Digest: Amazing April

(Nurse) Karen (Digest): Amazing April!

Happy Easter! Wishing you and yours all the blessings of this exciting time of year, pluse all the great food that goes along with it!

Random Newness: This month Florida’s DJ Crown Prince makes his debut as a Soca Artist. His first song “The Anthem” featuring Skinny Fabulous was recorded on “The Nurse Karen Riddim”, produced by Afterdark. Get it Free & all your fave hits from Trini Carnival on Supa Soca Vol 12: http://mustardseedmedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/free-download-crown-prince-supa-soca.html


Journalism: Nurse Karen is psyched about finally meeting a few industry peeps she’s been watching for a while now. This month, she’ll be interviewing Montreal electro DJ Ghislain Poirier whose revolutionary mixes are bringing soca music to the mainstream dance scene. She’s also looking forward to sitting down with Grenada’s Brother B about his plans for Spice Mas 2009. If you follow her on twitter, you’ll be notified as soon as the articles are posted! http://twitter.com/nursekaren

Travel: As we mentioned last month, Karen’s taking care of business at home for a little while. However, she’s coordinating arrangements to cover Atlanta Carnival in May. If you’re looking for an affordable cultural getaway, why not come along? http://www.atlantacarnival.net

Poetry: Good news and bad news. Good news first! Karen will be performing a spoken word set at the album launch of “Pleasure in Pain by Devon “The Split” Jones, on April 27th in Toronto. Wanna reach?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?sid=d3badc5a64b1972cb50446f6d0e91597&eid=68915791729&ref=search

Bad news... After performing poetry locally and internationally for half of her life, Karen finally applied for a government grant to record her own spoken word album, featuring original music by some of the Caribbean’s top soca producers. Sad to say, she didn’t get the money! There will be an album though. Stay tuned! Learn more about Karen’s work as a writer in this clip from her interview on Island Style TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrZW0nsB2UQ

Community: Thanks to Corey Graham 2.0 in Barbados, there’s an easier way to tell MySpace why you think they need a soca category. All you have to do is visit the link below, fill out the form and click send. Do it now! http://www.coreykgraham.com/socanow

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Nurse's Lounge: (Video) The "Skinny" on Caribana

If you haven't realized it yet. Your girl has a passion for editing video. I LOVE IT! So, these clips have been sitting on the cutting room floor for the last two months. This morning I decided to put them to good use. See Mr. "Head Bad" like never before...as he welcomes you into his world for Caribana 2008. 

Music: Crazy Vybe - Scratchmaster Roadmix- Skinny Fabulous featuring Jamesy P

Cameos:
Maximus Dan
Bunji Garlin
Afterdark - Andrew Sutherland
Nurse Karen
Devon "The Split" Jones
Afropan


Places:
Nurse's Lounge - Intro
Palazzo - KOS J'ouvert
If Lounge - The Split's Birthday Bruch
Lakeshore Boulevard - Caribana Parade with Tribal Knights
Sound Academy - CVR Fire Fete

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Nurse's Lounge: Junior Soca and Calypso...Kevin Sardine's B-Day

So far, this was the BEST day of my stay in SVG. Slimmy and I decided to go to Victoria Park in the afternoon to see the Junior Calypso and Soca finals. I realise neither of us have been juniors for a few years, but it seemed like the best idea on a tuesday afternoon.


Here's why....

The sun was shining bright, and the venue was packed. From babies to seniors, it appears that everyone had the same idea. All the mas men from Dragons were there. The Calder posse that I met on my flight down were in the place, my media collegues were liming, and a few of the artistes too.


Especially this one...Kevin Sardine.

It's Shady's birthday. We bounced him taking a drink at Jr Calypso, so we bought him a few more. We caught all kinda jokes watching the lil children get on to the music. Girls screaming. Little boys tiefing a wine. It was priceless.

When the show ended, and my rising star 16 year-old Hance was declared victorious as Jr. Soca King for second year in a row, I was in a celebratory mood.

I texted the liming crew...and it was on...Xcape tonight!

What happens at Xcape stays and Xcape, but here's the posse enjoying ourselves in celebration of Kevin's big day! Everybody say SAM-BU-CA!!!

Wait nah, wey Kevin dey?



There you go...one you're enjoying yourself...

Happy B-Day!

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Nurse's Lounge: All's Well that Ends Well

I'm stuck in Trinidad!!!

My flight to St. Vincent was to be early in the morning. As much as LIAT is known to be the source of much grief for many - this one isn’t their fault…well not entirely, anyway. So the flat tire issue of last night was easily resolved by borrowing a vehicle, so that getting to the airport would be no problem. What we didn’t realize is that somebody else had a key for the car we were to use – and they put it to use sooner. I can’t lie. I was sooooooo stressed. My travel arrangements for the Vincy leg of my “mission” were made by the generous sponsors of Vincy Carnival 360. www.toronto-lime.com/360 . The way, I see it, my role was to show up on time and get where I need to go, no matter what. I definitely didn’t want to have to make any calls asking for flights to be rescheduled or reaching for lame apologies.

In the end, I got to Piarco only 30 mins before the flight was set to take off. The passengers hadn’t boarded, and it actually left quite late, but they didn’t let me on anyway. (insert “steups” here)

I was put on standby (yet again) for the next flight 4 hours later. Little did I know that that flight would also be carrying Destra Garcia and Atlantik to St. Vincent for the Insomnia Fete at the Arnos Vale Sporting Complex.

Destra Singing at Insomnia SVG 2008



Destra and I had a good chat about St. Vincent. She told be about her Vincentian Grandfather who passed away last year. I think she said he was 89. He never lost his accent. She shared the story of his coming to Trinidad to work as a fisherman, and her desire to reconnect with people from that branch of her family. If you’re an Alexander from Union Island or Sion Hill…you never know, you could be cousins with Destra!

That flight was uber late which just left some time to catch up with more members of Atlantik. I don’t mind that at all, considering that girl Destra surrounds herself with some very talented and GOOD LOOKING musicians!

Some of the exceptional "talent" in Atlantik.

Boys, I’ll be sure to get you some more Honey Roasted Soy Beans in time for Caribana! I promise.

I got to SVG and wasted no time getting up to the countryside to visit MY Grandpa. He’s not a Vincy, but he has been living there for more than 60 years, so I guess that counts for something.

I wasn’t quite ready to plunge right into the feting action, so I spent my first evening in St. Vincent helping out in the Dragon’s Cultural Organization Mas Tent.

"Third World" building the Junior King

Before you get all impressed with my involvement in Vincy Mas, I might as well tell you that one of my roommates this week is Andrew “Afterdark” Sutherland. He is the King ofhe band. If the name is familiar, that would be because he’s an upcoming soca producer.

He put together the Ragga Soca Monarch title-winner “Gimme Mo” for Dani-O.

This is Miss Dani-O wukkin de muscle at Soca Monarch Semis! Hot, eh?



Afterdark also produced Crazy Vybe for Skinny Fabulous ft Jamesy P.

I guess we can also blame him for enabling Top Notch Swift to make the transition from Hot 97 DJ to Soca Artiste.



(By the way, Skinny is one of our roommates too for the carnival calendar. He says he wants to throw a victory party in our big fat MTV-style crib after he wins soca monarch. Big talks skinny man, semi’s aren’t even over yet!

Introducing: Afterdark!

The Dragons are working overtime putting the finishing touches on the King and Queen costumes for Junior Carnival. Your nurse administer a little bit of her loving care to the Junior King costume. I’m officially a mas’ woman now! You better believe I’ll be in Park tomorrow to see it cross the stage. Nothing more exciting that seeing the future torch bearers of our culture, enjoying their first carnival experiences. Not to mention, the mas is usually amazing!

Nite Nite

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