Kristy Ram­nar­ine

Re­porter

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

T&T-born Sher­ane ‘Rane’ Black­man, a mem­ber of the US Navy, wants to be­come a house­hold name in so­ca.

Black­man grew up in Mal­oney Gar­dens where she start­ed singing with the Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School choir. Her love for the cul­ture al­so led her to dance and pan from a young age. One of her fond­est child­hood mem­o­ries was par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion as a dancer and play­ing the dou­ble tenor with a small steel­band, Blue Di­a­monds, in Port-of-Spain.

Af­ter mov­ing to the Unit­ed States, Black­man en­list­ed with the US Navy and even­tu­al­ly pur­sued a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Le­gal Stud­ies. Her pas­sion for en­ter­tain­ment con­tin­ued to grow.

She cur­rent­ly serves as a Legal­man First Class pet­ty Of­fi­cer in the Judge Ad­vo­cate­b­Gen­er­al Corp and con­tin­ues to re­lease mu­sic mo­ti­vat­ed by her dream of be­com­ing a top per­former.

Black­man’s first sin­gle, Ms. Whin­er, came out in Oc­to­ber 2018.

“My first per­for­mance was in Brook­lyn, New York, in Jan­u­ary of 2019 be­fore head­ing to T&T Car­ni­val that year to per­form for the first time,” she re­called.

“To date, I have re­leased 19 songs. My love for the art form is what in­spires me most to sing So­ca.”

For Car­ni­val 2025, Black­man has re­leased four sin­gles, Care­less (Gone Again Rid­dim) pro­duced by Bar­ba­dos’ DJ Kai, Doh Fraid pro­duced by Nyce Na­tion, So Hot (Eye­land Rid­dim) pro­duced by Body Rock and Shot Mas­ter J and Free Up (Sun­rise Rid­dim), writ­ten by Shaft and di­rect­ed by Kee­lan “Azaryah” Cal­len­der.

The Ba­jan-pro­duced Care­less en­joyed im­mense suc­cess at the 2024 Bar­ba­dos Crop Over Fes­ti­val which Black­man hopes to al­so re­ceive in her birth land.

Last year, her sin­gle Leh We Go was picked up by some­one in Spain and used in Zum­ba chore­og­ra­phy. The Sass Rid­dim song, which was road-remixed be­came pop­u­lar in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“I al­low my mu­sic to do what it will. My songs have al­ways been re­ceived well out­side of the tra­di­tion­al so­ca spaces,” said Black­men.

“Right now, Let We Go is play­ing hard in Ko­rea and Japan. It feels good to know that peo­ple who do not even speak Eng­lish, are en­joy­ing my mu­sic.”

When asked about main­tain­ing the bal­ance of be­ing a mem­ber of the US Navy and en­ter­tain­er Black­man re­spond­ed: “This is a ques­tion I get a lot. I hon­est­ly won­der how I do it my­self. I just know I find a way to get it done.”

She added: “My ship­mates who are not aware of my singing path are al­ways shocked and amazed when they find out ei­ther by stum­bling up­on my Tik­Tok videos or hear­ing about it from an­oth­er ship­mate. One ship­mate even found me on Google one time and start­ed spread­ing the word.” 

Last year, Black­man al­so delved in­to the world of me­dia.

She want­ed to show­case the re­al be­hind-the-scenes of the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try. Her In­sta­gram se­ries, Be­hind the So­ca, which goes live, fea­tures fel­low cre­atives in the so­ca space.

“The re­cep­tion has been very over­whelm­ing. Some­times the in­ter­views go on for hours and it’s be­cause the view­ers are so en­gaged,” she said.

“The his­to­ry shared by some of the artistes has been re­al­ly ed­u­ca­tion­al for me as well. Since I start­ed do­ing the show, I’ve had to go from twice per month to week­ly be­cause peo­ple are ea­ger to be part of it,” she said, not­ing that guest re­quests by fel­low cre­atives have been con­sis­tent.

“No mat­ter what, I’ll con­tin­ue to pour my heart and soul in­to this mu­sic be­cause this mu­sic is the joy that sus­tains so many of us, every day.”

With sev­er­al per­for­mances al­ready booked for Car­ni­val 2025, Black­man will be head­ing to T&T next month.

For her, it is just an­oth­er step in ac­com­plish­ing her dreams of tour­ing the world and per­form­ing for au­di­ences.