Fresh Fete Brings Preedy, Shal Marshall, GBM Nutron & Young Voice to NYC, 2015
New York’s Caribbean summer was just getting started when Fresh Fete landed on Friday, May 22, 2015, kicking off Memorial Day Weekend with a cast of Soca artists carrying fresh music straight out of Trinidad Carnival.
Presented by WeMAD Entertainment, THC Promotions and Jay Upscale Entertainment, the night featured performances from Preedy, GBM Nutron, Shal Marshall and Young Voice. It was a fitting lineup for an event called Fresh Fete: all four were connected to music that was actively moving through the 2015 Soca circuit, with several coming directly out of that year’s International Soca Monarch competition.
Julianspromos was there with Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson hosting the coverage, bringing viewers into the performances and atmosphere as New York’s Memorial Weekend Soca season got underway. The footage was shot and edited by Julian C. Hackett.
Fresh Music for Memorial Weekend
By late May, Trinidad Carnival had been over for a few months, but the music certainly wasn’t finished.
New York’s Caribbean party season was moving into summer, and Fresh Fete gave some of the season’s newer records another stage.
Three of the featured artists, Preedy, Shal Marshall and Young Voice, had all reached the 2015 International Groovy Soca Monarch semifinal round earlier that year. Preedy competed with “Away,” Shal Marshall with “Motivation,” and Young Voice with “Bass.”
That made Fresh Fete feel less like a random artist lineup and more like a continuation of the 2015 Soca season, only now the party had moved from Trinidad to New York.
Preedy Steps Forward With “Away”
The surviving Julianspromos title puts Preedy front and center, and 2015 was an important period in his development as both an artist and songwriter.
His song “Away” had already been released ahead of Trinidad Carnival, with Julianspromos among the platforms promoting the record from November 2014. A roadmix followed in March 2015, keeping the song active beyond Carnival itself.
Fresh Fete also had another natural connection to Preedy.
The event was partly presented by WeMAD Entertainment, the creative team with which Akeem “Preedy” Chance was closely associated. During this same period, Preedy and WeMAD were writing not only his own material but songs for other major Soca artists. Akeem Chance and Stephanas Ramgattie of WeMAD, for example, were part of the writing team behind Machel Montano’s 2015 release “Losing It.”
So having Preedy at the center of Fresh Fete made sense.
He wasn’t just another performer booked for the night. He was part of the creative circle behind one of the organizations presenting it.
Shal Marshall Had the “Motivation”
Shal Marshall arrived with one of his recognizable records from the 2015 season, “Motivation.”
The song had been released in late 2014, produced by GBM Productions, and carried Shal into the 2015 Groovy Soca Monarch competition. It remained active throughout the post-Carnival party circuit and was still appearing prominently in 2015 Soca mixes and charts.
There was also an obvious connection sitting right beside him on the Fresh Fete lineup.
GBM Nutron was there too.
That meant Fresh Fete was bringing artist and producer circles together in the same room rather than simply booking performers whose music had nothing to do with one another.
GBM Nutron Before “Scene”
The Nutron captured at Fresh Fete is particularly interesting to revisit now.
Before “Scene” became his major breakout as a performing artist during Trinidad Carnival 2016, GBM Nutron had already spent years behind the scenes as a producer, songwriter and musician, splitting his time between Trinidad and New York.
His 2015 music included “Problem Free Zone,” while his production work continued feeding records into the wider Soca ecosystem.
So this footage catches Nutron before the following year changed his visibility dramatically.
At Fresh Fete, New York audiences were seeing an artist many people in the industry already knew from production and songwriting, just before the wider Soca public would become much more familiar with the name GBM Nutron.
Young Voice Represents Brooklyn
Then there was Young Voice, giving the lineup a direct New York connection.
Young Voice, whose name is Kevin James, was a Brooklyn-based Soca artist from a Trinidadian family who had been pursuing Soca seriously since around 2009. His 2015 Carnival release “Bass” took him into the International Groovy Soca Monarch semifinals.
His inclusion at Fresh Fete made the event feel even more rooted in the city.
While Preedy and Shal Marshall were arriving from Trinidad’s Carnival circuit and Nutron existed comfortably between Trinidad and New York, Young Voice was developing his Soca career directly from Brooklyn.
He would later rebrand as One Voice, but in 2015, New York knew him as Young Voice.
New York Promoters Building the Soca Calendar
Fresh Fete also brought together promoters who were already active within New York’s Caribbean nightlife.
Jay Upscale and THC Promotions had collaborated earlier in 2015 on Trucked, an ambitious Soca event at Liberty Theater in Midtown Manhattan that recreated elements of the Carnival road experience indoors.
By May, they were teaming with WeMAD Entertainment for Fresh Fete.
That kind of collaboration helped keep the New York Soca calendar moving outside the two biggest local Carnival periods. Memorial Weekend became another opportunity for promoters, artists and audiences to reconnect around music that had come out of Trinidad Carnival only months earlier.
Vivaa Hosts for Julianspromos
For Julianspromos, Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson was there leading the on-camera coverage.
By 2015, Vivaa had already spent several years interviewing Caribbean artists and hosting events for Julianspromos, and Fresh Fete added another New York assignment to that growing archive.
The surviving highlights put the audience inside a night featuring artists at very different stages of their careers: Preedy pushing forward as an artist and songwriter, Shal Marshall carrying another strong Carnival record, Nutron moving toward his eventual breakout, and Young Voice building his name from Brooklyn.
The footage was shot and edited by Julian C. Hackett.
Looking Back
Fresh Fete lived up to its name.
The music was fresh.
The artists were still carrying the energy of the 2015 Carnival season.
And some of the careers captured in the footage were about to look very different.
Preedy would continue growing into one of Soca’s respected singer-songwriters.
GBM Nutron was less than a year away from the breakout success of “Scene.”
Shal Marshall remained one of Trinidad’s most familiar Soca personalities.
And Young Voice would eventually leave that name behind and continue his career as One Voice.
On May 22, 2015, though, they were all in New York together.
Memorial Weekend was beginning.
Vivaa had the mic.
And Julianspromos had the camera rolling.
