Aba A. Luke

At the peak of her mu­si­cal ca­reer, Na­dia Bat­son feels glam­orous. Her mood is re­flect­ed in the mu­sic she's al­ready pro­duced for Car­ni­val 2010–Keep Win­ing, Dan­ger­ous and Yuh Re­al­ly Wan­na–all tracks that have pen­e­trat­ed the air­waves here in T&T and abroad.

Bat­son says her ca­reer is about to go places be­yond the ex­pec­ta­tions of even her fans. She adds, "I will al­ways make T&T proud." The su­per vo­cal­ist and song­writer has proven time and time again that she is a force to be reck­oned with. Her ca­reer, both be­hind the scenes and on-stage, has spanned over a decade and, in 2010, Bat­son's in­ner pas­sion to take her mu­sic to the pin­na­cle of suc­cess wills her to im­press. "These days, I'm in a fes­tive mood," she says, ex­plain­ing the rea­son be­hind the "feel good" vibe of her con­tri­bu­tions thus far. "I al­ways cre­ate mu­sic based on my mood. What­ev­er I'm feel­ing at a par­tic­u­lar point in time, I will ex­press it," she laughs. Bat­son's bub­bly per­sona is warm­ly at­trac­tive. She says she of­ten gets the pass­ing com­ment, "you're so down to earth," to which she re­sponds, "I came from ex­treme­ly hum­ble be­gin­nings, so hu­mil­i­ty is em­bed­ded in me. I think it's so fun­ny how cer­tain artistes be­come swell-head­ed when their ca­reers take off."

Self ac­cep­tance

Car­ni­vals around the world have wel­comed Bat­son's on-stage reper­toire and there's of­ten lit­tle time to make ad­just­ments to style and per­son­al im­age. For this rea­son, the Caribbean Girl singer says in 2010, she's bring­ing glam­our to the stage, "I plan on rein­vent­ing my­self by be­ing ex­treme­ly glam­orous. I'm work­ing with a styl­ist and I've hired a fash­ion con­sul­tant to help me in that area. That should be in­ter­est­ing," she laughs. Her years of work in the Caribbean mu­sic in­dus­try of­ten lead to ques­tions of a hid­den se­cret, but ac­cord­ing to Bat­son, there's re­al­ly no se­cret. " One of the things I recog­nised was that I should al­ways be my­self. Peo­ple love me just the way I am. I'm proud of who I am, and of my achieve­ments as an artiste. It took a long time for me to fall in love with my­self and my tal­ent, but I def­i­nite­ly think that's the rea­son be­hind my pro­fes­sion­al longevi­ty–just be­ing me!"

So­ca meets style

With al­most every So­ca en­ter­tain­er team­ing up on one rhythm or an­oth­er, Bat­son's col­lab­o­ra­tion for the up­com­ing sea­son seems al­most over­due. Coy­ly, she ad­mits it's in the pipeline but with a look of wise se­cre­cy, she says, "I have a huge col­lab­o­ra­tion for my up­com­ing al­bum, Miss B, but I can't say with whom, just yet." Hard­ly a par­ty girl, the laid back chick, who struts around Movi­eTowne with pop-corn and co­la in hand on any giv­en day, has beat­en many to the punch–prov­ing that she's not just an­oth­er fe­male voice but al­so an en­tre­pre­neur.

Last year, she opened her very own cloth­ing store at Trinci­ty Mall. Fash­ion Over Style is unique, much like this so­ca sweet­heart and many who waltz in­to the store are of­ten charmed by her re­al­ness, re­al­is­ing even a big-time singer like Na­dia B can steer them to the per­fect dress and match­ing ear­rings. Be­liev­ing that suc­cess is rel­a­tive, Bat­son says suc­cess is on­ly achieved through per­se­ver­ance and con­cen­trat­ed de­ter­mi­na­tion. "You have to have faith and be com­mit­ted to your goal. If you were born with a gold spoon, then good for you! But if you do not feel that sense of self-sat­is­fac­tion and achieve­ment, then you'll nev­er tru­ly be ful­filled."