Crop Over Artist Tionne Hernandez Returns to Soca Music Scene with New Energy and Plans | Weekend Buzz Interview

“I can’t take credit for the idea of studying marketing. It was George Thomas, my manager at the time, who [told me] to study marketing because it allowed me to still be creative in an academic space.”

Tionne didn’t stop singing even though she was at university.

“I was still singing but it was just R&B. I was in a group called Phoenix with Rhea Layne and Tye Blue and we used to perform at pageants and other small gigs. I also did Honey Jam and Honey Jazz for a few years before I stopped singing altogether.

“While at UWI, I decided I wanted to just focus on my studies and after I started working, being a regular citizen. Then I was working in the background with Marlon Legall when I was about 19 years.

“He invited me to be part of his choir, the Elite Vox, and I’m a member to this day. He has done wonders for my voice in understanding harmonies and being part of something bigger than me,” she told Buzz. Tionne was in the choir that performed at NIFCA last year.

She explained that back then she didn’t like the sound of her voice.

“I love music. I love performing but I felt as though my voice was not what I wanted it to be.

I am very critical of what I do, I watch recordings of my performances to try to critique and try to improve. So while performing, I was battling my insecurities. It was a case of ‘I like this, but I don’t know if this likes me back’.

“The first year I auditioned for Honey Jam I didn’t make the cut and I thought that everybody was saying, ‘This girl can’t sing’. That took a toll on my confidence and made me wonder about investing so much time and money, money I didn’t have, to do music when there was no reward,” she said, reflecting on that period of her life.

She shared she had to overcome the need for instant gratification and wanting people to pay attention to what she was doing right away.

So Tionne did what so many other aspiring entertainers do. She got a day job because she couldn’t rely on singing and music solely to pay the bills. She knew it wasn’t practical to wish for a big break so she could reap the rewards she hoped for.

Being a mother, she dug deeper within herself and recognised she had to commit to her beliefs so she could teach her son by her example and not just pay lip service to her dreams.

She returned to soca about three years ago, thanks to Hinds. Her initial goal when she contacted her was to help write music, work in the background and contribute to the music industry while tapping into and expressing her creative side. She did not intend to be up front as a vocalist.

Hinds had other ideas.

“She told me she had a song – Slow Wine – she wanted me to sing with Nikita. Shanta Prince and Faith also had songs on the Goddess riddim). I was pregnant with my son (he turns two next week) at the time and thought, ‘If Shana is telling me to sing, maybe I should’.

“During COVID, when you felt as though everything was coming to an end and life was shutting down, you reflected on your life and realised there were doors you should have walked through that you neglected, so I seized the opportunity when she asked me to and we’ve been running ever since,” she recalled with a smile.

As she headed back to the studio, she was more confident with her voice and using it as a tool and seeing where she could go with it. There was “such an adrenalin rush” and recording with Barry Hill at Dreadhawk Productions “was a breeze”, she said.

With renewed focus, Tionne is proud of her journey, the twists, and turns, and where she is now. She will be staying the course and knows that with God’s help, her investment in herself will pay dividends.

“I intend to stay here, and I will keep singing for as long as possible,” she said. (GBM)