With four new re­leas­es, a re­newed fo­cus on Pow­er So­ca and plans to re­turn to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, the Trinidad and To­ba­go artiste is de­ter­mined to make his next chap­ter count.

Af­ter spend­ing the past few years rel­a­tive­ly qui­et­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go so­ca artiste Ter­ry Seales is prepar­ing for a de­ter­mined re­turn ahead of Car­ni­val 2027, armed with new mu­sic, re­newed am­bi­tion and a clear sense of di­rec­tion.

For Seales, this is not about rein­vent­ing him­self but re­claim­ing the space he be­lieves he has al­ways be­longed in and tak­ing his mu­sic to a wider au­di­ence.

“This is not a re­brand. This is a reestab­lish­ment,” he de­clared, mak­ing it clear that his com­mit­ment to shar­ing his mu­sic with the world has nev­er di­min­ished.

A charis­mat­ic per­former with a nat­ur­al affin­i­ty for the stage, Seales is look­ing for­ward to re­turn­ing to the fete cir­cuit in 2027, promis­ing au­di­ences the same en­er­gy they have come to ex­pect from him, if not more.

And he is not re­turn­ing emp­ty-hand­ed.

New mu­sic, re­newed con­fi­dence

The artiste has four songs pre­pared for re­lease, three of which will form part of his Car­ni­val 2027 of­fer­ings: Bring De Ting, Car­ni­val Is Ah Vybe and Car­ni­val Count­down.

The fourth re­lease, Rock Bot­tom, a more re­flec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion with friend and fel­low artiste Michelle Sylvester, is sched­uled for re­lease af­ter the Car­ni­val sea­son.

“This time around it’s go hard or go home,” Seales said, ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in the song­writ­ing and pro­duc­tion be­hind his new ma­te­r­i­al.

He cred­its song­writer An­tho­ny Ju­nior with pen­ning the songs, while Chenko Pro­duc­tions han­dled the pro­duc­tion. Seales be­lieves the part­ner­ship has helped him raise the stan­dard of his mu­si­cal of­fer­ings.

“An­tho­ny is a pro­lif­ic writer. He was un­der the radar, but he is an amaz­ing writer and for a long time the con­tent I had de­liv­ered was not at the stan­dard that we have worked on this sea­son,” he ad­mit­ted.

As he moves for­ward, Seales in­tends to di­ver­si­fy his op­por­tu­ni­ties rather than place all his ex­pec­ta­tions on one av­enue of the in­dus­try. His im­me­di­ate ob­jec­tives are to de­liv­er qual­i­ty mu­sic, re­con­nect with au­di­ences and be­gin tour­ing again.

“I am a Trinidad and To­ba­go artiste, but my mu­sic is for the world to en­joy. I’m not go­ing to be de­pend­ing on the say of lo­cal DJs or crit­ics to de­ter­mine whether my mu­sic is good for glob­al con­sump­tion,” he said.

Mak­ing a case for Pow­er So­ca

Among the de­vel­op­ments Seales is watch­ing close­ly is the an­tic­i­pat­ed re­turn of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in 2027, which he be­lieves could help re­store ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Pow­er So­ca.

He ar­gues that the ab­sence of a ma­jor com­pet­i­tive plat­form has con­tributed to a de­cline in the pro­duc­tion of Pow­er So­ca mu­sic, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Groovy So­ca has in­creas­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ed the lo­cal air­waves.

“Peo­ple stopped writ­ing Pow­er So­ca in Trinidad be­cause there’s been no com­pe­ti­tion for it. Box­ing Day was the date artistes looked for­ward to, to re­lease Pow­er So­ca mu­sic,” he re­called.

Two of his up­com­ing sin­gles fall with­in the Pow­er So­ca cat­e­go­ry, and he is ea­ger to bring them to life through high-en­er­gy per­for­mances dur­ing the 2027 Car­ni­val sea­son.

For Seales, the genre needs stronger song­writ­ing, more de­lib­er­ate mar­ket­ing and per­form­ers ca­pa­ble of trans­lat­ing its in­ten­si­ty in­to an un­for­get­table live ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We def­i­nite­ly need more Pow­er So­ca song­writ­ers. Groovy has been tak­ing over the air­waves. We’re just not get­ting the com­mand of Pow­er So­ca any­more, and if we’re hon­est, the mar­ket­ing of Groovy So­ca in Trinidad has been much more pow­er­ful,” he said.

He al­so be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost some of the un­in­hib­it­ed en­er­gy that once de­fined its Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, point­ing to the grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of Pow­er So­ca in oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries.

“That’s why the small­er is­lands have been boast­ing about the en­er­gy they com­mand now. We have be­come too stush. The peo­ple don’t jump and get on bad in Trinidad any­more,” he said.

Seales is con­cerned about what he sees as a shift in live en­ter­tain­ment, with some events in­creas­ing­ly re­sem­bling con­certs rather than tra­di­tion­al fetes.

“Per­for­mance beats old talk every time,” he said, main­tain­ing that Pow­er So­ca de­mands a par­tic­u­lar kind of stage pres­ence and au­di­ence en­gage­ment.

“A lot of the events now are like con­certs. Peo­ple are stand­ing and look­ing at artistes per­form. We need to re­turn to fet­ing with sta­mi­na and en­er­gy,” he added.

Tak­ing his mu­sic to the world

Seales’ de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­turn to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage is in­formed by an ear­li­er ex­pe­ri­ence of suc­cess be­yond the Caribbean.

As a mem­ber of the New Cre­ation group, he ex­pe­ri­enced in­ter­na­tion­al chart recog­ni­tion when its re­make of The Bea­t­les’ clas­sic Hey Jude reached num­ber 44 on the Bill­board Hot 100.

The achieve­ment re­mains a re­minder of the pos­si­bil­i­ties avail­able to Caribbean artistes will­ing to pur­sue op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond their im­me­di­ate sur­round­ings.

Seales be­lieves lo­cal recog­ni­tion does not al­ways re­flect an artiste’s po­ten­tial and that in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences can some­times be more re­cep­tive to tal­ent that has re­ceived lim­it­ed at­ten­tion at home.

“Good artistes aren’t al­ways ap­pre­ci­at­ed at home, but when they get the love of au­di­ences out­side, the love from home shows up. I’m think­ing glob­al this time around and I promise, there’s no stop­ping me,” he said.

His prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing sea­son ex­tends be­yond the record­ing stu­dio. He has been work­ing out, eat­ing health­i­er and plac­ing greater em­pha­sis on his men­tal readi­ness, recog­nis­ing that a suc­cess­ful re­turn to the stage re­quires dis­ci­pline and phys­i­cal sta­mi­na.

Giv­ing back be­yond the stage

While mu­sic re­mains a ma­jor fo­cus, Seales is al­so in­vest­ing re­newed en­er­gy in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment through the re­build­ing of the Ter­ry Seales Hope Foun­da­tion.

A na­tive of St Ann’s, he has de­vot­ed con­sid­er­able time, per­son­al fi­nances and ef­fort to ini­tia­tives aimed at sup­port­ing and up­lift­ing com­mu­ni­ties. He is now com­bin­ing that com­mit­ment with the pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise of his man­ag­er, Dr Vynne Baylis­sa Fred­er­ick.

Fred­er­ick, a psy­chother­a­pist with years of ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom, has re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go and is of­fer­ing her ser­vices to sup­port the foun­da­tion’s work.

“We’ve de­cid­ed to bring our work to­geth­er through the Ter­ry Seales Hope Foun­da­tion,” Seales ex­plained.

The part­ner­ship will com­bine his com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment ef­forts with Fred­er­ick’s ex­per­tise in men­tal health. Through the foun­da­tion, free ther­a­py and men­tal health sup­port will be made avail­able to those who need it.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so of­fers free per­son­al de­vel­op­ment cours­es de­signed to help in­di­vid­u­als build con­fi­dence, de­vel­op prac­ti­cal skills and make pos­i­tive changes in their lives.

“We al­so of­fer free per­son­al de­vel­op­ment cours­es to help peo­ple build con­fi­dence, de­vel­op skills and move their lives in a pos­i­tive di­rec­tion,” he said.

As Car­ni­val 2027 ap­proach­es, Seales is bal­anc­ing two com­mit­ments: pur­su­ing his mu­si­cal am­bi­tions and strength­en­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty that helped shape him.

With years of ex­pe­ri­ence, re­newed de­ter­mi­na­tion and a glob­al out­look, he is con­fi­dent that his next chap­ter will be one of pur­pose and achieve­ment. For Seales, the come­back is not sim­ply about re­turn­ing to so­ca, but mak­ing his pres­ence felt at home and on the world stage.