identify as a feter, I identify as a bacchanalist.”

While he has been to Trinidad and Tobago as a feter, come 2025, it is going to be his first time coming to TT as a performer.

Cricket and music were his childhood interests, a media release said.

At 19, he migrated to the UK and that is where his musical career started.

But it was only five years ago he decided to pursue his musical interests after the death of a friend.

That friend used to encourage him to follow his passions.

“His words stuck with me and I always wanted to get into music and I said, ‘Now is the time for me to actually do it.’”

Pahjo contacted upcoming Guyanese producer Joel Browne who sent him some music. Together, they produced his first single Ah Mas in 2021. This made Pahjo realise he also had some writing talent he wanted to develop.

That achievement made him overconfident.

He said, “My chest in the air, I was overconfident. The idea was, ‘I going now and become this superstar overnight,’ which did not happen because covid said, ‘Nobody doing anything. We going and close the whole world down and you not going back to Guyana.’”

Despite the career disruption, Pahjo remains grateful for the pandemic.

It allowed him to refocus and make industry contacts, he said.

One of those contacts was producer Vallis “Shaker” Weekes, who became his musical mentor, he added.

Pahjo realised, through Shaker, that everything he wrote before was “absolute garbage.”

He was then introduced to songwriter Darryl Gervais who mentored him in songwriting.

“He introduced me to vocal coach Christiana Balbosa from Trinidad. They all said I had a great tone but could not hold a note because I never sang professionally.”

That was when he started to come alive, he said.

While progress has been made, he said there is a long road to walk to become the musician he hopes to be.

His love for soca stemmed from growing up in a household in which soca/calypso was constantly played.

“I used to be around my uncles who were always arguing who is the better calypsonian, who would burst into sudden song…” Admiring the work of soca icon Machel Montano also fuelled his desire to be a musician.

Initially, he tried singing dancehall but did not enjoy it.

“I did two songs and was like, ‘This is not fulfilling my calling. I don’t feel this is what I want to do.’

“But every time I am in a studio and recording soca, I just feel so alive,” he said.

He believes soca is one of the region’s unifying forces.

Even though the genre is evolving, there is still a purity to it that attracts him.

“If you compare it to a lot of the other genres, it is still very pure, in that sense. We don’t need to swear, we don’t need to be vulgar. We grew up hearing innuendos.

“Our parents would slap us in the head, asking ‘You know what you're saying?’

“We had no clue about what we were singing but it never sounded rude…”

He said 70 per cent of soca's lyrics were still clean.

Asked if he was also interested in calypso, Pahjo said yes.

He received an instrumental for “modern kaiso” and wrote a song called Voices which he hopes to release soon.

Calypso is storytelling in its purest form, he said.

Asked if he thinks a youthful audience might be receptive to his music, Pahjo said many were experimenting with different genres, fusions etc, but the indigenous sound remained.

“What you find happening in parties now is that some people don’t want to go out because people are trying to change the sound too much.

“But when you start to hear some of the older songs, even young people are feeling it because soca is so vibrant,” he said.

This told of a good future for soca with lots of opportunities, Pahjo said.

He hopes his work will convince younger musicians to sign soca or calypso.

While soca has its many sub-genres, groovy soca best appeals to Pahjo.

“I am late out of the blocks because life happened and I did not get to start the journey I wanted. I had a young family and migrated to a new space which I had to figure out with a young family…,” he said.

Even though he thinks he started his journey late, Pahjo is going to stay true to who he is and his musical ambitions.

If that brings him success, that is okay and, if it doesn’t, he’s okay with that, too.

He plans to be in TT for the 2025 Carnival and is currently working on a number of projects he hopes to share with people when he visits.

But he wants the country to know, “I am fun and honest.

“I might not be as limber as some of the other artistes but I will give my all to this, absolutely everything I will give to this soca music.”