32nd St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, a parade of superstars
Expect ‘Serious Fun’ on Kim Sha Beach with Soca music star Terry Seales as he teams up with St Maarten’s Shadow Man to perform on the last night of the 2012 St. Maarten Heineken Regatta.
Once you discover the charismatic livewire known as Terry Seales, you can’t help but wonder if whoever coined the phrase “the life of the party” was talking about him. A natural-born entertainer for as long as anyone can remember, Terry is known just as much for his hilarious antics and raucous sense of humour as he is for his hit songs, dynamic performances and striking vocal ability. Well-known in his homeland of Trinidad And Tobago and throughout the West Indian Soca music circuit as “the Original Spicy Crispy Winer Boy“.
Terry is easily one of the most animated characters on the Soca scene and continues to dazzle audiences throughout the Caribbean, North America and Europe with his amazing live shows, while performing hits like “Chutney Ragga Soca Madness” (aka “Doh Wine Up On Mih Nani”), “Rise Up” (on the Paradise Riddim), “Dip Down Low” (featuring Michelle Sylvester), “D’ Waist” and “Hello“.
As a founding member of popular band Surface back in 2002, he scored his first hit Soca single with the tongue-in-cheek ditty “Chutney Ragga Soca Madness”. Putting Terry’s natural comedic ability to work, the song was one of the year’s most popular tunes and helped Terry gain popularity as a solo artist as much for the song as for his onstage gyrations. Dubbing himself “The Original Spicy Crispy Winer Boy”, Seales continued to work at making his solo career continue to ascend, despite still fronting various bands. It was with a member of the fledgling band Pure Energy in 2004 that Terry took his solo stardom to the next level, upon teaming up with the band’s female lead singer Michelle Sylvester to record the smash single “Dip Down Low“, which took the Soca scene by storm. The single and video continue to be wildly popular up to the present. Joining Soca superstar Destra as part of Atlantik after Trinidad’s 2004 carnival season, Terry toured the world and dazzled audiences with his singing and wining abilities until deciding to fully go solo in the following year (2005). Ironically it was that year that he released his biggest hit to date, the uptempo wining anthem “D’ Waist”, which took him to his first Soca Monarch finals as a solo artist (he and Sylvester were at the finals as a duet the year performing “Dip Down Low”). In 2006 he was a Soca Monarch finalist yet again with another smash, the addictive “Hello” – another song and video that remains popular in West Indian circles up to the present day. For 2007 Terry is poised to take it up yet another notch and has already started the ball rolling with the Reggaeton-tinged single “Seduction” which features vocals by Imij & Co frontwoman Michelle X as well as longtime friend and collaborator Michelle Sylvester (who raps Hip Hop style on this one, believe it or not). 2009 he did a track called “Gimme De Wine” and in 2010 “Stalker”.
Terry will be performing with St. Maarten’s own Shadow Man and another surprise guest on Sunday March 4, 2012. Also performing that night will be reggae legend Beres Hammond. “I saw Terry perform with Shadow Man a few months ago”, adds John Leone from the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta Team and local Heineken distributor, “and I told them both right there we need to bring this act back for the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta crowd, because they are going to eat this show up!”
