In Trinidad, Kalpee was starved of creative resources and exhausted by cultural expectations. Across the island’s shores, he felt the strain of underrepresentation. In response, he co-founded Island Wave, a platform built by and for Caribbean artists who are tired of putting up with the same.
On March 18, 2022, a vibrant cast of musicians shared the stage at the Flamingo Cantina at SXSW, a world-renowned music festival. The room pulsated with Reggae, soca, R&B, calypso and Dancehall. The crowd was animated, with some spectators waving national flags in the air. Host, Ras Kwame, kept the energy flowing between acts.
That night, the Island Wave stage became the first Caribbean act to physically debut at the Austin, Texas-based festival.
“The place was DES,” Kalpee recalled in a phone call with DancehallMag. Some fans came for rising Jamaican stars Jaz Elise and Tessellated. Others came for the Freetown Collective, Nailah Blackman, Jimmy October and Kalpee – self-described “New Calypso” artists who inject Trinidad and Tobago’s indigenous music with greater thematic depth and wider influences. Despite the initial draw, people showed up.
Kalpee values cooperation and harmony for success. “It was special because it was quiet. People complemented each other. Every time someone came on stage, it was a new angle, a new element of Caribbean vibes,” he said.
The native Trinidadian goes full throttle early in our conversation, zigzagging between topics as she works to connect the essential points. “I think I’ve strayed from your question, sorry,” he admitted at one point. No problem, I assure you. In juggling the Island Wave operation with his solo career, there’s certainly a lot to cover.
According to Island Wave’s website, one of the main focuses of the platform is to “provide performance opportunities and funding to empower the scene to help bridge the gap between international music markets and the Caribbean diaspora”. However, a major obstacle to introducing Caribbean artists to foreign scenes is the fact that many of them must first be issued work permits or travel visas. And it takes a certain level of resilience to endure the harsh realities that have come to define the approval process.
“I just don’t understand how it’s so difficult to get a visa as a Caribbean person,” says Kalpee. “Going to the US and performing is almost impossible. You almost have to prove years of pre-booked work to be able to apply. And how do you do that if you can’t get a visa in the first place?” Fortunately, he adds, several artists on this year’s Island Wave stage worked together and leveraged connections to alleviate at least some of the travel-related stress.
As we speak, he’s preparing for a show at The Peppermint Club in Los Angeles, followed by a trip in late September to Singapore for the Music Matters Festival—an event similar to SXSW, he explains. Due to funding constraints, Kalpee may end up being the only artist representing the platform at this year’s festival, though he tells me the main focus is laying the groundwork for next year’s appearance. He envisions Island Wave’s lineup of six or seven artists, minimum.
At the heart of Island Wave’s mission is the desire to bring Caribbean music to the world, an ambition that extends beyond the stage. One of the platform’s other initiatives is to equip Caribbean communities with better equipped recording studios. “For someone to be able to create the best quality of anything, that person needs the right tools,” Kalpee tells me. As it stands, Trinidad and Tobago, like many other developing countries, lacks these resources.
He believes that correcting this fact will flourish in other industries such as tourism. “I want to see the top of everything and for Trinidad to have some great studios on the coast so people can say I want to go there to write my next album. We must have the infrastructure to host professional artists from all over the country.”
That Kalpee sees music as a potential salve for society’s ills can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that his life is rooted in the art form. Born Christian Kalpee, he began performing at the age of six, often singing calypso at competitions. He later learned to play the steel pan and bass while at school and spent some of his teenage years singing with the soca band, The Entourage.
As he leaned more into his solo career around 2017, he moved away from traditional soca and calypso, choosing instead to fuse Trinidad’s native sounds with the genres that moved him—namely trap, rock, R&B, and Dancehall. Song like Gyal Island represent this fusion, with soulful melodies that glide over the flourishes of steel vessels.
He credits his move to Los Angeles with helping to free his voice. “When you leave the house, you notice all the random things that have been ingrained in us. But now there are no restrictions. I’m deliberately experimenting all the time to try to find that nice mix of genres that really complement each other,” he says. “This environment requires you to be whatever you want to be.”
Playlist Feel Good, Vol. 1, the second of Kalpee’s jam-era EPs, testifies to this newfound freedom. His tracks evolved as he flew between Trinidad, the USA and Barbados. After finding himself stuck in England due to pandemic-induced travel restrictions, he familiarized himself with the production software Ableton and set out to complete the project. Featuring features from Stefflon Don and the Freetown Collective, EP distills the progressive ethos of the New Calypso movement into a lean, five-song package.
This mix of genres has also highlighted some flaws in the way digital streaming platforms categorize and market music. Caribbean artists are often required to list their music as Reggae – whether it is or not – before being allowed to select ‘Caribbean’ as a sub-genre. On other platforms, Kalpee is left to choose between Reggae or pop, for lack of a better option. “It’s something we’ve challenged,” he says.
This quest for visibility and inclusion is what sparked Island Wave’s mission in the first place. In 2020, Kalpee found himself and Tessellated co-billed among Russian artists at his first official SXSW performance. The lack of cohesion in that list opened his eyes to the need for his West Indian brethren to unite.
“If I’m in the Russian scene, I won’t necessarily find those fans who like Caribbean music. But if Tessellated, Sevana, Jimmy October and I are all on the same stage, there’s a good chance that other people’s music will resonate because at the end of the day it’s all Caribbean music,” he explained.
The festival organizers were receptive to this logic, and Kalpee, along with his management team at FVP Global, stepped away from pitching and planning. These joint efforts paid off in 2021 as SXSW debuted its first exclusive Caribbean lineup on what was then called The Island Stage. Kalpee flew from Trinidad to Jamaica for the virtual performance, which was staged in Kingston. There, he co-hosted alongside Kadiyah McDonald and performed to close the show after sets from Sevana, Tessellated, Mortimer and Khalia.
The 2021 SXSW virtual show ranked among the five most-watched shows of the festival. Reflecting on what led to this, Kalpee noted, “this is a movement with diverse, up-and-coming, high-quality, positive artists. From my knowledge of SXSW, particular artists come, take the stage, do their thing, and then leave. The artists performing on the Island Wave stage all went through the same challenging process to do this together. For the 2022 performance, we also rehearsed with the same groups and traveled together.”
After the platform’s recent success at SXSW, Island Wave is currently adding another arm to its operation: that of a record label. Like all Island Wave efforts, this movement is driven by collaboration and fueled by a desire for positive change. “We’re trying to put more energy on the islands. I often talk about Trinidad more than anywhere else because it’s my home,” says Kalpee.
“We cannot rely only on oil and gas. We must put knowledge and resources into art and creativity so that it inspires people across generations. That’s what it all comes down to in the end.”
