Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. September 19, 2016 - 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. Hisproduction 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 packageas 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 studiopackage,” 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.”