Sharlene Boodram on the cover of Sweeta Sweeta CD, which is currently riding the music charts in France.

By Jessica Pouchet

Sharlene Boodram, T&T’s little soca sensation, has just gotten closer to achieving her dream of being an internationally-acclaimed singer.

The 24-year-old artiste and recent University of Miami master’s degree graduate is completing the first part of her five-album contract in France with Sunset Records. This summer she will release three singles with Universal Records, and so far is at the top of the charts.

“For a new face and a new voice she did very good,” her mother and manager Jasmine Boodram said of her first release, Sweeta Sweeta.

The single hit number 16 in record sales in France last week and 11 on the dancehall music charts.

Boodram stayed true to her original soca genre with this first release, but will try to appeal to an international audience with the next two.

Her genre not changing, the artiste’s manager said, but the lyrics might be less Trinidadian.

“This one was a little too Caribbean,” she said. “If you want to go world, you can’t use our dialect.”

Boodram said the next single will have a more American sound, and the third is yet to be announced. The singer is writing her own lyrics and melodies, and will soon release a music video for Sweeta Sweeta.

And when might T&T welcome home its young star?

Her contract requires her to finish her first album before coming back home to perform.

But Boodram’s mother assures that despite going after a style for the world, “she will still be the same, sweet, Caribbean Trini girl.”