Cocoa Tea tops US iTunes reggae chart

Kes's first release for Carnival 2025, Cocoa Tea, has topped the US iTunes reggae chart and several streaming platforms, charts and playlists in countries around the region and in the US.

A media release said, the song was released on November 15, just before the band of brothers from south Trinidad embarked on their third annual US East Coast Tour.

As the tour rocked packed venues in Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, Silver Springs, Maryland,Norfolk, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia from November 24-December 5, the lyric video for the song on the band's YouTube channel skyrocketed to 1,000,000 views in the first two weeks as the song was added to thousands of streaming playlists.

In mid-December, Ineffable Records president Adam Gross posted updated statistics showing the song's mainstream appeal and interest growing rapidly in less than a month and without an official music video.

"Cocoa Tea came out three weeks ago and the numbers that it is doing are unprecedented for any soca record and are the best numbers any Kes song has ever done out the gate, as it looks to hopefully be the biggest Kes record of all time!" He said.

"The song has three million plays, including 1.9 million on YouTube over 400,000 on Spotify and almost 500,000 on Apple music. On YouTube, it is still doing over 125,000 plays a day without an official music video. It's number three on Toronto's local pulse Spotify chart and sits at the top of Shazam charts in 20 different places."

The song was written by Kees Dieffenthaller, hit producer Michael "Tano" Montano and reigning Road March King Mical Teja, with background vocals by Tano, rising star Denzil "Coutain" and Terri Lyons.

Gross added: "Cocoa Tea is currently number one in Trinidad, Guyana, Antigua, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica and Anguilla, among several other countries. It's in the top ten streamed songs as well.

"The song is going viral on TikTok, where it has been used in 66,000 different videos including 32,000 using the original sound. All of that together bringing in 61 million views on the song on TikTok."

Thanking all the band's fans and many supporters after the YouYube video hit 1,000,000 views in just one week, lead singer Kees Dieffenthaller recalled a time when Kes was not a household name across the diaspora.

"Real views. A million views, two weeks!

"Yuh know ah remember de days when we used to get a lotta trouble to get even airplay, so I give thanks for the day to see this. Thank you for the support, thank you for the love of the song and yo, this is the mission: we spreading this to the world, thank you very much!"

The band will celebrate its 20th anniversary at its annual Carnival Festival Experience, IZWE 2025, which is scheduled for February 25 at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain, the release said.

The band released limited pre-sale tickets online on November 18 via its websites kestheband.com and izwefestival.com.

Follow @kesofficial on TikTok and @kesthebandofficial on Instagram for updates.