I speak so often about the progression and development of young artists and how it is so crucial for them and their management to bring them along in various stages in order to, hopefully, make them superstars at some point in their careers. Whether it is in the offering to have a big album or just strong singles for an extended period of time, certainly we’ve discussed all of these situations for young and up & coming artists. Of course just about every time until now (and probably after now) we’ve talked about it, we’ve been dealing with Reggae and/or Dancehall artist but, as is ‘normally’ the case, when you start dealing with Soca music even the broadest and seemingly most general of rules and conditions just don’t apply most times. This is for several reasons (not the least of which is the fact that the Soca album still remains, for a large part, a very rare creature indeed) but, I think, it’s largely due to the very ‘seasonal’ nature of the music itself which kind of tends to make for ‘bringing someone along slowly’ very difficult. In Soca, it seems to be much more of a ‘pedal to the medal’ (biggup the clichés) type of mentality as entire careers can pretty much be set into motion by virtue of a single massive hit (biggup Buffy). Of course there’s still the matter of developing talents and over the past few years in Soca while we’ve seen artists just apparently GROW in terms of what they’re able to do - Such as, most notably Fay-Ann Lyons, but also Skinny Fabulous (excellent example), Blaxx and maybe even Problem Child - To my opinion, as far as taking an artist from being a very young project to being someone who is one of the biggest names in the business, definitely the finest example over the past five years has been what Machel Montano and the HD Camp has done with Ms. Patrice Roberts. Previously she was kind of known as Montano’s rather photogenic ‘sidekick’ of sorts, which was, I imagine, a pretty big honour, in and of itself, at her age - To be playing CONSISTENTLY with arguably the biggest name in the genre - But across the past two or three years now, what we’ve seen from Roberts is her develop into one of the biggest names herself. She’s unarguably one of the most popular Trinidadian Soca artists and, again, touring constantly with Montano and HD, she’s performed and continues to perform worldwide with an ever increasing bag of hits at her disposal. So, while building a Soca star in this day and age is somewhat tricky, it definitely isn’t impossible - See Patrice Roberts.Hear Patrice Roberts. Roberts’ style is one of the most dynamic in the game today. While I think that, ultimately her talents will prove most formidable in the slower and more laid back type of Soca vibes (and see her winning a Groovy Soca Monarch one of these years), she has enough HEAVY ‘jump and wave’ type of hits under her belt, with and without Machel Montano, to even further well display her diversity as an artist. And, in case you haven’t noticed (and if you haven’t, shame on you), she also happens to be one of my own personal favourites. Each and every Carnival season now, I’m definitely looking forward to her releases almost as much as anyone else (not named Destra), particularly because she’s shown herself to be one of the most consistent and ACTIVE artists in the Trini Soca scene, which is saying quite a lot for the young Patrice Roberts/ While certainly she’s come a long way, it is worth mentioning that at (by my count) the still very young age of twenty-four, Roberts already had the decent (and very light with just six vocal tracks) ”Blossoming” album to her credit. That debut dropped way back in 2003 (and is now, RIDICULOUSLY, available digitally for you to scoop up), before Roberts had reached either the heights of her talents or her popularity, so you know that somewhere down the line that there simply had to be a next installment. Such an installment would drop half a decade later when, after linking with Machel Montano and HD and rising to a status she’d previously never enjoyed (more on that in a second), Patrice Roberts released ‘another’ debut album, 2008’s ”Looking Hot”. I call it another debut because seriously she had become a completely new artist by that time and while you can go back and listen to the ”Blossoming” album and then compare it musically to the second release and not be overwhelmed by how different the two are (because they aren’t, one is just a significant progression over the other and not that the first was bad either) (big tunes on ”Blossoming”), what you won’t notice on the first album is a STAR and by time ”Looking Hot” rolled through, Patrice Roberts had become a STAR. I think that’s something that’s also evident in the actual music itself. Besides certain things that you might expect (i.e. better and stronger vocals and things that come with growing up physically), what you hear on this album is an album with an extreme level of CONFIDENCE, but at the same time I think it’s going to be hard for someone to take her music in and call her arrogant which is a claim you often hear in regards to the ‘Batman’ to Patrice Roberts’ ‘Robin’, Machel Montano. She always, at least to me, comes off as an artist who is still well within her developmental stages, but one who, at least these days, is well in charge of that development and well aware of the power she does have an that is completely evident throughout "Looking Hot”. So if you haven’t figured by now (and if you haven’t, again, shame on you), I’m pretty high on the album and have been for the two years since it dropped. To my knowledge, Roberts is the only vocal member (non-instrument playing/producing) of Montano’s HD Camp to have a solo album, although last year they did drop the ”HD Family“ album and maybe it’s something they should think about again because to my opinion ”Looking Hot” is probably one of the better Soca albums that I’ve heard in quite some time (if not ever).
As you might’ve imagined, the album is pretty much a compilation of the singer’s biggest hits to date, with most of them (at the time) being newer, however there’re a couple of ‘blast from the past’ type of moments mixed in as well and should you never have heard of her before, this is definitely the place to start. Not too surprisingly getting things started on Patrice Roberts’ second debut album, ”Looking Hot” is the very cool title track which I believe was one of her tunes for 2008 Cropover. You can’t really find much at all to complain about on this tune, it’s probably not one of my personal standouts, but it’s to a quality level where it is just so SLEEK and so well done that it’s damn near intoxicating, so while I’m not I LOVE with it, I definitely have a crush. I don’t fall in love until we reach the second tune on the album, its biggest effort and in my opinion Roberts’ biggest tune to date, ‘Sugar Boy’. If I recall correctly, this very very cool and groovy tune took THIRD in TRINIDAD’S Road March back in 2007 and if you know how a Road March winning tune sounds (that year it was Machel Montano with ‘Jumbie‘), then you should well know that this is NOTHING like it. That just speaks to how BEAUTIFUL this song was in my opinion and for what it is; it’s probably one of the biggest such tunes since the turn of the century and I think it was the moment where everyone really started taking a note of the talents of Patrice Roberts (as a solo artist) and JUSTLY so. HUGE TUNE. Then we start the ‘wukking segment’ with the very strong ‘More Wuk’ from 2008. This is another highlight on ”Looking Hot” for me as, again, it’s just so well carried through, very well arranged and just a sterling piece of tune. The song earned Roberts her biggest catch of Soca Monarch to date as, despite being the very first performer competing on the night, she took second to Shurwayne Winchester with in 2008’s Groovy Monarch. It was gorgeous then and it definitely still is. Big beginning to the album.
Certainly being from the HD Camp, it’s no trouble at all to find artists with whom to link Patrice Roberts and the lineup assembled on ”Looking Hot” who join her is nothing less than special. Machel Montano, himself, jumps in on two different tunes, both of which were huge hits. The first is the mega shot that was ‘Light It Up’ which is just madness! It is my choice as the best combination on the whole of the album (yes, even better than that other one), because of the vibes that it pulls which kind of has this ‘soothing’ type of aura around it besides that kind of ‘normal’ beat my ass on the road type of vibes (which it also has) (and the tune also appears on Machel‘s ”Book Of Angels“ album). That type of song is that “other one” on which Montano joins, 2006’s Trinidad Road March, ‘Band Of D Year‘. Another winner (duh) is this one and even though it is more stereotypical and what you might expect, there’s definitely nothing wrong with that to my ears. It’s a wonderful tune and it was (I THINK) the first warning shot that what we had between Montano and Roberts has to be regarded as one of the strongest duos in the still very short history of Soca,. Seriously I look forward to THEIR tunes each and every year and these two tunes are big reasons why. Patrice Roberts also makes a very nice duo with her cousin, the mighty billion time Trinidad Soca Monarch, Bunji Garlin, who joins his little cousin on the big tune, ‘The Islands’. This is one of the older songs on the album (it appeared on Garlin’s 2005 album, ”Flamestorm”) and it is also one of the biggest. To my opinion it’s even stronger than ‘BODY’ and if you wanted to call it the biggest combination on the album, even, I might not put up too much of a fuss either. It’s a huge vibes and it’s also one with a message of a nice but MAD type of unity. HUGE! ‘Wukking Up’ is a big tune which appears earlier on the album and its remix is here as well and on it, Patrice Roberts links Jamaican Dancehall diva Macka Diamond. I think I prefer the original, but it’s close - The Diamond definitely adds another dimension to this already quite fulfilling tune. Zan is another very talented member of the HD Family and he also chimes in on two tracks on ”Looking Hot” with Roberts, the remix to ‘Always Be’ and ‘Til Tomorrow’. The later is the more addictive and BETTER of the two tracks, but the former, which is a much more bubbly version of the sleek original is also quite nice. Zan is talented, like I said, but I’ve never been too high on him (his performance at Monarch 2009 certainly didn’t help), but it’s songs like these which make you simply have to pay him a bit of attention. All in all, there isn’t a single bad song amongst the six on the album - Not one - they all are pretty good at worst.
There’re two more undeniably big moments on ”Looking Hot” to my opinion and they’re probably two of the biggest as well. The first is ‘Thundah Waist’ from 2008. This one is a just a big piece of whining tune which is probably Roberts’ specialty sans Montano and it definitely serves its purpose well. And there’s also one of my favourite, but a bit more ‘quiet’ tunes from her, ‘Come Over’ from 2008. ‘FRESH’ is the best word I can come up with in reference to this one. It’s romantic (it’s probably the best kind of groovy sounding piece on the album after ‘Sugar Boy’) and it certainly was a real winner with us and it’s also the type of song that, when she fully comes into the height of her powers in a few years or so, Patrice Roberts will seemingly be able to do with VERY little effort and score at the same time with.
The two tunes on the album which I’m not very thrilled with (strangely enough), ‘Loving Again’ and ‘Hunger For Love’, also just happen to be the two tunes that receive remixed versions at the end of the album. ‘Loving Again’ is actually a pretty good song, even in its original form. It’s kind of R&B, which isn’t too far from Roberts’ style, but I just kind of feel she could do it better (especially nowadays). ‘Hunger For Love’, on the other hand, is kind of that ridiculous and over-energetic kind of Euro-Pop/Electric type of stuff and despite the fact that I don’t like it, it isn’t COMPLETELY useless. And as you probably expected, both remixes are kind of Soca versions of both tunes. The remix for ‘Loving Again’ is actually quite good, somewhat skeletal (it’s like a Soca one-drop), but still good and arguably better than the original. And ‘Hunger For Love’ becomes a bit more pedestrian (kind of skeletal also, actually), but my ears still aren’t overjoyed by the remix.
Overall, they (my ears) are, however, pretty enthused by the whole of ”Looking Hot”. It’s simply, from beginning to end, one of the stronger Soca albums I’ve probably EVER heard. It’s not that it is so divinely spectacular and groundbreaking, because it isn’t, but what it is, is an album which so wonderfully plays to the strength of the artist. And because of the way it’s compiled, that’s definitely a trait which you can say about Patrice Roberts on the whole - She probably hasn’t become what she’s going to become just yet (again, just twenty-four by my count) - But what she is, she and her producers and managers seem to know EXACTLY what works. I also would like to mention something about the DESERVED inevitability of ‘crossover’ discussion in regards to Roberts - Certainly at her age, that’s something she’ll have the opportunity to at least attempt, but honestly I think the generation of artists AFTER Patrice will probably have a better chance of taking Soca music to the proverbial ‘next level’. As for her, however, with tunes like what is to be found on this album, Roberts’ future seems to be quite secure, as the future Queen of Soca Music. Not a bad place at all if you ask me.
Rated 4.5/5
Ruff Rex
2008
CD & Digital {Digital @ Trinidadtunes.com}
Patrice Roberts @ Myspace
Patrice Roberts
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