Two years ago Jesse “College Boy Jesse” Stewart inspired a happiness movement with his hit, Happy Song, earning him the 2020 International Groovy Soca Monarch title, a bevy of new fans and the momentum to further catapult his career.
Then, the covid19 onslaught on the world happened just as he was on the cusp of his ambitious career plans. The soca artiste did not escape unscathed. His revenue stream took a major hit as he had no opportunities to perform, and then there was the crushing loss of his mentor and father, Olympian Lennox Stewart, who died last year due to heart failure.
More than ever, Stewart had to embrace his own “good energy” mantra that is a recurring theme in his music.
“The pandemic gave me the opportunity to grow and it strengthened me in ways that I didn’t even know I had the strength for…developing a strong level of patience. It brought me closer to what God had in store for me,” Stewart told Newsday.
“I had to make a lot of changes in terms of my plan. I’ve been on a programme of development and growth for a couple years. At that point in time after the monarch we had plans but we had to shift things a bit and this is where now, I had to get back into creating the music.”
Leaning on his pulsing passion for all things music, Stewart did just that.
During the pandemic, the singer and songwriter said he has released about 15 songs, ten of which made it to the top ten list on the digital soca platform, Soca Source, with two songs making it to number one – No Lie and Live Your Life, produced by Vincentian Parry Jack and DJ Private Ryan respectively.
With his music being downloaded and streamed by fans all across the world on platforms like Spotify and iTunes, Stewart was awarded the 2021 New Artist of the Year title by Soca Source.
“I had great success with that in 2021. We lost revenue with live performances so I worked on the other opportunity of earning revenue through downloads and streams.”
Stewart secured another international win under his belt when his song, Worryless was featured on the Bravo network TV show, The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip.
The reunion of energies
On February 19, Stewart fulfilled another of his dreams when he hosted Soca Love Story, his soca concert with the theme Reunion of Energies.
“I wanted to not just reunite the fans of soca but I wanted to reunite all the energies that came around me that basically moulded who I am as an artiste. So it’s reuniting all these energies on one stage, every single generation of soca, all aspects of soca, being represented on one stage, one night, and that is what the reunion of energy represents.
“The concept of the show basically explains my love and passion for the artform, but at the same time it’s the story of why culture was created, why soca was created to unite the people of Trinidad and Tobago…Calypso being the mother and then leading into all these different aspects of groovy soca, power soca and also chutney soca.”
The show featured Stewart’s soca friends including Neil "Iwer" George, Te
