Pe­ter Ray Blood

"Mu­sic, or Die Try­ing" has been CC's cre­do since her en­try in­to the lo­cal mu­sic in­dus­try and this time around she is de­ter­mined to make her mark on the mu­sic land­scape. CC, born on June 26, 1989 in Bel­mont, was chris­tened Crys­tal Charles and has al­ways had a nat­ur­al pas­sion to be an en­ter­tain­er. "All I do is fo­cus on my mu­sic," said the singer. "I have been per­form­ing for as long as I can re­mem­ber."

High­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and con­fi­dent that she has the abil­i­ty to per­form and en­ter­tain along­side the world's best, CC cred­its her late fa­ther as the main in­spi­ra­tion for her tal­ent. She said: "I hon­est­ly love mu­sic and danc­ing. I have fam­i­ly who sing and dance on my fa­ther's side of the fam­i­ly, so I think I in­her­it­ed this love for the per­form­ing arts from him.

"The first time I ever sang in front of peo­ple was at my school (St James Sec­ondary) grad­u­a­tion. I sang Mari­ah Carey's Hero and when I was fin­ished I had peo­ple cry­ing with emo­tion."

CC ac­tu­al­ly be­gan singing at age ten do­ing so in her school choir, church and by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty, schools tal­ent shows and com­pe­ti­tions, with the sol­id en­cour­age­ment of her fam­i­ly, teach­ers and friends. She en­tered her first am­a­teur com­pe­ti­tion (Syn­er­gy So­ca Star) in 2007, with a La Vern Als com­po­si­tion, Jam Meh For Car­ni­val.

In 2008, CC again en­tered Syn­er­gy So­ca Star and this time she made it to the Top 12 with the high en­er­gy com­po­si­tion Wine Down Low, writ­ten and pro­duced by Umi Mar­cano.

CC's first ma­jor break came in 2009 when she signed a three-song deal with the Non De­struc­tive La­bel. Her three pieces–Cross­ing the Sa­van­nah, What Yuh Want Tonight, Dream­er–proved her ver­sa­til­i­ty over so­ca and its hy­brid gen­res like chut­ney and groovy.

In­spired and mo­ti­vat­ed, CC chal­lenged her­self and en­tered the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch where she made it to the se­mi-fi­nal.

In 2010, CC had her first "re­al" hit–Steam–fea­tur­ing Ben­jai and Ker­nal "Kitch" Roberts. The song was writ­ten by Roberts and was pro­duced by G Mas­ter and Roberts on the AMA rhythm. This ren­der­ing saw a wave of pop­u­lar­i­ty, re­sult­ing in CC be­ing a nom­i­nee for the 2010 So­ca Awards in the cat­e­go­ry of Best New Artiste.

In 2011, again work­ing with Roberts, CC re­leased Dais It Dey, a sin­gle which re­ceived heavy ro­ta­tion on the air­waves, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

The fol­low­ing year CC took a hia­tus from mu­sic to give birth to her daugh­ter, Mia. Re­turn­ing to the stu­dio from ma­ter­ni­ty du­ties, CC was back at it again re­leas­ing a song called So­ca Ah Luv Yuh in 2013, again mak­ing it to the se­mi-fi­nals of the In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

CC con­tin­ued to grow in the so­ca in­dus­try and last year she joined forces with the Road March icon Su­perBlue to re­lease Par­ty Be­hind Meh, pro­duced by Samuel Jack at Stu­dio 21.

This sin­gle placed her once more in the se­mi-fi­nals of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch, this time in the Pow­er cat­e­go­ry.For Car­ni­val 2016, CC is keen to soar even high­er and hit the jack­pot with the re­lease of her first sin­gle, Car­ni­val Day, writ­ten by San­cha Sama­ra and again pro­duced by Samuel Jack of Stu­dio 21.

"The songs I nor­mal­ly sing are usu­al­ly rude girl songs," said CC, "but this one is more a sweet melody, sing along, play­ful song about Car­ni­val day. I am very pleased by the re­sponse of the pub­lic to my song which is be­ing played reg­u­lar­ly on the air­waves. All I want is for peo­ple to en­joy and ap­pre­ci­ate my mu­sic."

CC has been thank­ful for the suc­cess af­ford­ed to her thus far and has en­joyed every mo­ment of it. She in­tends, through her ded­i­ca­tion, hard work and pas­sion, to be­come more recog­nised in the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al so­ca mu­sic in­dus­try.

"I hope the whole of T&T and the Caribbean could hear my song and my mu­sic. I am en­ter­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion again and I am hop­ing with crossed fin­gers that I could make it to the fi­nal this time. I have made the se­mi-fi­nals of this com­pe­ti­tion on four pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions and next year I re­al­ly would want to go fur­ther."