Cherisse Moe

Don't call it a come­back! The band, Dil-e-Nadan, has been around for years–50 to be ex­act.

Don't call them an "In­di­an" band ei­ther, be­cause, ac­cord­ing to band leader Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine, while the south-based mu­si­cal en­ti­ty, co-found­ed by his fa­ther, start­ed off as an au­then­tic East In­di­an band play­ing Hin­di songs, its younger gen­er­a­tion of mu­si­cians is all about em­brac­ing T&T's di­verse cul­ture. "When we took over the man­tle sev­en years ago, we brought a dif­fer­ent flavour. We don't look at our­selves as In­di­ans or Africans, we are Trinida­di­ans and we ap­pre­ci­ate and rep­re­sent Tri­ni mu­sic," he says. Ram­nar­ine, his broth­er Richard, the band's man­ag­er and drum pro­gram­mer; his oth­er broth­er Ren­nie, as­sis­tant man­ag­er and bassist; drum­mer Ger­rain New­ton; gui­tarist Ku­mar Sie­u­nar­ine; key­boardist Wiz­zy; vo­cal­ists Gen­er­al Im­ran and Dr Seales and the lone fe­male songstress, Can­dy Hoyte are the faces and voic­es be­hind Dil-e-Nadan. Pure en­er­gy, nice vibes and loads of tal­ent have been re­spon­si­ble for cat­a­pult­ing the band in­to the main­stream so­ca mar­ket and mak­ing it one of the most sought-af­ter mu­si­cal acts for Car­ni­val 2010.

All-em­brac­ing

With a fan base that's grow­ing at break-neck speed, Dil-e-Nadan has tak­en its mu­si­cal tal­ents up a notch this year and its hard work has paid off. The three-time win­ner of the Best Band on The Road ti­tle for Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val, the nine-mem­ber group has a full agen­da this Car­ni­val, hav­ing al­ready per­formed at some of the sea­son's most pop­u­lar events, in­clud­ing So­ca in Mo­ka, Out of the Blue, One Fete and CIC's Fete With the Saints. De­scrib­ing this year as the band's most suc­cess­ful, Ram­nar­ine be­lieves that Dil-e-Nadan is break­ing new ground. With a string of suc­cess­ful tours in the US, Cana­da, Spain, Hol­land and the Caribbean un­der its belt, Ram­nar­ine points out that Dil-e-Nadan, which means "young at heart" in Hin­di, re­mains hum­ble, all-em­brac­ing and de­ter­mined. "We thought that 2009 was a good year for us but 2010 has on­ly just start­ed and its al­ready been so amaz­ing. The re­views are just phe­nom­e­nal," he de­clares, en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Mak­ing it clear that the band is all about sat­is­fy­ing the need for "hap­py mu­sic," Ram­nar­ine says the 2k10 of­fer­ings Blame Me, an in­fec­tious groovy chut­ney, and groovy so­ca num­bers Cyah Sleep and Girls Dem Cab­in are pump­ing at the fetes and blaz­ing the na­tion's air­waves.

All over again

Un­like many oth­er bands that jump on the so­ca band­wag­on for a part of the mil­lion-dol­lar pie, Ram­nar­ine, the 2009 win­ner of Hol­land's Best In­ter­na­tion­al Singer Award, says his band "is not big on com­pe­ti­tions" and is in the busi­ness sim­ply "for the love of it". So, what's next for Dil-e-Nadan? "We're just go­ing to fin­ish out Car­ni­val. When Car­ni­val is over, we have the an­nu­al Every­body Loves Ray­mond-The Con­cert, in March. "Then we go back on tour again un­til Car­ni­val next year, when we do it all over again!"