How Do You Know: Soca Junkie Edition

Clear your mind. Think of something that instantly brings a smile to your face. It brings you back from anger, sadness or anxiety. It calms you down and makes you feel more...you. Do you have that thing in mind? For me, that’s the sweet sound of soca music.

As a young girl growing up in Jamaica with reserved parents, I never heard soca music. We had dozens of reggae CD's and my sister had the latest pop and alternative songs on her Zune but the most soca I heard was around March to April, the time period for Carnival in Jamaica.

In 2012, my life changed forever when my sister came back from university in Cavehill, Barbados with soca music. It was exciting, new, brought a warm feeling to my heart, tingles down my spine and most importantly it brought me and my sister together.

With the popular 2011 soca songs like Advantage by Machel Montano (which was my alarm for far too long), Come to Meh by Iwer George and Go Dung by Lil Rick and Machel Montano amongst a never-ending list. Along with the best of 2012 like, I don’t know, ALL OF ANTILLES RIDDIM, Peoples Champion by Benjai, Precision Wine by Kes the Band, I am Soca by Patrice Roberts and Kerwin DuBois and so many other songs, it’s far too many to list and I was hooked on soca within weeks!!! And with so many songs to memorise, my poor brain couldn’t handle to search for all songs by name each time, so that’s how I discovered the heaven send that is Dj Private Ryan and his Soca Brainwash mixes.

Soca music has been present for all my major milestones since its introduction and our relationship has only gotten stronger since then. While before I still listened to a lot of other genres along with soca, there came a specific year that made me know that soca is my life. I needed more than just sitting in my room and singing soca songs by myself. I needed to fete. I needed to jump up with other and sing soca songs at the top of my lungs. That year was 2015, also dubbed as one of the best years of soca music in my honest opinion, it’s been 5 full years and a couple months and I still know all 1 hour, 17 minutes and 18 seconds of the Dj Private Ryan ‘Soca Starter’ mix by heart. I listened to that mix almost every day when I was in 4th form and even now as I’m typing this, I couldn’t help myself but to listen to it again. This mix was the beginning of my need to fete, my need to be on the road wukkin up and my need to further my love of soca music. So, after years of plotting and begging my parents I got to experience my first fete ever.

In the middle of my preparing for my first sitting of CAPE exams in April 2018 I found myself preparing for my first fete with my sister. It was very impromptu, and I didn’t tell my parents but I Love Soca was definitely worth it. The feeling of being in the middle of a fete with a bunch of people who love soca music as much as I do, singing songs that has my body moving naturally and bringing people together is an otherworldly feeling and that’s how I knew. That moment in the fete where they played Circles by Kes, in a circle with people I barely knew and my big sis, forming my first feteing family made me know I could be nothing else but a feter, a carnivalist, a soca junkie and I knew I wanted to fete for as long as I could for years to come and learn more about the different types of soca and carnivals and guide others on how to navigate soca and carnival spaces. And that’s why I created JaCarnivalist in this year, the year of surprises, 2020.

I realized that I could list off upcoming fetes, new soca songs and budget for carnival with my friends and their friends so why not start a blog about how to prepare for Carnival season in Jamaica to help others? Soca music was my partner since I basically started high school until this day and I can’t imagine my life without it now . I can’t wait to share my knowledge with all of you.

Welcome to my world.