Shas­tri Boodan

By day, Kel­lian Suepaul teach­es physics at Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary School. By night and on week­ends, she trans­forms in­to Kelly­Sue, a ver­sa­tile singer and band­leader cap­ti­vat­ing au­di­ences with per­for­mances span­ning rock, pop, reg­gae, R&B, so­ca and Bol­ly­wood mu­sic.

The San­gre Grande res­i­dent has spent most of her life im­mersed in mu­sic, al­though her jour­ney has in­clud­ed sev­er­al paus­es to pur­sue her ed­u­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer.

“My love for mu­sic start­ed at around four years old,” Kelly­Sue re­called. “At sev­en, I joined my pri­ma­ry school’s choir, and by the age of 11 I had taught my­self to play the gui­tar.”

Her first taste of per­form­ing came at 13, when an aunt in­tro­duced her to a lo­cal rock band in San­gre Grande. Two years lat­er, she stepped away from the stage to con­cen­trate on her ex­am­i­na­tions.

At 17, she re­turned to mu­sic, this time per­form­ing with an In­di­an crossover band, be­fore once again putting her mu­si­cal am­bi­tions on hold to com­plete her uni­ver­si­ty stud­ies.

Af­ter earn­ing her de­gree, Kelly­Sue joined an­oth­er band and per­formed for sev­er­al years be­fore fo­cus­ing on es­tab­lish­ing her teach­ing ca­reer.

De­spite the in­ter­rup­tions, she said mu­sic nev­er left her.

“Even with the breaks, mu­sic has al­ways been a part of who I am, and every ex­pe­ri­ence has helped shape me as an artist,” she said.

Over the past few years, Kelly­Sue has reignit­ed her mu­si­cal ca­reer, work­ing along­side pro­duc­er Kevin Khan of KK Stu­dios to re­lease orig­i­nal songs, as well as fresh in­ter­pre­ta­tions of pop­u­lar hits. She has al­so col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er lo­cal artistes while ex­pand­ing her mu­si­cal hori­zons.

Her lat­est ven­ture is FUSE, a band she found­ed that per­forms at restau­rants, casi­nos, pri­vate func­tions and cor­po­rate events across Trinidad.

For Kelly­Sue, every song she per­forms must have a per­son­al con­nec­tion.

“It has to con­nect with me through the lyrics, the melody or sim­ply the feel­ing it cre­ates,” she said. “My orig­i­nal songs re­flect who I am. They tell my sto­ry, my ex­pe­ri­ences and how I nav­i­gate life. If some­one can re­late to my mu­sic, then I’ve achieved what I set out to do.”

Known for her ver­sa­til­i­ty, Kelly­Sue re­fus­es to be con­fined to a sin­gle genre.

“I per­form rock, pop, dance, R&B, reg­gae, so­ca, Bol­ly­wood—ac­tu­al­ly, every­thing,” she said with a smile.

Look­ing ahead, Kelly­Sue hopes to take her mu­sic be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go’s shores by con­tin­u­ing to ex­per­i­ment with dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal styles while re­main­ing au­then­tic to her­self.

“My ul­ti­mate goal is to get my mu­sic out to au­di­ences be­yond Trinidad and share my pas­sion for blend­ing dif­fer­ent gen­res,” she said. “I be­lieve mu­sic is uni­ver­sal and has no lim­its. It has the pow­er to con­nect peo­ple from all walks of life, and I hope to leave my own foot­print by cre­at­ing mu­sic that cross­es bound­aries.”

Of­fer­ing ad­vice to young­sters who want a ca­reer in mu­sic, she said: “As both a teacher and a singer, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that suc­cess doesn’t come from choos­ing one dream over an­oth­er; it comes from be­ing dis­ci­plined enough to pur­sue both. Dream big, stay hum­ble, keep learn­ing, and nev­er stop be­liev­ing that you can build a fu­ture where your pas­sion and your pro­fes­sion can ex­ist to­geth­er.”

Kelly­Sue’s mu­sic is avail­able on more than 28 glob­al stream­ing plat­forms. She can al­so be found on Face­book, In­sta­gram and Tik­Tok. For book­ings, she can be con­tact­ed at 337-5193.