She is def­i­nite­ly no stranger to the Caribbean mu­si­cal land­scape. Michelle Xavier was born in San Fer­nan­do, South Trinidad, where she start­ed her ca­reer in mu­sic at the ten­der age of 16. Her mu­sic over the last 18 years has not on­ly evolved but has made an im­pact on the hearts, minds and cul­tures of var­i­ous eth­nic­i­ties, as she has re­leased dif­fer­ent gen­res of mu­sic.

From 1998 to 2000, Michelle was a mem­ber of a pop/rock band called 'Gre­go­ry's Dream' while she at­tend­ed Na­pari­ma Girls High School. Michelle was pre­sent­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a part of a new band, "Im­ij & Com­pa­ny", where she re­mained a mem­ber from 2001 to 2011. Over those 10 years, she had the plea­sure of work­ing along­side nu­mer­ous tal­ent­ed vo­cal­ists such as Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, Ri­car­do Drue, Rus­sell Cado­gan and many more. In her fi­nal year with the band, Michelle re­leased her first pow­er so­ca, "Fet­ting For Days", which was a huge suc­cess and took her all the way to the So­ca Monarch Fi­nals and won her an In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Award for "Up­tem­po So­ca Fe­male Of The Year”.

Af­ter all those years of ex­pe­ri­ence, Michelle de­cid­ed to cre­ate her own path and em­barked on her so­lo ca­reer, which lead her to re­unite with her for­mer band­mate, Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller of Kes The Band, to re­lease the mon­ster road hit "Head Bad (On De Road)" in 2012.

The fol­low­ing year, Michelle was in­vit­ed to per­form along­side So­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano him­self at the biggest event for the sea­son, Machel Mon­day. In that same year, she achieved yet an­oth­er ac­com­plish­ment by qual­i­fy­ing for the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Fi­nals with her hit song, "In­di­an Man". In 2014, Michelle de­cid­ed to ex­plore new op­por­tu­ni­ties and ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to work with Gram­my nom­i­nat­ed pro­duc­er John­ny "Pow­ers" Sev­erin of Red One Pro­duc­tions in Los An­ge­les. There, she had the ho­n­our of record­ing her ur­ban/dance track "Move To My Body" at the world renowned Jim Hen­son Stu­dios.

The project ex­ceed­ed all ex­pec­ta­tions, which lead her to re­turn to LA lat­er that year to film her first full-length video. Al­though Michelle was en­cour­aged by many to launch the song abroad, she want­ed to share it first with her home, Trinidad & To­ba­go. Fans were blown away when the song and video were both re­leased in Trinidad in 2016 and Michelle was for­ev­er hum­bled by the over­whelm­ing love and sup­port.

Her 18-year ca­reer in the in­dus­try has re­in­forced Michelle's pas­sion for her cul­ture and led her to ex­plore yet an­oth­er ter­ri­to­ry, Bar­ba­dos, when she re­leased her well-re­ceived Crop­over hit, "Mu­sic", pro­duced by the leg­endary Carl 'Beaver' Hen­der­son in 2018. This on­ly mo­ti­vat­ed Michelle more to de­liv­er her brand new track for Car­ni­val 2019 ti­tled, "Frol­ic", which was pro­duced by Jo­hann Seaton of Mad Men Pro­duc­tions and Road March win­ners Ul­ti­mate Re­jects. Michelle is ex­cit­ed and ready to share her new mu­sic with her fans that have been sup­port­ing her over her vast ca­reer and she looks for­ward to where else it may take her in her very promis­ing fu­ture.

Michelle is now em­bark­ing on a new chap­ter in her life, now mar­ried to the love of her life Nicholas Lee and they are ex­pect­ing their first ba­by in Sep­tem­ber. I re­cent­ly caught up with the glow­ing moth­er-to-be and this is what she want­ed to share with us.

What has Michelle been up to?

Apart from record­ing and re­leas­ing new ma­te­r­i­al for all my loy­al fans, I've been ad­just­ing to mar­ried life and now the bless­ing of preg­nan­cy.

How would you best de­scribe your­self?

Hm­mm....a plan­ner. Ba­si­cal­ly OCD. LOL.

Tell me, how does it feel to be preg­nant?

Amaz­ing ac­tu­al­ly, I feel so blessed. I have wait­ed a long time for this, so I am ex­cit­ed to fi­nal­ly ex­pe­ri­ence it all for my­self and in the end, bring our own lit­tle mir­a­cle in­to the world. I am ex­treme­ly grate­ful for my grow­ing ba­by bump!

Tell us more about your hus­band?

He is my best friend, my co-work­er, my part­ner in crime...lit­er­al­ly my every­thing. Not to men­tion he's fun­ny, kind-heart­ed and a re­al peo­ple per­son, and could be quite an­noy­ing when he's ready but so can I, I guess.

What food do you crave most these days?

This week is mac and cheese, which I usu­al­ly nev­er eat. In­ter­est­ed to see what I crave next week.

Very soon you would be bal­anc­ing be­ing a moth­er, wife and an artist. How do you plan to jug­gle all this and still have time for your­self?

I be­lieve a woman can do it all once she has bal­ance in her life. My hus­band, al­so be­ing my man­ag­er, means he is more un­der­stand­ing to me hav­ing new bound­aries. It al­so means that when the ba­by ar­rives and I have to work, Dad­dy won't be able to babysit as he will be work­ing as well but thank god for fam­i­ly and in-laws! Ask me a year from now if I still have time for my­self....that would be the biggest chal­lenge.

Do you think com­ing from a large fam­i­ly has pre­pared you for moth­er­hood?

Yes, most def­i­nite­ly. I have gained a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence with kids be­tween my nieces, nephews and my hus­band's nephews and I have been look­ing for­ward to one day be­com­ing a moth­er my­self and hav­ing my own fam­i­ly. At the same time, noth­ing tru­ly pre­pares you for hav­ing your own tiny hu­man that is 100% your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

What women have in­spired you through­out your life? And how so?

My moth­er has in­spired me my en­tire life be­cause she was al­ways a very hands-on par­ent—the kind I would like to be. She drove me to every com­pe­ti­tion, every per­for­mance, was al­ways present, in­volved and sup­port­ive. My moth­er-in-law has in­spired me over the last al­most 9 years with her re­silience, her strength and her very big heart. The women in my field that are moth­ers and still blaz­ing the trail such as Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, Patrice Roberts and De­stra Gar­cia in­spire me be­cause they prove that it is pos­si­ble to have it all.

What is one thing that most peo­ple do not know about you?

That I love to take pic­tures, pur­ple is my favourite colour and I have a very bad sweet tooth. Sor­ry, I couldn't just choose one!

How would you de­scribe your sense of style?

'Classy sexy'.

In ad­di­tion to be­com­ing a moth­er what plans are in store for Michelle in the near fu­ture?

More mu­sic! You will be hear­ing a lot more re­leas­es from me and I could not be more ex­cit­ed.

What is one ad­vice giv­en to you by your moth­er that you val­ue and cher­ish most?

Fam­i­ly is every­thing.

What ad­vice would you give moth­ers-to-be out there?

Don't be too hard on your­self, re­mem­ber you are cre­at­ing a hu­man be­ing and it is tru­ly a mir­a­cle. Take each day in stride, do what you can but do not use it as a crotch at the same time.

How do you plan to spend Moth­er's day?

My hus­band and I will be spend­ing Moth­er's Day with my moth­er-in-law (my moth­er is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try). I con­sid­er my­self a mom-to-be but not quite a moth­er yet; I may cel­e­brate dif­fer­ent­ly next year and hope to be spoilt by my ba­by (which re­al­ly means my hus­band, LOL).

Pho­tog­ra­phy: Stephen Doobal

Styling & Cre­ative Di­rec­tion: Bri­an Matthew

Hair: Ashvin Bal­ly

Make­up: Ashon­da James

Wardrobe: Fly Bou­tique, 107 Long Cir­cu­lar Rd, Mar­aval