Bouyon singers bring the sound of Dominica to Trinidad and Tobago Carnival

It shares a universal message of how some people deal with relationships and it is told under the musical canopy of bouyon.

The Dominican genre developed in the late 80s and is stitched together with some of the country’s traditional sounds of cadence-lypso, zouk, jing ping and bele among others.

The hit Dominican single, Someone Else sung by Quan (Quan Denis), Litleboy and Trilla G is projected to dominate Trinidad and Tobago Carnival spaces next year.

It is already in heavy rotation at social events and other carnivals.

Newsday spoke with Gael Jno “Trilla G” Baptiste, 25, from Goodwill, Dominica and Foster Larnel “Litleboy” Marcel Xavier, 28, from Le Lamentin, Martinique.

Trilla G has been in music for about six years and is Dominica’s 2023 Calypso King.

He was always “artistic with words” and fascinated by English with its metaphors, similes and other literary devices.

“I used to make remixes of famous songs in my own way, in my Dominican dialect, in the bouyon style. There was a time, in 2017, when I was attending the Dominica State College and we were doing rap battles.

“I was the champion, I remain undefeated to this day.”

He was encouraged to “make a song” by his friends. He made his first song in 2017 and there has been no “looking back since.”

Litleboy’s entry to music came from his father, Foster Xavier Snr.

His father is a singer and he played the drums with him.

“I was always around him. I wanted to sing a little bit but I started off doing beats,” he said.

He began producing beats in 2012, using his father’s keyboard and guitar.

But three years ago, he decided to record a song in French and it did well in France.

In 2023, he had created “a beat” for another Dominican band. The beat stayed on his computer for an entire year and then fellow artiste, Quan visited his studio.

“Quan is my boy so he pass and check me in the studio. I made him listen to it, he liked it. Then he came with Trilla G and Trilla G liked it too. All of us put a verse on it.

“I knew it would have been a nice song because when I made it for the band, they said it was a nice song.”

He, however, was surprised at TT’s response to it and believes its universal message is driving its popularity.

“The chorus talking about something everybody can relate to,” Litleboy said.

He added that everyone has had a relationship.

Trilla G credited social media for the song’s ever-growing popularity.

He realised that the song could be “big” in this country from its performance at Miami’s carnival.

“At Miami carnival it was all over the place. Then I realised after Miami carnival, the next big carnival is TT’s. There were so many Trinidadian DJs and people there, I decided well, ‘Okay, if the DJs and them love the song so much, I feel like, you know, they would bring it down to TT.’

“So said, so done. I remember seeing a video of Major Penny on Instagram and he gave us some forward there as well and promoted the song,” Trilla G said.

He added these little things helped the song’s growth. He also said DJ Private Ryan and Aaron "Voice" St Louis promoted the song as well.

Its TT popularity signals bouyon’s growing momentum outside of the French territories.

Trilla G said he always understood that bouyon had the ability to appeal to a wider market and teaming up with artistes like Litleboy – who also understood that bouyon could be mainstream – helped achieve this.

“We were a match made because we understand that we can have actual lyrics that can penetrate outside of the French market,” he said.

Litleboy said there were some artistes in African countries like the Ivory Coast singing bouyon and he produced some of their songs.

“We (bouyon artistes) have the ability to do what soca has done. It is just that we have to elevate to the standard we want to see the music go and I believe the music can have the same effect that Kassav and these other bands have had,” Trilla G said.

This song and others like it presented bouyon artistes with the platform to take the genre mainstream, they said.

Bouyon meant a mixture in Dominica and it took different elements from different musical genres and created one thing, Trilla G said.

“You use the traditional elements of our music like the
lapo kabwit (Dominica’s carnival music) and different sounds. You have some zouk, soca, calypso elements and it comes together and makes one soup. That is what bouyon is.”

To them, Someone Else was now the people’s song.

“We, ourselves, as aspiring artistes, we really want to thank God, TT and everyone else who has given us this new platform so that we can present ourselves as artistes to want to give to our fans and potential fans.”

Trilla G, Litleboy and Quan will be at various events during the 2025 Carnival season, despite Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique’s carnival happening at the same time as TT’s. This was the reason they were now performing in TT for the first time, they said.

They are first slated to perform at Nailah Blackman’s Sokah Origins: BAD on January 5.

They are also working on collaborations, as individual artistes, with TT artistes like Blackman, Machel Montano and Voice.

The popularity of Someone Else and music like it also demonstrated to the singers that the Caribbean was becoming more of a unified musical force, they said.

Litleboy said he was interested in mixing bouyon with soca originating out of the British Virgin Islands etc.

He added he has been getting messages from a lot of other producers throughout the region, interested in collaborating.

Trilla G said he hoped recent Caribbean Airlines flights to Martinique and Guadeloupe would expand the socio-cultural exchange between the countries.

They thanked TT for its interest in the song and promised to continue making bouyon music that the world could appreciate.

The group will be doing an all-expenses-paid trip for two during the Carnival season to Dominica in partnership with the Discover Dominica Authority.

To participate, people are being asked to follow the artistes on their social media pages for more.