Alison Hinds

Having grown up in Barbados after her birth in England, Alison Hinds signed on with the soca outfit Square One immediately upon completing secondary school. Over the course of 11 albums and a string of regional smashes and performances across the Caribbean, she stepped away from the group in 2004 to marry and raise a family, yet she soon contributed vocals to a remix of Kevin Lyttle’s “Turn Me On.” The track’s subsequent global breakthrough, which carried soca into previously uncharted territories, made the prospects for independent work unmistakable, prompting Hinds to pursue a solo path. In 2005 she released her debut single, the female-empowerment anthem “Roll It Gal,” which reached the top of the charts in Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica.