Radio host praises ‘quality’ soca in 2026

Af­ter at­tend­ing more than 20 fetes this sea­son, pop­u­lar Slam 100.5 Ra­dio an­nounc­er Chis­lon “Verse” Ban­field, and host of CNC3’s The Par­ty Start car­ni­val pro­gramme, praised the qual­i­ty of this year’s so­ca mu­sic, high­light­ing the strong con­tri­bu­tions from younger artistes.

“We have a lot of new artistes, or I wouldn’t say new artistes, but we have a lot of younger artistes break­ing through, which is very good for the in­dus­try. I think we need a lot more of that,” he said.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at Slam stu­dio on Fri­day, Verse’s mes­sage to young artistes was to keep the pas­sion for their craft, as one hit song does not equate to longevi­ty in the in­dus­try.