In­nis Fran­cis

An ode to women, and to how they ought to be treat­ed by their sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, can be heard in en­ter­tain­er Stephen Mar­celle’s sul­try vo­cals, David “Nyce­Na­tion” Pareira’s pen and Randy Williams’ vi­su­als. To­geth­er they have pro­duced Hap­py Birth­day, a lo­cal birth­day song for our ladies.

Mar­celle’s soft me­dia launch drew an ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence at the Roxx Lounge, San Juan, on Sep­tem­ber 6.

On first lis­ten, the song’s syn­thet­ic chords and catchy beat, with their in­ter­na­tion­al ap­peal, im­me­di­ate­ly re­call R Kel­ly’s hit Step in the Name of Love.

A year af­ter the song was ex­pect­ed to be re­leased, Mar­celle said his idea for the song is for in­ter­na­tion­al ap­peal, filmed at var­i­ous venues and fea­tur­ing SLAM 100 talk show host Jyn­nyn Ed­wards.

“I’m tar­get­ing any­one who has some­one spe­cial they want to cel­e­brate. Hap­py Birth­day is root­ed in R&B and ro­mance, but the mes­sage is uni­ver­sal. And that’s mak­ing some­one feel loved, val­ued and spe­cial. I want it to trav­el out of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean, to the wider di­as­po­ra and ul­ti­mate­ly to an in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence. I hope that every year, when some­body’s spe­cial per­son has a birth­day, this song be­comes part of that cel­e­bra­tion,” Mar­celle said.

The mu­sic video was shot at The House of Tea in Mal­abar, Ari­ma, Car­ni­val City Ul­tra Lounge in Gulf City, La Ro­maine, and at Af­ford­able Im­ports Stu­dio in El So­cor­ro.

No stranger to singing R&B mu­sic, Mar­celle al­so record­ed a hol­i­day song, Like Christ­mas, along the same vein a few years ago. This fes­tive song ush­ers in Christ­mas in the hope it will last for the sim­ple fact that Christ­mas brings cheer, love, car­ing and shar­ing, at­trib­ut­es that nour­ish those who cel­e­brate the sea­son.

Known to many lo­cal­ly in the big league, Mar­celle Scroll en­scripts win­ning the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val; he has been on the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta stage sev­en times, a for­mer Ca­lyp­so Young King and a front­line singer with the band Del-E-Nadan.

Gift­ed with the in­stru­ment of sound, Mar­celle cov­ers all gen­res of mu­sic; he has a full-time ca­reer in health­care, where he worked at the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty for many years, pri­mar­i­ly in hos­pi­tal ad­min­is­tra­tion, hu­man re­source man­age­ment, op­er­a­tions and com­mis­sion­ing.

He be­lieves that ed­u­ca­tion is al­so a sig­nif­i­cant part of his jour­ney. He holds a Mas­ter’s de­gree, two post­grad­u­ate de­grees, two bach­e­lor’s de­grees, and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a PhD.

Mar­cell said, “It can be de­mand­ing, but I be­lieve each world con­tributes some­thing to the oth­er. My ca­reer in health­care gives me life ex­pe­ri­ences, ed­u­ca­tion gives me knowl­edge and per­spec­tive, and mu­sic gives me the cre­ative space need­ed to ex­press my­self and con­nect with peo­ple at home and be­yond bor­ders.”

Mar­celle said that through it all, his con­fi­dence grew, mak­ing him a sta­ple in the lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment world af­ter win­ning the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. He found his way singing through karaoke venues, in clubs, restau­rants, beau­ty pageant events and tea par­ties, an ex­pe­ri­ence that boost­ed his con­fi­dence and en­cour­aged him to pur­sue mu­sic.

For the 2027 Car­ni­val sea­son, he al­ready has mu­sic out: an up­tem­po so­ca called Clock­work, two Chut­ney So­ca tracks, and he is work­ing on an­oth­er so­ca and his Ca­lyp­so of­fer­ing, an idea giv­en to him by Del-E-Nadan’s band mem­ber Richard Ram­nar­ine.