Basseterre, St.Kitts – St.Kitts’ pride and joy the Nu-Vybes Band International aka De SUGAR Band has added another distinguished award to there already packed shelf of awards and accolades.
The 5 time St.Kitts Road March Champions were honored with the coveted “Best Soca Group” award at the recently held 13th Annual Reggae Soca Music Awards at the Broward County Center for the performing arts on Saturday May 27th . The Band shared the spotlight with established Bajan soca super group Krosfyah who were joint winners with Nu-Vybes.
Edwin Yearwood accepted on behalf of his band Krosfyah with Nu-Vybes’ “On De Bandstand” blaring in the background. Unfortunately Nu-Vybes was not able to accept there award as they were in Atlanta performing that’s same evening for carnival celebrations there. Other nominees in the category included Machel Montano and Xtatik out of Trinidad and the Jam Band from the US Virgin Islands.
Edwin Yearwood
Show producer Luther Mackenzie said, “he was satisfied with the show but expressed some disappointment that the Nu-Vybes were not able to accept there awards in person.”
Nu-Vybes began there journey way back in 1987 as teenaged musicians with a vision of changing the Kittitian and Caribbean music landscape with a new sound which combined calypso, soca, dance hall, and reggae, as well as jazz and R&B. Their music was truly unique, borrowing from traditional rhythms of popular Caribbean music to create this new vibration known as Street Style. The band had many success’ locally, winning various road march and bandorama titles in the mid to late 90’s and enjoyed increasing popularity in neighboring islands such as Antigua, Anguilla and St.Maarten.
The band matured significantly in 1999 when they performed at the Internationally renowned MIDEM Music festival and expo in Cannes, France. They performed exceptionally well stunning the international audience with a superb presentation of soca, reggae and calypso. In that same year the band performed in the English cities of London, Leeds and Manchester thus building there reputation as one of the regions top bands.
However it was not until 2002 that they became a household name in the Caribbean with the massive hit “SUGAR” which became the unofficial anthem of the Indian cricket tour of the West Indies for that year.
The song was also hailed by many as the Caribbean road march for 2002 and the band subsequently became known to many fans in the region as the SUGAR Band. Since the success of the SUGAR album in 2002 the band has gone on to establish itself as one of the premier Soca groups in the Caribbean having become fixtures in various carnivals throughout the region and stateside including the US Virgin Islands, Antigua, Dominica, Atlanta, Miami, Labor Day in Brooklyn and Boston.
The band has just completed there annual USVI carnival tour and are expected to perform in upcoming events in Anguilla in early June and Chicago, for the first time, in August and are also expected to be a major part of the Eastern Caribbean Legends of Music concert to be held at the Tribeca Center of Performing arts on June 10th in New York City.
The band will also be the headliners for the opening soca night of the 10th Annual St.Kitts Music Festival from June 29th to July 1st. The band has performed a record 8 times at the St.Kitts fest.
The Band has also recently wrapped shooting on there first music video. “Don’t stop the tempo” is the name of the video and it was shot in various scenic locations on St.Kitts as well as in St.Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. The video was directed by Mark Enyola Cropper of Trinidad and is currently being edited.
