Sister duo talks music, career, performing locally

On Saturday, June 23, sisters Samantha “Sunshine” Bryant and Nadine “Nadiva” Bryant took the Ragga Soca semi-finals by the scruff of the neck, earning a place in the National Ragga Soca Monarch competition scheduled for this Saturday July 7.

Now, the duo is set to take part in their second local competition and say they can’t wait to show Vincentians more of themselves.

But despite their eagerness to perform and their confidence, the sisters say that they know they will have to bring their best to the stage on Saturday if they want to make an impact worthy of a top placement.

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT this week, Sunshine commented, “On Saturday, we are planning to do what we did at the semis and more, but persons can expect a very good performance as the aim is to do even better than the last performance.”

She added that to get into the top three or even the top five would be a great achievement for them as they are loving the local music scene and the competitive and professional nature of the artistes involved.

The Hackney, London duo who came to know about Soca music as young girls because their father is from St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and their mother’s mother is a St Lucian said they have been dancing and singing all their lives, but only started doing it professionally in 2011 when they entered the competition arena in London.

That year, they released a song called ‘Make a way’ and won the Soca monarch competition in London. Also, in 2011 they won the Groovy Soca crown with ‘2 Flagz’. In 2016, the artistes were crowned Groovy Soca monarchs with ‘Unstoppable’ while they are the reigning Road March winners.

“We just literally always loved Soca music. We used to have to dance for our dinner. At dinner time our grandmother would say dance and it was always Soca and we were always with our grandparents… our grandparents introduced us to the culture,” said Nadiva explaining how two sisters from London managed to become involved in Soca music.

About competing locally for the first time, the duo said they were a bit nervous but the night before the semi-finals they performed at “Feteland”, a private event, and they were warmly received so that made them confident.

The duo has a roster of about 18 songs, all written by them with about two of these songs co-written.

Their semis song, ‘Take It’ was produced by ‘Friction’ and the duo revealed that with this song, they wanted to move away from the typical jump and wave and find a different set of words, hence ‘Take It’.

“Take it is about love,” said Sunshine who added that their inspiration for writing comes from the beats they are given.

Sunshine and Nadiva work 9 to 5 jobs but their aim is to one day do music full time.

“Right now, we work to pay for studio time and food,” said the girls with a smile, while adding that they would like to see more females become involved in the Soca industry.

The duo was formerly known as Muzik lil Muzik (MLM) and have performed in St Lucia, Sweden and Wales and have toured extensively in England. The have also toured extensively with Trinidadian superstar “Olatunji” and performed on the same stage with Fireman and Lornette “Fya” Empress Nedd.

Local performances came at “Feteland”, “Cheaper Wata” and “Bacchanal Monday”.

“We are going to keep coming to St Vincent, we love the scene here,” the duo agreed.

They will come up against 12 other artistes on Saturday at the national Soca monarch and Ragga Soca monarch finals. The duo’s manager is Vincentian New York based lawyer Franklyn ‘Maxie’ Edwards.