Cherisse Moe

Tri­cia Lee Kelshall is a vet­er­an–and it has noth­ing to do with her age. The singer, song­writer, ac­tress–who now per­forms the all-im­por­tant roles of wife and moth­er–dubbed "The So­ca Di­va" by fans, has def­i­nite­ly paid her dues. Kelshall's for­ay in the mu­sic in­dus­try be­gan at the ten­der age of nine, when she ap­peared in lo­cal tal­ent shows Twelve and Un­der and Teen Tal­ent. Her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, how­ev­er, took off when she was 19. It was then she be­came the on­ly fe­male in the award-win­ning eight-mem­ber so­ca band, Sec­ond Im­ij.

Leav­ing the band in 1994, Kelshall em­barked on her own mu­si­cal voy­age and spiced it up with a bit of act­ing. Her first movie, Flight of the Ibis, was an ac­tion thriller filmed in LA and Trinidad and was screened on sev­er­al US movie chan­nels. Ap­pear­ances in the com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful Caribbean soap opera West­wood Park, among oth­er projects, were al­so on the cards. Four years ago, the 39-year-old took a much de­served break from the en­ter­tain­ment buzz to fo­cus on more per­son­al mat­ters, say­ing "I do" to hus­band Ralph By­noe and rais­ing her two-year-old daugh­ter Chloe Rose, who she de­scribes as "an an­gel from heav­en."

Now that she's rest­ed, Kelshall, who is signed to Glob­al Un­der­ground, is back in the stu­dio, work­ing on her very first so­lo al­bum, which she's think­ing of nam­ing, Dri­ving Me To Sane.

Un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence

Tak­ing the T&T Guardian on a jour­ney through her il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer one Wednes­day morn­ing in Diego Mar­tin, Kelshall, rem­i­nisced on her younger days as a suc­cess­ful vo­cal­ist and shared how her ex­pe­ri­ences have changed her out­look on life. One of her ca­reer high­lights, she says, was mak­ing it to num­ber one on the UK dance charts, num­ber 15 in the US dance charts and Num­ber 39 in the UK Top Forty, with the in­fec­tious pop song Mind­cir­cus. "I felt like shout­ing to the top of my lungs when I found out I had a num­ber one song," she de­clares. "I felt like I was im­plod­ing." While liv­ing in Lon­don, Kelshall met her then boyfriend, an Eng­lish pho­tog­ra­ph­er who paved the way for her suc­cess­ful two-year stint with Eng­lish band, Way Out West. "The im­pact the band had on me was amaz­ing. It helped me to re­de­fine my­self mu­si­cal­ly," she says.

Kelshall toured ex­ten­sive­ly with the group, an ex­pe­ri­ence she says she will nev­er for­get. The Ch­aguara­mas na­tive lat­er en­hanced her mu­si­cal re­sume, be­com­ing one of three back-up singers for the UK band Stereo MCs. Kelshall al­so ac­com­pa­nied the band on two world tours.

Over­com­ing

Kelshall was rid­ing the wave of her new-found in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess and lov­ing it. So when a hor­rif­ic ac­ci­dent threat­ened to knock her off her feet in 2002, she had to dig deep with­in her­self to over­come. "I got knocked down by a car while cross­ing the street in Lon­don. I suf­fered sev­er back pain and had to un­der­go ther­a­py for quite some time," she re­veals. Kelshall re­turned to Trinidad to re­cu­per­ate. "I couldn't dance...I couldn't do any­thing," she notes. De­ter­mined to turn the sit­u­a­tion around, Kelshall again put pen to pa­per, com­pos­ing nu­mer­ous songs. She al­so picked up her love for paint­ing.

She's back

De­scrib­ing her style as "Caribbean Elec­tron­i­ca" Kelshall, now re­sid­ing in Hous­ton, Texas, USA, is back home for a short vis­it and re­cent­ly hooked up with pop­u­lar lo­cal pro­duc­er Mar­tin "Mice" Ray­mond for her al­bum. Her unique voice (and un­doubt­ed­ly at­trac­tive fea­tures) has sparked in­ter­est from UK DJ's as well, in­clud­ing Matt Darey and Marc Ve­do. Fans can look for­ward to hear­ing some of these tracks in ear­ly 2010. On Sat­ur­day, the pub­lic will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness Kelshall in the flesh when she stars at a show at Movi­eTowne, In­vaders Bay. Backed by Na­tal­ie York and Kar­la Gon­za­les and with open­ing act, pre-teen pop/rock band, The Flick, Kelshall promis­es the evening will be one to re­mem­ber. "I want to re-in­tro­duce my­self to my sup­port­ers. It will be the first time that I'm show­cas­ing my­self and not some­one else's idea." The show is free of charge and starts at 8 pm.