PRODUCER Kyle Phillips and songwriter Andre Jeffers have been holding on to what they call a "monster chune" which is set to be their main contender for the 2023 Road March title.
That "monster" is a pore-raising track with the powerful voices and contagious energies of Lyrikal and Grenadian duo Lil Natty and Thunda. It speaks of masqueraders' experience of preparing to take over the road, and celebrates the return of the "greatest show on Earth." Prepare yourselves for The Ambush.
Phillips has already won the Road March two times, having been a producer and writer on Machel Montano's Waiting on the Stage in 2016, and Kes the Band and Neil "Iwer" George's Stage Gone Bad in 2020. Jeffers wrote Stage Gone Bad, which also won the 2020 International Power Soca Monarch title.
[caption id="attachment_997476" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Cover of The Ambush -[/caption]
They both told Newsday that they like to create music that they would like to hear when they, themselves, are on the road or at fetes.
While Phillips – whose official producer name is Badjohn Republic – also has experience in producing groovy soca, Jeffers said personally, his vibe is more of a: "People need to feel like breaking down a fence when listening to the songs I write.
"For me, it tends to be wanting to create the anthem of the festival, the anthem of the road, and I started approaching my writing almost as if I was writing a soundtrack for a movie, so you would see all of them have a lot of stories within them."
The song proclaims:
We ready for road, but the road not ready for we."
Other lyrics include:
When the trucks dem start to jam, and drinks dem in we hand, we enter warrior mode
Masqueraders forward, this is the ambush, put your two hand up, we coming whether they ready or not,
Coming to give dem mas in dey rass,
and
Dey take 'way we mas, so we taking it back.
Phillips said he is very confident in the track and is looking forward to the public's reaction to it.
[caption id="attachment_997482" align="alignnone" width="683"] Producer of Come Home, sung by Nailah Blackman and Skinny Fabulous, say the song is in the Road March race for Carnival 2023. - Photo by Sureash Cholai[/caption]
But it's not just this song they're entering into the Road March race – it's three in total. The other two are Come Home by Nailah Blackman and Skinny Fabulous and The Return by Aaron "Voice" St Louis and Alison Hinds. They all speak about missing Carnival and being ecstatic for its return.
It was by chance each of the songs ended up with one local artiste and one regional artiste. It was simply that these songs "found homes" in the artistes involved.
Recall that for a song to be eligible for the Road March, according to TUCO's rules, "In the event of a collaboration between a national of TT and any foreign artiste/artistes, the majority of the lead vocal performance of the (song) must be undertaken and carried out by nationals of TT in order to qualify for the Road March title."
This criterion was met for each track.
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