What to know
- Kes The Band wrapped up its two-month-long Roots, Rock, Soca Tour in Toronto, with frontman Kes calling the city his “homebase” and the perfect place to end the international run.
- The concert celebrated 20 years of Kes’ career, featuring fan favourites, surprise guest appearances and music spanning soca, dancehall, bouyon, chutney and reggae to showcase the diversity of the Caribbean.
- Kes says promoting “one Caribbean” is central to his mission, using his shows to honour the cultures and sounds of islands across the region while pushing back against inter-island rivalries.
- The soca star is already looking ahead, revealing he’s working on a new album and more tours, while saying he wants to continue bringing soca to audiences beyond the Carnival season.
Seas of Caribbean flags waved high in the air as Trinidadian soca group Kes The Band wrapped up its two-month-long tour in Toronto over the weekend — something the band’s frontman could only describe as “fitting.”
Lead singer-songwriter Kees Dieffenthaller, known to soca lovers simply as Kes, returned to the city with an explosion of Caribbean culture. Since kicking off the Roots, Rock, Soca Tour on April 30, the band has brought the sounds of the diaspora to cities across Europe and North America before closing the run in the city Kes often calls home on July 4 at RBC Amphitheatre.
Toronto is also where he recorded his breakthrough hit “Wotless” alongside friend and industry peer Kerwin Du Bois in the early 2010s — a song that would change the trajectory of his career forever.
“Toronto is homebase… so it was so fitting to end the tour in Toronto with this amazing crowd,” Kes told Now Toronto post-show. “This city has kind of raised me in a lot of ways… We’ve been coming here every year since like 2002. It’s a place that has supported us, even sometimes when you wouldn’t feel like you’re getting support at home.”
As is standard at a Kes The Band show, attendees were treated to hit after hit. From throwbacks like “Tuesday on the Rocks” to newer favourites like “Cocoa Tea” — and everything, and we mean everything, in between — it was a celebration of 20 years of Kes, tracing the band’s journey back to its 2006 debut album, Three Baldheads and a Dread.
With his last full Toronto show being KesMAS in December, along with a brief onstage appearance during Nailah Blackman’s Victoria Day weekend performance in May, Kes said he wanted this concert to be a spectacle that matched the celebratory moment.
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The name Roots, Rock, Soca puts a Trini twist on Bob Marley’s iconic 1976 song “Roots, Rock, Reggae,” and the show reflected that inspiration. Midway through the set, Kes shifted into a reggae and dancehall segment, highlighting the musical influences that have shaped him.
His latest hit, “Masterpiece,” rides the Hill & Gully Riddim by Grammy-winning Jamaican producer and artist Di Genius. Widely regarded as one of this summer’s biggest riddims, Kes blended the song with another standout from the same riddim — Masicka’s “Slip & Slide” — along with several other dancehall favourites. The reggae- and dancehall-infused segment also featured classics like Sean Paul’s “Like Glue,” Beenie Man’s “Who Am I,” Shaggy’s “Boombastic,” and Buju Banton’s “Driver A.”
“To me, exploring the Caribbean and the songs of the Caribbean is part of my responsibility and also just part of my joy. I grew up in one of the best places in the world,” Kes explained. “So, if I want to do a little reggae, a little one-drop, if I want to do a little dancehall, or konpa, I want to be able to do that.”
But Jamaica wasn’t the only island to get its flowers.
The nearly two-hour set was infused with music from across the Caribbean, seamlessly weaving together Grenadian jab, high-energy Dominican bouyon and timeless Barbadian soca. The celebration even included a guest appearance by Edwin Yearwood of Bajan group Krosfyah, who joined Kes to perform “Pump Me Up.”
And of course, sweet T&T received much of the spotlight. Guest appearances included Coutain who came with love songs “Wedding Band” and “Suga Dumplin,” Benjai for their collaboration “Carnival Friend,” Iwer George, who came to mash up the stage with “Stage Gone Bad,” and chutney king Ravi B, who serenaded the crowd with the iconic “Rum is Meh Lover” and his recent hit featuring Lady Lava, “Cyah Pick.”
Together, those sounds blended into one vibrant celebration of the philosophy Kes has long championed: one Caribbean.
“There’s always ever so often these diaspora wars and stuff like that, and I say, if islands are comparing [themselves] to each other, then you miss the whole point of growing up in the Caribbean,” Kes said. “I have been moved and gifted by each of these islands… so, anytime I could honour them, I honour them, because when we’re outside, it’s all Caribbean people we’re representing for. Big up to my island people!”
With summer in Toronto finally underway, the Toronto Caribbean Carnival is just around the corner. So, will one of soca’s biggest stars be joining the bacchanal on the road? Kes says maybe — but maybe not.
“As much as we love the Carnival, and it’s not to say that we wouldn’t be there — we might be back at some point, but I find it so important to bring the soca culture outside of the Carnival,” he explained. “Yes, it’s for the season of Carnival, but [soca] is also for the whole year too… we want to break those barriers.”
Even if fete-goers don’t catch the fan-proclaimed President of the Red Man Association on the Toronto roads this Carnival season, Kes says he’ll keep delivering new music for bacchanalists to carry them through to Trinidad Carnival 2027.
“More tours and more music,” Kes insisted. “I’m actually in the works of doing a body of work and an album. I’ll be working on it for the entire year, and you’re going to see that music coming out, and we’ll be gearing up for the next year.”
