Local singer, and friends, to perform for Southampton Village parade

Jun 30, 09 3:42 PM   1 member recommended this article

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Clockwise from top left, Torrell Medley, Neghesty Daley, Shashana Ramlochan, Tramar Pettaway and Katiria Almenas will appear on the float.

A new float will make its debut at the Southampton Village Fourth of July parade on Saturday morning, featuring a young, enthusiastic singer who wants nothing more than for everyone to have a good time and share in his love of music.

Tramar Pettaway, 21 years old, is a lifelong village resident and a 2007 Southampton High School graduate who is heard singing everywhere in Southampton, whether he’s on stage at a school, behind a microphone in a church, or just strolling the sidewalks with headphones on. Wherever he goes, he is belting out soulful music.

Now he’ll add the deck of a parade float to his list of performance venues.

“I want to make this big,” Mr. Pettaway, a 2007 Southampton High School graduate and administrative assistant at Southampton Youth Association, said this week. “It’s my first time out there.”

He was watching a parade last year and thought to himself, “I could be up there,” he said. He wondered what would it take to get his own float in the parade and put himself out in front of the crowds thronging the parade route.

“I wanted Southampton to see me,” he said, “to see me as a singer.”

He found it was surprisingly easy to get his own float entered in the parade. He went to Southampton Village Hall for a form, filled it out, turned it in, and he was on the Fourth of July roster.

Next came the chore of recruiting performers to join him. He signed up his friends Katiria Almenas and Torrell Medley to sing with him, and asked Neghesty Daley and Shashena Ramlochan, both models, to introduce the float by walking in front with a banner that reads, “Tramar and Friends.”

Mr. Pettaway said he wants the community at large to see African-Americans in a different light.

“It’s music for everybody,” he said. “We basically want people to know that we’re more than rap.”

Mr. Pettaway said the show will also include some patriotic songs in honor of the occasion and some surprises he’s not sharing with anyone except his fellow performers. He has let it be known, though, that he plans to sing some Mariah Carey and Patti LaBelle songs himself.

Ms. Almenas, 20, of Riverhead will play piano and sing Alicia Keys songs. Mr. Pettaway and Ms. Almenas have known each other since 2006, when they were studying together at Eastern Suffolk BOCES.

“He called me up and told me that there were spots open for performers and he wanted me to sing,” Ms. Almenas recalled. She said he has similar ideas all the time, and while she is excited about his latest plan, no one is as excited as Mr. Pettaway. “He talks about it every day,” she said.

“I’m a little nervous,” she admitted, “but I’m definitely looking forward to singing.”

Ms. Almenas said she likes to think, “I sound like me,” but people often tell her she sings like Ms. Keys, Keyshia Cole or Monica, with an old jazz and R&B style.

She said Mr. Pettaway has an “old churchy” sound to his voice, like John Legend or Anthony Hamilton. “It has all the elements of a good singer,” she said.

Ms. Medley, 30, also of Riverhead, is a rapper/singer who has recorded a single, “Rock Da Party,” with JoJo Simmons, the son of Rev Run from Run-DMC. She’ll perform that single and “Turn the Fire Up!”

Mr. Pettaway said Ms. Medley performs the kind of rap he likes—clean, with no offensive lyrics.

Though she is concentrating on her music now, Ms. Medley once ran a not-for-profit called “The Making of Tomorrow’s Models,” to help young people launch their modeling careers. She met Mr. Pettaway about three years ago, when he was modeling in a Southampton High School charity fashion show and asked her to come check him out on the runway.

Ms. Medley also hosts “Aspiring Moments TV,” a Saturday afternoon public access television show featuring interviews, events and performances she tapes around Long Island and elsewhere.

Mr. Pettaway started out singing in his school chorus and in the First Baptist Church youth choir.

“Then it got to the point that my choir teacher thought it was time to go out there and show people what I have,” Mr. Pettaway said.

He performed in front of New York State School Music Association judges five years in a row and received excellent ratings each time, he said. He was also chosen for the Suffolk County Music Educators’ Association all-county chorus.

Mr. Pettaway said he is proud to be one of only a few African-American students to have two photographs hanging on the Southampton High School wall of fame, for his two years with SCMEA.