Caribbean Beat — July/August 2018 (#152)

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snapshot With music in her bloodline, T&T’s Nailah Blackman was almost destined for a career behind the microphone. She was the breakthrough performer of Carnival 2017, still a teenager — but, as she tells Laura Dowrich-Phillips, her ambitions go beyond soca, to another stage of musical evolution One of the most striking things about Nailah Blackman is her sense of style. In her videos, on stage, even on an ordinary day hanging out with friends or running errands, the twentyyear-old singer exudes a combination of star quality, youthful exuberance, and confident sexuality in her attire. Fashion is a big deal for the rising star from Trinidad and Tobago, who learned to sew at a young age, and makes her own clothes. More than just determining her brand, fashion is one of the ways she plans to stamp her presence — and, by extension, that of T&T — on the international stage. “We want to look like outsiders, outsiders want to look like us,” she says. “When I travel, I get so angry at Trinidad and Tobago — I love us, but it’s like we always want to be like somebody else. Why can’t we be like us? Let’s be Trinbagonian. So I want to work with people who are like-minded,” she explains — hence her support of T&T designers like the Brown Cotton label in her “O Lawd Oye” video. Blackman is putting her money where her mouth is, too, with the launch of her own fashion line called Sokah — a line formerly owned by her mother, Abbi, the eldest of the fourteen children in the Blackman clan. So in between writing, recording, and performing, Blackman takes time to source materials and do sketches. She doesn’t yet have a date for the launch, but the first collection will be called Everything Is Connected. The line will consist of clothing which will be repurposed with new materials, namely denim, crocus, and mesh. “The whole concept of Sokah is Trinidad and Tobago, so my main colours are gold, red, black and white.” “Sokah” is the original spelling of soca, the genre of music invented by her grandfather, the late Garfield Blackman — known as Lord Shorty before he found God and became Ras Shorty I. As he explained it, “so” represents the soul of calypso, while “kah” comes from the Hindi word for “divine.” Shorty’s aim was to unite the two major races in T&T — Afro- and Indo-Trinbagonians — through music. Blackman took the genre back to its origins this past Carnival, when she launched her EP Sokah and its title track. And the merchandising of the Sokah brand is just one cog in Blackman’s engine, which has gathered steam towards an international career since she burst out on the soca stage in 2017 with “Workout”, a duet with Kes the Band frontman Kees Dieffenthaller. Formerly a neo-pop/alternative singer known on the underground open mic scene, Blackman participated in soca and calypso competitions in school, but hated them. When she decided to try her hand at soca again, she was discouraged by many producers, who felt it would destroy her sound. But producer Anson Soverall, known professionally as Anson Pro, saw her potential. “Let’s do this,” he said. “I know exactly what to do to make you popular.” Under Anson’s guidance, Nailah became the breakout star of 2017, following up her collaboration with Kees with a string of singles: “Baila Mami”, “Badish” with Jamaican rising star Shenseea, and “O Lawd Oye”. “Baila Mami”, on the Parallel riddim, was a strategic move to establish Nailah as a solo artist and get her name known. “I wanted to come out with a pop summer song, and Anson said, No, you need to come out with a local soca/dancehall/pop song 46 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Photography by Ikenna Douglas @idouglasphoto Styled by RisAnne for Brown Cotton Caribbean @risystyle Make up by Kai Forde @simplii_beautifulll WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 47
Page 2: Is your Lady Luck a princess? Princ
Page 10 and 11: Contents No. 152 • July/August 20
Page 13 and 14: Cover Across the Caribbean, “Augu
Page 17 and 18: ® 8TH AUGUST - 16TH SEPTEMBER 2018
Page 19 and 20: Balandra Bay, Trinidad On Trinidad
Page 21 and 22: datebook Your guide to Caribbean ev
Page 23 and 24: @eldoradorums eldorado_rum @eldorad
Page 25 and 26: Bequia Fisherman’s Day Venues aro
Page 27 and 28: Caribbean Broadcast Union (CBU) Ann
Page 30: e well nadine eversley photography
Page 33 and 34: Global Consistency, Local Delivery
Page 35 and 36: playlist From Trinidad . . . With L
Page 38 and 39: cookup Goat meat is a Caribbean fav
Page 40 and 41: There’s a lot of goat in the loca
Page 42 and 43: panorama Still from Water and Dream
Page 44 and 45: “ The unity is submarine,” writ
Page 46 and 47: Courtesy of the artist Above From t
Page 50 and 51: that will make you international bu
Page 52 and 53: the global stage. She has the passi
Page 54 and 55: ound trip Head for heights Birds do
Page 56 and 57: Hot air ballooning, Punta Cana, Dom
Page 58 and 59: Rock-climbing, Viñales Valley, Cub
Page 60 and 61: Cliff-diving, Negril, Jamaica Negri
Page 62 and 63: neighbourhood EQRoy/shutterstock.co
Page 64 and 65: escape Clearing the trail The immen
Page 66 and 67: “It’s refreshing to my mind and
Page 68 and 69: discover Eye on the sky For the pas
Page 70 and 71: inspire OK to be proud Photography
Page 72 and 73: on this day As a schoolboy athlete,
Page 74 and 75: puzzles 1 2 3 4 Caribbean Crossword
Page 76 and 77: 85% (2018 year-to-date: 30 March)
Page 78 and 79: Starting this AUGUST WIRELESS INFLI
Page 82: classic Looking for horn A dip into

Caribbean Beat — July/August 2018 (#152)

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