Nikki Brooks Goes Global With New Album, Music Video

ST. CROIX — Tempo Networks will debut Virgin Islands talent Nikki Brooks’ “Play Me Like Pan” music video on Tempo’s Cross Caribbean Countdown airing April 21st, a press release issued by Ms. Brooks’ publicist this week has revealed. The Consortium secured an exclusive reveal of the video ahead of its airing on the entertainment channel, founded in 2005 by St. Croix native Frederick Morton, Jr.

Tempo Networks, which spans over 24 Caribbean islands with 3 million viewers, along with U.S. states New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, U.S. capital Washington, D.C., and cities Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles, will help expand the emerging Soca and Calypso artist’s audience, according to the release.

The April 21st Tempo video debut will coincide with the April 22nd release of “Know Me Now” Ms. Brooks’ first solo studio album. The 7-track project will be available on iTunes and includes singles “DNA”, “Time” and “Play Me Like Pan” — all currently on heavy radio rotation throughout the Caribbean and London. Ms. Brooks’ sassy voice on Soca and Calypso sounds stemming from her Virgin Islands and Anguillian roots creates a uniquely enticing allure for lovers of the genre globally, says the release.

The entire project was recorded and produced in Anguilla where Ms. Brooks enlisted an arsenal of Anguilla’s powerhouse producers, including The Seventh Wing, Cherrod Lewis, Kerwyn “Prick” Goddard, Sharmon “Shamplus” Browne and Jerome “Muggsy” Dupree. Gaining notoriety as the infamous female voice belting vocals for bands including St. Thomas’ Imagination Brass, St. Croix’s Vio International Band and the legendary DC-based Image Band, Ms. Brooks holds the honorable distinction of being crowned St. Croix’s first ever female Calypso Monarch.

“Tempo’s debut of my video and the release of this album is truly a blessing. I want to thank my V.I. and Anguillian fans and radio family for their overwhelming support,” said Ms. Brooks. The Tempo video debut of “Play Me Like Pan”, along with the April 22nd release of her “Know Me Now” album will launch a string of performance stops throughout the Caribbean, U.S. and London, beginning with her April 22nd performance at this year’s St. Thomas Carnival Village.

Ms. Brooks will also be hitting the St. Thomas J’ouvert morning festivities with her double-decker truck, which promises to be a spectacle. Her next music video for the album’s title track “Know Me Now” will be shot in New Yor City and released this summer.

According to the release, the latest album will propel Ms. Brooks into the performing arena with other female Soca greats such as Alison Hinds, Destra Garcia and Denise Belfon — an honor and blessing that Brooks fully embraces as one of the only female entertainers based in the Virgin Islands and Anguilla regions, the release concluded.