Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Pic­ture this: It is Tues­day, and the air is thick with an­tic­i­pa­tion. Thou­sands of peo­ple wav­ing flags, arms raised, voic­es chant­i­ng and are wait­ing for one mo­ment. The lights dim, the bass rum­bles, and then, as if struck by light­ning, Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller ap­pears.

His voice soars over the beat, and the crowd erupts as he sings: “No Sweet­ness! Di­az she weak­ness! No feel­ings, just wuk it up like yuh mean it!”

This is more than just a per­for­mance, it’s so­ca—alive and elec­tri­fy­ing, reach­ing across cul­tures, con­ti­nents, and gen­er­a­tions.

For more than two decades, Kes the Band has been a dri­ving force in the evo­lu­tion of T&T’s sig­na­ture sound but for Kees, the jour­ney is far from over.

When asked if he be­lieves the band has reached its goal, he gave a re­sponse that per­fect­ly ex­em­pli­fies Kees’s at­ti­tude to his pro­fes­sion.

“The first one I think is per­sis­tence. Hon­est­ly, just keep­ing in­ter­est­ed, push­ing, so per­sis­tence over the years, I grew on from that, I think it’s been a com­mon achieve­ment cause you al­ways have dif­fer­ent lev­els, you al­ways have new goals, so there’s no one par­tic­u­lar thing. We’ve had amaz­ing vic­to­ries along the way, so, yeah! The pin­na­cle? Who’s to say? We will see what the fu­ture holds,” he said.

From small fetes in Port-of-Spain to sold-out are­nas across the globe, Kees has spent years prov­ing that so­ca is not just a sea­son­al sound­track, but a genre with glob­al po­ten­tial.

Bring­ing Caribbean mu­sic to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences has al­ways been a chal­lenge. The in­dus­try is com­pet­i­tive, and so­ca has of­ten been un­der­val­ued on the glob­al stage. But that hasn’t stopped Kees.

“I guess the chal­lenge is that there are not enough days in a year, be­cause when you tru­ly get on your part, you re­alise that there are cer­tain things that need to be done, and I guess when you’re out­side look­ing in or when you’re now com­ing in­to it, you don’t re­alise the cer­tain steps that need to be tak­en be­fore you hit cer­tain things.

“We are a lot more aware and a lot more ed­u­cat­ed and that’s just say­ing what we have to do, and where we wan­na go, so our routes have been amaz­ing. I think stuff like the tours, the east coast tours, and the west coast tours, we’ve been sell­ing out a lot of live venues, that leads to big­ger bet­ter venues, but you have to start at a cer­tain lev­el and do that, then be able to have con­ver­sa­tions about some­thing else,” he ex­plained.

Kes the Band has em­barked on mul­ti­ple US tours, sell­ing out venues from New York to Los An­ge­les. The re­cep­tion has been noth­ing short of phe­nom­e­nal. Fans from all back­grounds, Caribbean and non-Caribbean alike, are singing every lyric, feel­ing every rhythm. But it’s not just about sold-out shows. It’s about break­ing bar­ri­ers. While his fo­cus has al­ways been on mu­sic, Kees is deeply aware of the so­cial chal­lenges fac­ing T&T. The world is shift­ing, and with it, the way peo­ple in­ter­act, com­mu­ni­cate and con­sume cul­ture.

“It’s a big­ger chal­lenge now. I feel like par­ents have it hard now, I know every gen­er­a­tion would say that but I think the bom­bard­ment of in­for­ma­tion has been in­sane, so it’s hard to keep up some­times of what’s hap­pen­ing and I feel like open­ing your com­mu­ni­ca­tion with your child and open­ing a com­mu­ni­ca­tion with each oth­er helps you get a bet­ter per­spec­tive,” he said.

This be­lief in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­nec­tion is what fu­els Kees’ mu­sic. It’s why he blends sounds and styles, al­ways look­ing for new ways to bring peo­ple to­geth­er. His Big Links Rid­dim col­lab­o­ra­tion is a per­fect ex­am­ple of that.

When it comes to the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Trini­bad, an of­ten-crit­i­cised genre, Kees has a mea­sured per­spec­tive.

“Art re­flects life,” he says. “You can’t blame the painter for paint­ing what they see. These youths are writ­ing about their re­al­i­ty, just like we did when we were younger. But with that, comes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. If you’re putting some­thing out there, you have to un­der­stand the en­er­gy you’re cre­at­ing,” he ex­plained.

For some­one who has al­ready worked with some of the biggest names in Caribbean mu­sic, Kees still has a wish list of dream col­lab­o­ra­tions.

“I re­al­ly dig Bruno Mars, I re­al­ly feel he is such a tal­ent­ed per­former and song­writer and he just has a lot of char­ac­ter that he could do a ca­lyp­so, I feel like we could do a ca­lyp­so. I love Ju­nior Gong (Damien Mar­ley). I think he just has that fire and en­er­gy; and Sting be­cause I am an old rock­er at heart.

And while mu­sic is his pri­ma­ry art form, food plays an im­por­tant role in his cre­ativ­i­ty as well. Any­one who has lis­tened to Co­coa Tea, Jo­lene or Jub Jub knows that food ref­er­ences pop up of­ten in his lyrics.

“Mu­sic is art and I think food al­so in Caribbean cul­ture plays such a role. I think those are the things that we have in com­mon. Like Co­coa Tea is just a home­grown thing that we all grew up with and it is a con­nec­tor. Mu­sic is about con­nec­tion, so for me if two en­e­mies could like the same song, you’ve done your job, you’ve shown peo­ple even if I’m not in­to you, we do love the same song.”

For all his suc­cess, Kees re­mains ground­ed in sim­plic­i­ty. When he’s not on stage, he finds joy in the small things that fame rarely al­lows.

“When I’m not do­ing mu­sic and I’m not on a stage I en­joy sim­ple life again. I en­joy it when I’m away and one or two peo­ple may know you here and there but the ma­jor­i­ty don’t know who you are and I’m just a nor­mal guy go­ing for cof­fee,” he said.

Bal­anc­ing fam­i­ly life with the de­mands of an in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic ca­reer isn’t easy, but Kees has learned the se­cret to bal­anc­ing both.

“I keep it as sim­ple as pos­si­ble. I don’t try to com­pli­cate it, you know, I went through my days of just be­ing around. Even­tu­al­ly, you have to come to your con­clu­sion, you know, of sim­plic­i­ty and un­der­stand­ing, that the sim­ple things are the gold­en things,” he said.

As Car­ni­val sea­son kicks in­to high gear and the band pre­pares for an­oth­er year of glob­al per­for­mances, Kees re­mains as hun­gry and dri­ven as ever. The mis­sion? To push so­ca fur­ther than it’s ever gone be­fore and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller isn’t stop­ping any­time soon.