Senior Reporter
gyasi.merrique@guardian.co.tt
‘Lucky for you my friend!
Ah in a good, good spirit,
Ah drinking a good, good spirits,
De vibes right up to de limit
So doh hold me down,
doh fight me down’
The opening lines of the 2025 runaway hit Good Spirits on the Big Links Riddim by brothers Kevon and Kory Hart, better known as Full Blown Entertainment.
The renowned writers and producers created the Big Links Riddim. In addition to Good Spirits, they are responsible for 2025 Carnival hits Greatest Bend Over by Yung Bredda, The Truth by Machel Montano, and No Sweetness by Kes.
But what has them in particular ‘good spirits’ these days is that the brothers have now delved into the world of stage performance for Carnival 2025 and beyond. However, even with an undeniable soca anthem on their hands, this new act is quickly learning that life on stage is quite different from life in the studio.
“Technical difficulties are the worst part for me,” declared Kevon with a wry smile during a recent interview after a band rehearsal with Erphaan Alves’ The Anchors. “We’re still learning how to deal with certain things. Seasoned performers have seen it all, but (for us) it’s a lot of things happening within a few short performances, so it could be a little overwhelming. But we not dunce, so we’ll figure it out.”
This author could not decipher whether the almost synchronised chuckle the two let out was a result of a lifetime of bonding between 42-year-old Kevon and his younger brother, 38, or a more recently developed trait of soca’s newest sibling duo.
Roughly a month after the release of their mega-hit, Full Blown has quickly transitioned from being known as dominant songwriting and production powerhouses to taking centre stage in the bright lights of the fete season.
It is a far cry from where they started in 2011, when an already established titan in the business, Kasey Phillips, of Precision Productions, took a chance on the self-proclaimed English literature nerds. With a CD containing Phillips’ now immortal Antilles Riddim and no prior experience of playing mas, Kevon and Kory penned their first soca and first hit—Machel Montano’s Vibes Cyah Done–on a riddim that also spawned Bacchanalist by Kerwin Du Bois, Shiver by Nadia Batson, and Alves’ In Your Eyes, which all gained heavy rotation on the airwaves and in the fetes that year.
Within the next decade and a half, Full Blown Entertainment wrote, co-wrote, and produced some of T&T Carnival’s signature songs and sounds. That discography includes, but is not limited to, Montano’s Mr Fete (2012), Bottle of Rum (2012), The Fog (2013), and E.P.I.C (2014) as well as Du Bois’ Too Real, and Unforgettable featuring Patrice Roberts, Fallin’, Million and Body Talk by Kes, and a slew of other hit songs for Voice, Nessa Preppy, and more among a list too long to mention.
Good Spirits is not the first song they have written and recorded for themselves, however. In 2022 they offered their debut single entitled Full of Love, a groovy soca with RnB undertones on the Palmwine Riddim, with lyrical themes similar to Freddie McGregor’s Loving Pauper. Zoom Zoom on the Night Shift Riddim followed in 2023 and in 2024, their song Wassy sampled Baron’s 1988 classic, Dance Floor, which was written and arranged by Winsford “Joker” Devine.
Now, with a growing repertoire of their songs, and a wealth of tricks gleaned from associating closely with some of the industry’s heavyweights, the Tacarigua-born brothers have decided that this is their time to evolve into a bonafide entertainment “triple threat.”
“We spent so many years writing songs for other people that we felt like we found our way of expressing ourselves in the genre,” Kory explained. “Now we feel like we have something to say and it has naturally progressed to the point where we feel that we might write something different from what we write for Kes or Machel. We have a different message.
“Ours is not directly related to the Carnival, ours is just (related) to life and experiences and that’s what we want to give to people.”
Both Kevon and Kory, who are also the grandsons of well-known former politician Eddie Hart, admitted that the decision to try their hands at live stage performances was not initially in their plans and that it is outside of their comfort zones.
Kory revealed he tried to convince his older brother to go it alone as a performer, but Kevon strongly refused to do so without his younger brother. Now that they have warmed up to the idea though, Kory said they have given extensive thought to every aspect of how to present themselves to the public.
“Fashion is a big part of our artistic expression, especially now in 2025 with all of social media. Music is now visual. It’s not just about listening to the music. They have to see you and see visuals. So we want people to look at us and feel like yeah, those fellas know what they’re about.”
On managing the new dimension of their careers, Kevon welcomed the challenge of simultaneously trying to maintain their status as certified hit-makers while crafting their own identity as performers.
“Just to be a duo is different. We don’t have much of those out there in the soca world. And we are a duo but we are very different in terms of personalities. So we try to just be ourselves on stage so that we give the crowd that different dynamic.”
He added, “I think even if you stumble upon something you realise you’re good at, and it feels right in your soul, you can’t just walk away from it just like that.
“That’s why you see a lot of performers going until they are old and grey because sometimes it’s just in your soul and you feel like that’s what you have to do. So we plan to do it for as long as we can, as long as it feels right.”
