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By CH30 Published: October 7, 2008
 SHONTELLE is the 23 year-old Bajan singer-songwriter who's set to take the world by storm after signing with music mogul Steve Rifkind's SRC records. Her unique story begins in the West Indies on the beautiful Island of Barbados' capital city of Bridgetown. The oldest of 3 sisters, SHONTELLE has always been an over-achiever who despite being at the top of her class competed across the island in several sports. However her true calling as a prolific songwriter and talented singer would draw her away from both the field and classroom and onto center stage.
Always finding activities to keep herself busy, while in high school SHONTELLE decided to attend 'Cadets' camp - where she served as drill sergeant over a newcomer named Rhianna. 'She was a good cadet, though there was one occasion when I had to make her drop and give me ten push-ups. We laugh about it now‚ I think she's forgiven me.' Little did either of the teens know that they would remain friends and both follow the same dream of becoming international stars in the music business.
When asked to define 'Shontelligence' she states, 'I owe this name to SRP and The Loft Recording Studios resident engineer Al Hemberger. He came up with it while we were playing a word game with my name. We all jumped on it and thought it was fitting. "The definition of intelligence is the gathering of new knowledge or information, the ability to comprehend and profit from experience. I hunger for that knowledge. It feeds my life and my music. The more I learn, the more I want to learn...the more I grow as a person and as an artist.'
Fast forward to 2005, and the up and coming talent scores a hit heard far beyond the Caribbean as the writer of the girl-power anthem 'Roll'. Producers Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken of SRP Records , who had discovered Rihanna in Barbados and brought her to the world stage, heard the song on a Bajan radio station and felt that it had international hit potential. They sought out the writer of the song to license it for a cover version, and had a pleasant shock; 'We couldn't believe that she was such a great singer and so young and beautiful, and hadn’t been discovered yet' says Rogers.
They signed her immediately, and spent the next six months creating her debut album. During a period Shontelle describes as 'one of the defining moments of my life‚ she flew around the country meeting with executives from the world's top labels and eventually decided to sign to Steve Rifkind's SRC Records - joining the ranks of the many successful artists in the Universal Music family.
Her debut smash single, 'T-Shirt' , which features a soft laid back vocal on a mid-temp track is sure to be the “she-anthem' of the year. On the reggae-soul influenced 'Life Is Not an Easy Road' she takes the beats down a gear, back to the sun drenched beaches of her native Barbados, while the lyrics punctuate the song with hard hitting social commentary. 'I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night with this beat in my head. I started writing straight away just thinking about society, poverty and the underprivileged'. Head- strong single 'Battle Cry' speaks to the generation so much that the Obama Campaign chose to feature it on, Yes We Can: Voices of Movement, the convention sampler. Rounding out the cd is the snake-charmer influenced and dancehall favorite 'Focus Pon Me' and 'Superwoman' which speak to female empowerment and social consciousness proving that Shontelle is in fact a talented and intelligent artist on the rise.
Although she has grown to enjoy being on stage, SHONTELLE still finds joy in seeing other artists perform songs she's written and continues to manage her own Barbados-based music publishing company, Sholay. Enjoying her increasing popularity, SHONTELLE remains humble and plans to carve her place as a performer before following her plan to form her own label.
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The Topgunner Djs comprising of 40+ radio professionals across the Caribbean provide the raw data for this, the original, Caribbean Music Chart, showing the top 30 songs, getting radio airplay across THE CARIBBEAN, all with some element of Caribbean origin. Our mission in sharing this weekly tabulation is to build awareness of the fantastic talent making music in THE CARIBBEAN. The Caribbean Hot 30 radio show is already breaking ground in 19 Caribbean Islands. |
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