INTERVIEW BY ZOE BAB, PHOTO BY SHEILA PINAS & THIRZA KING
With New Style Band members: Lead singer: Denishio Cooman aka Boto, keyboardist: Booy Kwadjanie, Vocalist: Jonothan Grootfaam and New Style Manager: Elven Kensenhuis.
Patta marks its 20-year milestone with a celebration, paying homage to its heritage and commemorating the "Bigi Yari" alongside the Surinamese band New Style.
Patta reflects on its journey, embracing the past while looking to the future with an ode to the different Surinamese music streams .
New Style band Suriname is a music format by Osembo Para. The band officially started in 2014 and consists of 17 members. On 29th of May 2024 New Style will celebrate their 10 year Bigi Yari. New Style mainly makes Kawina Kaskawi music with urban house, afro pop, bachata and salsa influences.
Where does your name "New Style” come from?
Approximately twenty years ago, the group initiated to start a children's band during a school trip.
From then on we named the band 'The Youth'. As we got older, at a certain point we thought: we need a name change. A few of the members then went to other well known bands such as: Krioro, The Generals and No Limit. 10 years ago we came back to the original formation after a dream from the lead singer, who dreamed of us reuniting again to one band.
He said “Gentlemen, we just have to do this again, but what is the name of the band? We said: listen, we're going to mix all the styles together, the old, the new, then it will be a ‘’New Style”.
Before New Style the band was called The Youth, is that also a band that you had set up?
Elven Kensenhuis: Yes I did, It started at summer school. I don't know if it still happens during the big summer holidays in Suriname. Summer school is a kind of care center for neighborhood children where they are welcome every day during the school holidays, enjoy themselves, exhibit their talents: such as music and sports. We come from Para, a district in northern Suriname. Our bigger brothers, so to speak, were Bose Krioro, a very well-known band from the neighborhood in Suriname and we looked up to them. They were our heroes so we emulated them to make music too, and it sounded good so we said: we have to keep doing this',then and there 'The Youth' was born.
What do you want to achieve with your music?
What we want to achieve with our music is to reach the outside world as much as possible and break through internationally. We would like to promote Surinamese music, because if you look around you will see that Surinamese music is not that well known abroad. If a Surinamese band is on stage in the Netherlands, you have already reached your peak. For example we also want to be on stage in the UK and other parts of the world. Surinamese music should be held in higher regard in any way, we have already reached a certain peak in the Netherlands and Europe. We also would like to work on building a fan base in New York, Miami,the UK and countries in Africa, you name it.
Does New Style like Kawina to become more of a well-known music movement?
We are here to make Surinamese music known, and we do that with a lot of dedication. Surinamese music is still quite new to the world. So actually Kawina Kaskawi are different sounds to the world and everything that is different to the world, at least in our opinion, is new. There are predecessors that reached success yet not worldwide and everything that is new has a chance of reaching worldwide success. The Afro sound was also presented years ago. Nobody listened to their music back then, but they made it, for example P-Square, Akon reached worldwide recognition. After them, a lot of artists followed who are now simply enriching Africa with their music.. And that is actually our dream, to promote Surinamese music and to be able to sell Suriname in a positive way because Suriname has so much to offer, and we can express that in our music. There are many stories that we can translate into our music.
How does "New Style" describe the music Style Kawina?
Inspiring, soothing and energy boosting at the same time.
Would you also like to play in Africa?
Yes, we would love to play there, that's where our roots lie, in Africa! We definitely want to visit all the countries in Africa and perform our music. Africa is a dream!
Which Surinamese artist do you like to work with, and who has inspired you?
We had a lot of collaborations with various top artists from Suriname. The message has to be right and as long as that connection is there and it sounds good, we will do it. As we said before, we are now working on spreading our wings. But we have about 15 tracks with 15 different top artists from Suriname and now we want to expand it. If we do a collaboration with someone outside our circle, we might find that entrance to the rest of the world. So you just talked about Africa, for example, if we were to do a very good world song with an African artist, that would be the gateway for us to Africa. When you are on stage it is important that people know who you are and what you are presenting.
One of your songs called ‘Chille’ featuring Kappalani', how does New Style prefer to chill?
We prefer to chill with each other, at those moments we can laugh like crazy! Add a shot and we can recall old -tories- stories and events that happened to us in the past, sometimes it lasts until late in the evening, sometimes we don't even realize it is that late! We chilled until late last night haha!
We are also chilling while working, because you know you can't always focus on work, while working you also have to have fun with those people, with your fan base, so that’s also a way for us to chill. So we chill while working with all the boys and sometimes we chill alone with the ordinary Netflix.
Who inspired you to play music?
Bose Krioro were our first heroes and it's just those guys! It's not something we've been taught to do: let's do this or do that. For example, our keyboardist, I think he went to a lesson once, but never to a school.
We all have Kawina roots and where Kawina is, that’s where Kawina counts and we have accepted this wholeheartedly and learned from each other, family and now we are busy applying Kawina.
You are from Para district, Osembo plantation, what is the Kawina scene like in these districts?
We come from the district Para, Plantage Osembo. Kawina is the base there. If you don't know Kawina then you are not from Para. And those are our roots, and we know that Kawina is going to break through.
So far, we have one or two top formations in Para and they are all Kawina formations. The youth in Para also all follow Kawina, so yes, it is really part of our district.
In short, Para is Kawina and Kawina is Para
You call yourself the sexy band, who has the most cuties and groupies?
In 2016, at the Tapi Yari festival of Radio Suriname, as we awaited our turn next to the stage, the MC enthusiastically announced, "Now it's time for New Style!" A group of ladies in front started cheering, shouting "sexy boys" and "sexy band." Surprisingly, we earned that nickname not for an abundance of cuties but because of those spirited fans. Speaking for all of us, we're grateful for the support; each one of us has our share of fans.
This year you are celebrating your 10th anniversary and are going to celebrate this in a big way with the tour. Will this only be in Suriname or are you also heading to Europe? Or any other continent?
We are planning a ten-year tour across Suriname (3 districts), Curaçao, French Guiana, Netherlands, and Belgium. We're eager to expand the list to include more countries. Excited to connect with diverse audiences and celebrate our journey worldwide.
