IT MAY ONLY be mid-January, but Faith Callender has her eyes set on a special date in July.
Since making her debut on the soca scene, the 23-year-old has never made it to the esteemed Soca Royale stage at Bushy Park, but she has kept the faith and is determined to make 2017 her year.
She told WEEKEND BUZZ on Wednesday that she went back to the drawing board and has been working on improving her performance style and making her name a household one.
“I think this year is the lucky year. I’ve been practising harder and working on what I had to work on,” said Callender, a former Banks Calendar Girl.
“I was the Banks Calender Girl in 2014. Since then I have put my music as my main focus. This year I want people to gravitate towards Faith the artiste and to make my name a household name. When people hear Faith Callender I want them to see a brand, and recognise me for my music,” the Haunted singer said.
During the interview she said those areas of improvement were her diction and maintaining high-energy during uptempo performances.
Since the end of the 2016 Crop Over festival, Callender has kept herself busy by performing on the hotel circuit.
As an early Christmas present, she also got the opportunity to perform onboard the Britannia cruise ship from December 2 to 16 with Barbadian artiste Eon Small and the Inner Soul Duo.
She also recently graduated from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, with a Bachelor of Science in accounting and finance and since then she has made a calculated move to further her career.
One such move was the taking on of new management, as last year she was mostly self-managed.
She sought a manager who could focus on helping her build her image as an artiste.
And that led her to Matthew “Fewwture” Ashby of Dream Real Projects, who also manages DJ Puffy.
“I was seeking management last year, checking out different people, and he was one of the last people I went to because I wasn’t sure if his plate was full with Puffy but I said you know what just reach out and see what could happen.
“I think I needed someone to help me push more. . . . Someone more hands-on that could deal with stuff that I couldn’t deal with like working on branding, social media and so on,” she said.
They have already started looking for writers and music to record for the annual festival.
“I won’t let much out the bag, but we got a really good one so far that we put down a demo to, so we’re looking to start production on that very soon.”
While acknowledging that Soca Royale was not the be-all and end-all, she highlighted the significance of the annual competition.
“I am not solely focused on the competition but at the end of the day I’m focused on the music, so once I put out a good song that could get me into the competition it could do the rest of the work for me to get tours, do more bookings. It’s not that I’m only focused on the competition, but the competition is something I’m interested in,” Callender said. (TSG)