Hinds remains popular with soca fans

Hinds who came to prominence with the Barbadian band Square One has been off the stage for the last year after getting married and becoming a mother.

She joined Square One as a teenager and honed her skills singing a variety of genres including soul and reggae.

In 1992, she teamed up with John King for the ballad Hold You in a Song and the duo won the Caribbean Broadcasting Union's Caribbean Song Contest.

Some of her most popular hits include the 1996 classic Ragamuffin which won her the Road March title at the annual Crop Over Festival. She created history when she became the first woman to win both the Barbados Road March and the Party Monarch in 1997 with In The Meantime.

With her dreadlocks, good looks and sex appeal, Hinds became one of the most popular soca artistes in the late 1990s with hits like DJ Ride, Aye Aye Aye, and Faluma.

BBC Caribbean Radio spoke to Barbadian journalist David Hinkson about Hinds' impact on the soca scene.

"Alison brought a new dimension to soca, Square One were the first - if you want to call it that - soca/pop idols where the appearance, the image, the sex appeal were just as important as whatever message they were bringing out," Hinkson said.

Sex appeal

"She also brought a completely new dimension to female calypso singers.
When you think of the veteran calypso singers, most of them were thickset, more mature women singing some hard-hitting social commentary but they could also do some good party music."

Hinkson said many of today's young female soca stars were influenced by Hinds and

"She's brought a whole new sex appeal and a lot of young ladies who have come in to the business since she came along have followed in her footsteps. You can see Alison in Sanelle Dempster, Destra, the whole lot of them that have come out in the last ten years or so."

Hinkson also believes that Hinds has taken the level of performance for female soca artistes to a level that is yet to be matched.

Trinidad's Destra Garcia was influenced by Hinds

"There are so many people who have followed in her footsteps I don’t think there's anyone singing right now who can step up the game to where she was but I think somebody new and completely different is going to have to come and change that, that’s the kind of legacy that she's left."

But news of the Bajan singer's departure has not surprised many in the country's music industry.

Writing in the Barbados Nation newspaper on the weekend, reporter Ricky Jordan said when Hinds went on maternity leave from Square One last year and was subsequently replaced by Keanne Walters, he felt her departure would be permanent.

He recalled a conversation they had at a concert held before she went on maternity leave, where she told him that she wanted to spend a lot of time with her child.

"I don't intend to be an absentee mother, there are just too many 'firsts' to be missed. Me and his or her father want to spend as much time as possible bonding with the baby, and getting to know him or her. The first step, first smile, and so on, I don't want to miss them," Hinds said last year.

But Hinkson feels that at 34, Hinds is young enough and talented enough for her to make a comeback later on.

"You have to remember that before she took off in calypso, she was well known for singing other genres and she handles herself equally competently in those areas as well - she may come back in a few years as a jazz singer, who knows."