Fay­ola Fras­er

“Ever since I’ve known my­self, I have loved singing. From a lit­tle girl com­ing all the way up.”

Long be­fore big stages, cap­tive crowds and blind­ing spot­lights, Sanell Demp­ster was singing. Well-loved for not on­ly her mon­ster hits, one of which cat­a­pult­ed her to the Road March Crown in 1999, mak­ing her the sec­ond-ever woman to win the ti­tle, she is a per­former at heart, now even more wide­ly known by the younger gen­er­a­tion for her raw, en­ter­tain­ing talks on Tik­Tok.

Demp­ster, one of the leg­ends of the so­ca in­dus­try, paved the way for many fe­male so­ca artistes to find their foot­ing in the genre, and now re­flects on her ca­reer thus far, of­fer­ing nuggets of wis­dom to the next gen­er­a­tion of so­ca.

Demp­ster start­ed her singing ca­reer in her teenage years. As a stu­dent, she was en­ter­ing school tal­ent com­pe­ti­tions and lip-sync­ing com­pe­ti­tions, al­ready in­ex­plic­a­bly drawn to per­for­mance. In 1990, she stepped in­to her first singing com­pe­ti­tion on the na­tion­al stage in the Nescafé Par­ty Time Com­pe­ti­tion. Sub­se­quent­ly, she was a fi­nal­ist in the Teen Tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion put on by Aun­ty Hazel. This ear­marked the be­gin­ning of her pro­fes­sion­al singing ca­reer, and Demp­ster was young, gift­ed, and am­bi­tious, ea­ger not just to sing, but to be heard.

That same year marked her first re­al for­ay in­to so­ca when she joined the band Taxi, led by Col­in Lu­cas. At just 17 or 18, while par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Teen Tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion, she de­cid­ed she want­ed more than just the back­ing pi­ano for her vo­cals, and be­gan a search for a prop­er sound­track. This search evolved in­to some­thing far greater. She was in­tro­duced to Taxi when she went to hear the sound­track arranged for her, and in turn, they heard her singing.

Recog­nis­ing her voice and abil­i­ty to sing im­me­di­ate­ly as ex­treme­ly spe­cial, she was in­vit­ed to join the band. This step marked her trans­for­ma­tion as a pro­fes­sion­al, and al­though she had to with­draw from Teen Tal­ent be­cause of this new des­ig­na­tion, it was a piv­otal mo­ment for her fu­ture ca­reer.

She stayed with Taxi for just over a year, and sub­se­quent­ly joined bands Traf­fik and At­lantik be­fore find­ing a longer-term foot­ing with Sound Rev­o­lu­tion around 1993/94. Each stint sharp­ened her in­stincts, tough­ened her skin, and deep­ened her un­der­stand­ing of So­ca’s de­mand­ing ecosys­tem.

In Oc­to­ber 1997, she joined the band Blue Ven­tures, ini­tial­ly as a tem­po­rary stand-in for an in­jured lead singer. The plan was sim­ple: hold the mic for the week­end. But af­ter that week­end’s per­for­mance, they did not want to let her go, and she re­mained in the band for years to come. Around the same time, she placed in an­oth­er tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion—Scout­ing for Tal­ent—but was barred from the fi­nals be­cause she was al­ready in a band. Dur­ing that time in Blue Ven­tures, she shared stages with leg­ends like Ron­nie McIn­tosh and Blaxx, steadi­ly build­ing her pres­ence in the in­dus­try.

Still, af­ter years of singing in bands, she longed for some­thing of her own, a song peo­ple could iden­ti­fy with her. That de­sire birthed The Riv­er. She be­gan writ­ing the song but found her­self stuck.

Writer Ter­rence James helped her get un­stuck, and when he in­cor­po­rat­ed the now-icon­ic “pad­dle in, pad­dle out” re­frain, she was scep­ti­cal. It sound­ed like gib­ber­ish to her, but he in­sist­ed that it would work. They brought the track to pro­duc­er and en­gi­neer Graeme Wil­son for mix­ing and mas­ter­ing. Mid-ses­sion, he stopped and de­clared that this song would be Road March.

“Road March was the fur­thest thing from my mind,” she said, and laughed off the idea, “I just want­ed to make a par­ty song that peo­ple would love.”

Re­leased in No­vem­ber 1998, “The Riv­er” took on a life of its own. Ra­dio sta­tions picked it up, fetes em­braced it, and by Car­ni­val 1999 it was one of just two songs dom­i­nat­ing the air­waves, along­side Bees in Town. At 25, Demp­ster could bare­ly con­tain her ex­cite­ment hear­ing her song take charge of Car­ni­val. Pro­mot­ers and com­pa­nies be­gan call­ing to book her, some­thing she had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore, and she was in­cred­u­lous. Car­ni­val 1999 came along, and Demp­ster made his­to­ry as on­ly the sec­ond woman ever to win the T&T Road March ti­tle with The Riv­er, ce­ment­ing her sig­nif­i­cance and ul­ti­mate­ly, the dawn of her lega­cy in so­ca. The first to win the cov­et­ed ti­tle was Ca­lyp­so Rose (Lin­da McArtha Sandy-Lewis) in 1977.

Yet even as one of the few who has won the cov­et­ed Road March ti­tle, she has re­mained ground­ed and clear-eyed about the in­dus­try’s re­al­i­ties.

“Road March has be­come some­thing to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent,” she says, “it was once about the peo­ple, not re­lent­less mar­ket­ing and cam­paigns,” but the or­gan­ic choice of mas­quer­aders and ra­dio lis­ten­ers. Aside from the Road March com­pe­ti­tion, she is an ad­vo­cate for change in the so­ca in­dus­try. So­ca, she ar­gues, is one of the on­ly gen­res where artistes are dis­card­ed if they don’t pro­duce a “big tune” every year. Un­like hip- hop, R&B or reg­gae artistes who can tour for decades on a clas­sic cat­a­logue, she says so­ca re­mains sea­son­al, of­ten con­sumed and for­got­ten with­in months, and artistes are ex­pect­ed to bring a new cadre of hits an­nu­al­ly. Demp­ster ques­tions the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of mod­ern re­leas­es, com­par­ing some to “fast food”, quick­ly made, quick­ly for­got­ten, while clas­sics by Shad­ow, Duke, and Crazy still cross gen­er­a­tions.

Demp­ster is can­did about the in­dus­try’s evo­lu­tion, lament­ing how vet­er­an pro­duc­ers and arrangers have been side­lined in favour of wa­tered-down trends. “If to­day’s mu­sic trends are so cur­rent and hot,” she asks, “why are younger artistes choos­ing to sam­ple old­er hits?” For her, pas­sion and crafts­man­ship mat­ter more than any­thing in so­ca. She pays her great­est re­spect to the artistes who cul­ti­vate a dis­tinct style, and re­spect the mu­si­cian­ship that built the genre.

As a fe­male artiste, she is acute­ly aware of the scruti­ny women face. Demp­ster says men can com­fort­ably age with grey beards and ex­pand­ing waist­lines, but on the oth­er end of the spec­trum, women are crit­i­cised for every change. The play­ing field in the so­ca in­dus­try, she in­sists, is un­even. Her ad­vice to young women in so­ca is firm: keep your head up, be­lieve in your­self, and un­der­stand that one song does not make a star. Con­sis­ten­cy, hu­mil­i­ty, and busi­ness sense mat­ter. A “big tune,” she says, “is when you can look at your bank ac­count af­ter Car­ni­val and know you did well.” Women who are of­ten ex­pect­ed to be hy­per­sex­u­al do not have to bow to those ex­pec­ta­tions, ac­cord­ing to her; sexy does not have to mean cheap; so­phis­ti­ca­tion and sex ap­peal can co­ex­ist.

In re­cent years, Demp­ster rein­vent­ed her­self yet again, this time as a Tik­Tok per­son­al­i­ty. Re­al­is­ing that many peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those of a younger gen­er­a­tion, knew her songs but not her face, she turned to so­cial me­dia to re­build a com­mu­ni­ty. At first, she says, she was a bit in­tim­i­dat­ed, but she soon em­braced the plat­form. Raw, hon­est, some­times make­up-free, she al­lowed au­di­ences in­to her dai­ly life and un­fil­tered thoughts. And her re­al­ness paid off - with her con­tent go­ing vi­ral. She has a fol­low­ing on Tik­Tok of over 25,000 peo­ple.

Through­out, Demp­ster main­tains she is who she is, and “what you see is what you get,” she says. If she can make some­one laugh for a minute, she has done some­thing right.

Near­ly three decades af­ter The Riv­er, Sanell Demp­ster does not see her­self sole­ly as a so­ca artiste, but as an all-around en­ter­tain­er, which was al­ways her life­long call­ing. For her, so­ca may be sea­son­al, but pas­sion, en­ter­tain­ment and mu­si­cian­ship are not. She re­mains a stu­dent of her craft, al­ways learn­ing, al­ways evolv­ing. From an ex­cit­ed young vo­cal­ist to a Road March cham­pi­on and dig­i­tal-age sto­ry­teller, Demp­ster’s jour­ney re­flects so­ca’s own evo­lu­tion: emo­tion­al at its core, volatile in its rise and fall, yet en­dur­ing when root­ed in au­then­tic­i­ty.