US singer Rachel Platten discovered her passion for singing in Trinidad.
tv6tntA CHART-hitting American pop star has linked Trinidad to her discovery of her passion for singing.
Singer Rachel Platten, whose track ‘Fight Song’ went double platinum in 2015, recently shared the news in an interview with MTV. She said that being a singer was the furthest thing from her mind but things changed when she came to Trinidad in 2002 as part of her studies in International Relations. Platten said she became a back-up singer in a soca band that performed before “80,000 people”, an apparent reference to the International Soca Monarch competition. “I fell in love with it,” she said, as she recalled her “first gig”.
“I wanted the microphone at the centre of the stage so badly, I realised then that I needed to follow this. I needed to put everything I had into it and switch gears.” Thereafter, Platten said, she returned to New York where she performed sang covers with a funk band and eventually signed on with Columbia Records. ‘Fight Song’ went on to become an international hit and Platten became known as ‘the empowerment girl..
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When did you decide to concentrate on music instead of diplomacy?I have a very specific moment for you. I was studying in Trinidad, because I was interning at the diplomat’s office there, but also interning at a record label. I’ve always loved music, I had this tiny, little, crazy idea in my head that was like, “Maybe, maybe.” But I was afraid to follow it. In Trinidad, music is the pulse of their society, so I went knowing that I was going to be infused with music somehow.
How long were you there for?Seven or eight months. When I was there, there’s a thing called International Soca Monarch finals, and it’s during Carnival, and a friend’s band, who was at the record label I was interning for — he needed a keyboard player and a back-up singer. I was like, “I can do it.” They’re like, “You’ll do, we have no one else. That’s fine.” So I was on stage for the first time in front of 80,000 people.
http://www.idolator.com/7589634/rachel-platten-interview-fight-song-debut-ep-video
