Girl power on display at I Love Soca

For this year’s Boxing Day staging of the beloved soca central fête, I Love Soca, girl power was on full display. With headliner Nailah Blackman and her surprise guests Shenseea and Stalk Ashley at the helm, soca and general music lovers partied well into night, or at least until 3 a.m.

The fête, which last year saw the expansion into a festival that pushes the boundaries of just loving the genre of music, was held at The Bowl at The University of the West Indies, Mona. In light of the rain earlier in the day, the field was flush with a layer of mud that made the party experience either incredible or atrocious, depending on who you ask.

Starting as early as 5 p.m., this staging of the event saw the bulk of the crowd coming in from 7 p.m. According to some patrons, this was to claim a coveted I Love Soca cup.

Though the cup is a fun perk, for I Love Soca virgin Iyanna Jackson, her main motivation to show was Nailah Blackman.

“I love her is so much and I knew I was gonna be here for Christmas. So, when I heard she was performing I knew I had to come,” she said excitedly.

While the genre is in the name, there was a surprising amount of other genres taking up the majority of the runtime of the event. Early on, hits like Hulk and Engine Room permeated the night, but it seems, the closer it drew to midnight, the less inclined deejays were to stray from dancehall, pop and hip hop.

When Nailah Blackman emerged at 12:30 it was a well-needed reprieve from dance routines and banging the line.

The soca princess gave full energy and strong vocals for the better part of an hour before she brought out her surprise guest and collaborator, Shenseea.

Blackman first met Shenseea in 2017 when the dancehall diva took her maiden voyage to the twin island republic.

Recalling the interaction, she said, “Well, Shenseea was coming to Trinidad for the first time and the promoter that brought her asked me to do some radio interviews with her. I didn’t know about her before that but then I went and checked out her music and I was like ‘Oh my God, she’s dope’. I knew her songs but I didn’t know her and I was like ‘Wow, she’s the Jamaican version of what I am to Trinidad, like new and fresh’. So I was like ‘I would love to do a song with her’, so I was like ‘why don’t we make this interview run a song?’ And I literally did the song that day, and that was Badishh.”

Now having received crossover success, Blackman says she is beyond proud of her friend.

“I feel so proud of her. I know she’s just as hard-working as I am. I know she’s been driven from the get-go. She’s literally a kindred spirit, so I’m just super proud of everything that she’s done and everything that she continues to do.”

Also making a surprise entrance at the fête was Jamaica’s favourite bad gyal, Stalk Ashley.

Sharing the stage briefly before returning control to the disc jockey vibes masters, patrons partied and truly fêted for the next two hours.

Summing up the event, one patron from St Andrew said, “It literally felt like carnival is about to happen tomorrow. It was that amazing. So I’m gonna buy my costume, even though I didn’t want to buy one, and I’ll see you in April.”

shanel.lemmie@gleanerjm.com