Leonce Taylor's soca gamble – New York-based artiste in Carnival mix

For the average soca artiste trying to break through a crowded Carnival marketplace, every decision carries weight. For the 2026 Carnival season, Leonce Taylor took a calculated risk, trusting her instinct over being cautious and, for the first time, releasing two songs for the season.

Written by Jason “Shaft” Bishop and produced by Daddy O Productionz, Rugz Dirty Inc and Rhythym Productionz, His Loss is a groovy soca encouraging women to keep their heads up after a breakup.

Taylor was nominated for Best New Artist (Soca) at the Caribbean Music Awards in 2023 and again in 2024, recognition that quietly placed her among the genre’s rising voices. It was at the 2024 awards show that she met Shaft, who insisted he would make her a hit song.

He called a few weeks after the awards and the result was His Loss, a song Taylor described as almost effortless to create.

“It didn't take me a long time to record or anything. It was just golden. It was something that was just mechanical. It just happened.”

Released in October, His Loss has received steady airplay, a significant achievement for an artiste based outside TT. Taylor lives in New York, and like many foreign-based performers, she has had to contend with the perception that distance can dilute relevance.

Still, Taylor wanted a power soca song, but releasing another in the same season felt risky.

She told Newsday that established artistes can afford to put out four or five songs, but for lesser-known performers, she believes the music can easily get lost in the mix. She did not want to have to “fight up” to push her song and get it played.

Finally, she decided to take the gamble and contacted musician and producer Alexander Gooding of Lunatix Productions for the music. Then she asked soca artiste Umi Marcano to write the song.

The result was Ready Up, which pushed her vocally and challenged her own perceptions of her range.

“Now there were a lot of high notes. Alex wanted to see how far I could push my vocal ability, my vocal range, and he was impressed. He said, ‘Yeah. This could work.’

“He says my vocal tone favours Destra (Garcia) a lot. And it could be that everybody thinks that we sound alike, but even though we have a similar tone, her vocal range is way wider than mine.”

Ready Up was released in December and, so far, the risk seems to have worked out in her favour.

“If it is you don’t gamble, you wouldn't win anything. You have to be able to gamble at some point in time. I want to be able to gamble and win, but life is just not like that. You really don't know what you're gonna get. You just have to try it and see. If it doesn't work, you just move on to something else.”

For Taylor, both songs are rooted in connection. She says she has to connect to her songs both as a person and as an artist. As a performer, she believes you have to have a relationship with the music, or the audience will feel the disconnect.

Taylor has been singing soca professionally for about eight years, but music has always been part of her life. Her father was a promoter, and she grew up around calypsonians and their bands, including Charlie’s Roots, Blue Ventures and Traffik. That exposure shaped her ear and her respect for the artform.

She was nine years old when she and her family migrated to the United States, a move that forced her to navigate holding on to her cultural roots in a foreign space. As a result, Taylor said she never seriously considered pursuing another genre.

“I could really sing for real, but it was so far-fetched to break into the R&B market. You have to be in the right places or know the right people for that even happen. It wasn't my thing. I'm not an American, and although the music is nice, I never really related to stuff like that. But I was always into soca music. There was nothing else, at least for me.”

She recalled her father was very strict and adamant that she and her two brothers get an education. Singing professionally was not something she could do without his approval, especially while she was still at university.

“My dad knew the culture and that it is not a nice one for women, but he said I could do it, but I had to keep up with my schoolwork, and I had to graduate. If those things didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have been able to continue. But I did it and never looked back.”

Taylor earned a BSc in psychology, with minors in English and French, from St Peter's College, now St Peter’s University, in New Jersey.

Her first major break came when Allister “Rayzor” McQuilkin booked her for her first show, a fete in Brooklyn, opening for established soca stars like Denise Belfon and Iwer George in 2014.

But behind the stage lights and airplay, Taylor is a mother, a pastry chef and she has a full-time job. She is often away from home for at least a month every year performing, not just in Trinidad, but in St Vincent, Grenada, Belize, and various states in the US, including New York, Los Angeles and Texas.

She said balancing it all is difficult – emotionally, psychologically and financially.

“It’s not the easiest thing but you have to do what you have to do. This business doesn’t wait for anybody. You can get left behind or written off.

“It’s a sacrifice but as a woman in this business, nobody cares if you have a baby or if you’re sick. When I had my daughter, I got scrutinised, and it was a lot. That’s the real world we live in.

“To make it in this world, we can't really be wallowing and crying all the time as women. We just have to fight up.”

Still, after every Carnival season, Taylor chooses to focus on what keeps her going. The love of music. The connection. The possibility that the next risk might pay off even more than the last.

“I've been around music for so long with my parents and my family, this business and music that is something that you just grow to love and hate at the same time. This is what I want to do, and I can make a better life for my family. And I'm this good at it, why not make it a career?

“And when you reach on that stage, and the green light says go, and you’re singing your song and seeing people’s hands in the air, all that stuff goes away. You only feel the freedom and joy of the music.”

There are tangible rewards, too. Taylor pointed out that she can make the same amount of money in one night of performing as she would earn in a week at her regular job, which is a reminder that the gamble, when it pays off, can be significant.

For the average soca artiste trying to break through a crowded Carnival marketplace, every decision carries weight.