JIMMY OCTOBER

Jimmy October (born L'shun Emmanuel) is the Sangre Grande singer-songwriter pioneering "New Calypso"—a genre-bending sound redefining Caribbean music's global vocabulary. From his East Trinidad roots, October has transformed from spoken word poet performing at 2014's Machel Monday to international collaborator, opening for J. Cole and PARTYNEXTDOOR before landing on Steve Aoki's 2017 KOLONY album. His evolution crystallized with producer Tano (Michael Montano) and Brooklyn Decent, crafting what October calls music that "feels like home while building a world around what the future of the Caribbean sounds like." The 2017 Vacation EP introduced this New Calypso manifesto—fusing calypso's narrative tradition with R&B intimacy, hip-hop's directness, and Afrobeat's pulse. "I don't like the idea of something in the air telling me what I have to sing about," October explains, rejecting Carnival's seasonal constraints for year-round relevance. Signed to Protoje's In.Digg.Nation Collective and Delicious Vinyl Island, featured in FADER's GEN F and Complex's "Artists to Watch," October represents a generation of Caribbean artists—alongside Nailah Blackman and Kalpee—who refuse to let geography limit their sonic ambitions. His portraits capture an artist making Trinidad's sound not just exportable but essential to global pop's evolution.