Caribbean Producers Connect… Now They're Ready to SoundOff In A Major Way, Globally
A new partnership has been forged ahead of Carnival 2017 in T&T, and while most people may be busy making down payments on their carnival costumes, Soca music- well, what it sounds like, is pretty darn important. With that understood, the folks at Zig Boi Music, which is manned by Shawn ‘Mr. Spine’ Stewart, have teamed up with what is considered the best music facility in the Caribbean. Zig Boi and Studio X are delivering to soca artistes, CONNECT.
“The facility at Studio X incorporates a recording studio with enough, comfortable space to entertain and produce for an entire music band. Producers, musicians and artistes regionally have been flying into Trinidad, to access the facility,” said Stewart. He understands the importance of an atmosphere that is conducive to laying down the best Soca tracks. His production house has been responsible for the end result of songs by artistes such as Jamaica’s Beenie Man, Grenada’s Mr. Killa, St. Vincent’s Problem Child, and even Chutney music’s Ravi B, just to name a few.
In 2016, Zig Boi music, which has the strength of quite a few producers and songwriters, delivered the Skipe Riddim, which featured the likes of Swappi, Terri Lyons, Olatunji Yearwood and even Santana- the well known Trinidadian puppet. Yearwood’s single on the riddim, ‘Bang Bang’ was used to make up the artiste’s album, ‘Awakening’, which debuted at #9 on the Billboard Reggae chart. This past carnival also saw the collaboration of Zig Boi Music with Brooklyn based soca heavyweight, Lyrikal. It was the Central-based music production outfit that gave the world, ‘Freedom’- having both written and collaboratively produced it with St. Vincent’s Kubiyashi. ‘Freedom’ was then placed on Lyrikal’s album, ‘The Journey’, which was delivered to fans for purchase in July this year.
CONNECT will offer artistes an all-encompassing opportunity to give soca music fans around the world, the very best. “It’s important to have the full package as an entertainer. No longer will an artiste’s simple delivery of a song, be enough. It has to be coupled with the right imaging and that’s why we’ve also included videography services in our studio package,” explained Stewart.
The young music maker says the arrangement has already attracted several artistes in the region. “It honestly gives artistes the best environment to deliver the best music,” he said, noting that any recording artiste, who values his/her craft, would hop at the opportunity to CONNECT.
Certainly taking advantage of social media to disperse all information related to the partnership, Stewart says connecting to the team is as simple as connecting to their social media pages @zigboi and @studiox868 on Instagram and Twitter. “The time has come for us to move ahead, develop the industry and create major waves across the world. This year we worked on ‘Go Hard’, which featured Machel Montano and Skinny Fabulous. That musical partnership saw a deal struck with ESPN for the use of the song in their sport shows. That was major. We’re not stopping. The sky’s limit isn’t even enough for what we have planned.”
