Carisa Lee

Af­ter two years with­out Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, rev­ellers can once again “be wot­less” on the stage and the road to their favourite so­ca song.

It’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions that come at a time when Trinidad and To­ba­go is deal­ing with a high mur­der rate along with many oth­er so­cial is­sues.

But while this may be the re­al­i­ty, so­ca artiste Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller said this Iz NOT We.

“The fact is no amount of dark­ness can out the small­est can­dle, the lit­tlest can­dle can light up a whole room,” he said.

He and his band were due to show the world who IZ We at his an­nu­al Car­ni­val fete at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, last night.

Di­ef­fen­thaller ad­vised the pub­lic to be that light, a sim­i­lar phi­los­o­phy he us­es when host­ing his events, and writ­ing and pro­duc­ing his songs.

“If the dark­ness get dark­er, turn on your lights my friend...you have a light in you that goes again the grain you see­ing out­side, be that light be­cause you don’t know who that as­pir­ing, who that chang­ing,” he ex­plained.

One group of peo­ple is his life­long sup­port­ers, it’s al­so one of the rea­sons the IZ We fes­ti­val went back home this year.

“We grew up in San Fer­nan­do a lot of the dreams start­ed there, so to come full cir­cle and do a flag­ship con­cert in San Fer­nan­do is just some­thing that we look for­ward to, ex­cit­ed about,” he said.

Di­ef­fen­thaller said there were two stages (Sun and Moon stage) that will add to the mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ence he promis­es pa­trons.

“Peo­ple ac­cus­tom do­ing events out­side the sta­di­um but we go­ing in­side the sta­di­um so I will say it’s all-new,” he said.

Some of the per­form­ers in­clud­ed Ja­maican artistes Shag­gy and Busy Sig­nal.

Kes the Band and Shag­gy’s song is mood and his 2023 con­tri­bu­tion with Busy Sig­nal is called Hon­ey Comb.

He said so­ca artistes pro­duce new mu­sic every year, some­thing he said does not hap­pen any­where else in the world.

“It’s al­most a su­per­hu­man feet to cre­ate a song that will change your life every nine months that has to move you...what we do in Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple don’t even do that,” he said.

He shared that if to him a song does not in­spire him he will not re­lease it and that’s why a lot of his clas­sics like Wot­less re­main time­less.

“For me, that has paid off...I could play songs over the year that fume you be­cause I took that care and I feel some artiste does that the proof is re­al­ly in the pud­ding,” he said as he sang Olat­in­ji’s En­gine Room.

Who was of the lo­cal acts in­clud­ed in the IZ We fes­ti­val along with vet­er­an Lord Nel­son and oth­er young artistes like Mi­cal Te­ja, Ding Dong, and Nailah Black­man.

A plat­form to show­case their tal­ent like what Di­ef­fen­thaller said the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch did for him.

“It ex­pose me to every­body, the world not just Trinidad... through that so­ca monarch Wot­less was play­ing in Ap­ple stores all kind of things,” he said.

He hopes this year’s can­cel­la­tion should be used to bet­ter for up­com­ing car­ni­vals. He told the or­gan­is­ers to el­e­vate the ex­pe­ri­ence and find ideas to get oth­er brands in­volved. He sug­gest­ed that they find the event of to­day and how it ap­plies to this pop­u­la­tion and not con­tin­ue with the meth­ods from decades ago.

“What So­ca Monarch pro­vid­ed, a lot of peo­ple would talk about the short­com­ings and all the dif­fer­ent things it’s re­al­ly a meet­ing place where the el­ders and the young ones com­ing up the peo­ple who en­joy so­ca come to­geth­er and re­al­ly and tru­ly and that there is an en­er­gy we can’t lose,” he said.

The Jub Jub singer re­ferred to this Car­ni­val as the re­cal­i­bra­tion/sig­nif­i­cant Car­ni­val and not so much the moth­er of all car­ni­vals.

“This is the one af­ter the lock­down this is the one where we come out and pick up the pieces some things are rel­e­vant some things are not...I feel like next year it starts to step in­to the new era and then we can start talk­ing about moth­er of all car­ni­vals,” he said.

He’s ex­pect­ed to re­lease an al­bum lat­er this year and mu­sic videos for his 2023 songs.

Di­ef­fen­thaller thanked his sup­port­ers over the years and chal­lenged them to bring back the good vibes and hu­man­i­ty.

“We are our broth­ers and sis­ter’s keep­ers We are tak­ing care of each oth­er and let’s con­tin­ue to do that,” he said.