Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

So­ca artiste Tevin Hart­man is a name many of us have yet to know. How­ev­er, his grow­ing reper­toire of tunes like Com­pa­ny, Ser­vice Man, Per­ma­nent, and Go Low fea­tur­ing DJ Kingston, which he prais­es for open­ing many doors since its re­lease last year, is giv­ing him a seat at so­ca’s ta­ble and a place on peo­ple’s playlists.

If a song can get you to move or sing along to its lyrics with the first lis­ten­ing, you can be al­most cer­tain it has done the same for many oth­ers. And that is the case with Hart­man’s songs.

Rev­el­ry, gy­rat­ing, and bac­cha­nal are the el­e­ments present in his songs.

His lat­est sin­gle for Car­ni­val 2024, Com­pa­ny, was writ­ten by him­self and Em­manuel Rud­der who is known for co-writ­ing some of Car­ni­val’s biggest hits like Dru­patee’s In­di­an Gyal fea­tur­ing Machel Mon­tano, and Farmer Nap­py’s Big Peo­ple Par­ty.

De­scrib­ing his sin­gle, he said, “It takes place in Car­ni­val where every­thing that’s tak­ing place around you, the ladies win­ing around you, the en­er­gy, the vibes, isn’t there, be­cause you are miss­ing com­pa­ny on the road, your sig­nif­i­cant oth­er be­ing there with you. So the song is to let them know, ‘Gyal, I need your com­pa­ny, be­cause what is go­ing on here—it’s miss­ing you to make it the great­est show of all time,’ you know?”

The up-and-com­ing artiste at­tend­ed AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, Char­lieville, where he said, his in­ter­est in mu­sic be­gan. Dur­ing the free pe­ri­ods at school with noth­ing to do, he re­called, he and a friend would be lim­ing in class­rooms mak­ing beats with a pen and a pen­cil.

“I start­ed to freestyle on the beat. We record­ed it us­ing a Black­ber­ry Bold and put it on Face­book. Even­tu­al­ly I went on to be­ing part of com­pe­ti­tions and start­ed to flour­ish from there,” he said.

As part of his up­bring­ing, Hart­man grew up lis­ten­ing to Luther Van­dross, Smokey Hype, Mar­vin Gaye and oth­er mu­si­cians. For him, in­spi­ra­tion can come from any­one, whether they may be in­volved in mu­sic or not. So­ca gi­ants Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller are some artistes that in­spire him to both per­form and make mu­sic, while Amer­i­can R&B pop artiste Ush­er is an in­ter­na­tion­al favourite of his.

He be­lieves a per­son needs to rep­re­sent where he comes from.

“So­ca mu­sic has to do with the cul­ture. I’ve nev­er been lis­ten­ing to so­ca mu­sic and been up­set. The type of sound it brings, the type of feel­ing, it’s eu­pho­ria. So­ca it­self makes you feel good. You could nev­er be vex from lis­ten­ing to so­ca mu­sic,” he said.

Keep your ears open ... Tevin Hart­man is grad­u­al­ly so­lid­i­fy­ing him­self as a force in the so­ca scene, hav­ing the abil­i­ty to get both men and women to chip, gy­rate and cel­e­brate Car­ni­val with their com­pan­ions.

He said he was grate­ful for all those who have helped him on his mu­si­cal jour­ney and thanked those who sup­port his mu­sic.

Com­pa­ny can be streamed on YouTube, Spo­ti­fy, and Ap­ple Mu­sic.