Kes’ (Kees Diefenthaller) 2025 Carnival release, “Cocoa Tea”, is sweetening music charts across the globe.
The band’s first release for Carnival 2025, “Cocoa Tea” has topped the US iTunes Reggae chart and several streaming platforms, charts and playlists in countries all around the region, in the UK and the USA.
Written by Kes, hit-making producer Michael “Tano” Montano and reigning Trinidad and Tobago Road March King/songwriter Mical Teja (Mical Williams), the song was released on November 15, just before the Kes The Band (KTB) brothers from South Trinidad embarked on their third annual US East Coast tour. The track features backing vocals from Tano, rising star Denzil “Coutain” and former national calypso monarch (2020) Terri Lyons.
As the tour rocked packed venues in Montreal, Canada; and Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Silver Springs, Maryland; Norfolk, Virginia; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Atlanta, Georgia, in the US, from November 24 to December 5, the lyric video for the song on the band’s YouTube channel skyrocketed to one million views in the first two weeks as the song got added to thousands of streaming playlists.
Giving thanks to fans, Kes recalled a time when KTB music was not a household name across the diaspora, back when the band struggled to even get airplay in its home base.
The band will celebrate its 20th anniversary at its annual Carnival Festival Experience, entitled IZWE 2025, scheduled for Tuesday, February 25, at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain.
“Real views!” Kes exclaimed. “Yuh know ah remember de days when we used to get a lotta trouble to get even airplay, so I give thanks for the day to see this. Thank you for the support, thank you for the love of the song and, yo, this is the mission: we spreading this to the world, thank you very much!”
Unprecedented engagement
On Sunday night, Ineffable Records president Adam Gross posted an update detailing statistics showing the song’s mainstream appeal and interest growing rapidly in less than a month and without an official music video.
“‘Cocoa Tea’ came out three weeks ago and the numbers that it is doing are unprecedented for any soca record and are the best numbers any Kes song has ever done out the gate, as it looks to hopefully be the biggest Kes record of all time!” Gross enthused.
Gross detailed the most recent analytics for the track: “The song has three million plays, including three million on YouTube, over 400,000 on Spotify and almost 500,000 on Apple music. On YouTube, it is still doing over 125,000 plays a day without an official music video. It’s number three on Toronto’s local pulse Spotify chart and sits at the top of Shazam charts in 20 different places.”
Gross said the success of the song is a testament to the work ethic of Kes The Band and the organic followings it has built in several Caribbean territories. Those stats come as little surprise as the song is on everyone and their mother’s playlists and social media feeds.
“‘Cocoa Tea’ is currently number one in Trinidad, Guyana, Antigua, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica and Anguilla; among several other countries, it’s in the top ten streamed songs as well,” he shared.
“The song is going viral on TikTok where it has been used in 66,000 different videos, including 32,000 using the original sound. All of that together bringing in 61 million views on the song on TikTok.”