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HollyG: the family trio that carried Guadeloupe bouyon to gold

Published October 20, 2026

HollyG is a family bouyon trio from Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: Holly and her nieces, known as 6 Tresses and Cheveux Rouge, from the communes of Trois-Rivières and Vieux-Habitants. With “Bandit”, then “Je l’ai vu”, recorded with Arendi and VJ Ben, the group took bouyon gwada from video success to an official record: on 10 July 2025, SNEP recorded the gold single certification of “Je l’ai vu” in France, for a track released on 22 October 2021. In between, on 16 May 2024, HollyG had become, according to its reference biography, the first Guadeloupe bouyon group nominated for the BET Awards. This profile tells those three facts, track by track and date by date.

Who HollyG is: Holly, 6 Tresses and Cheveux Rouge, a family trio

HollyG is not a solo singer, despite what the name, read quickly, may suggest. The biography published by Qobuz, credited to Music Story, presents Holly G as a group made up of Holly and her nieces, known by the stage names 6 Tresses and Cheveux Rouge. It is a family trio, and that detail changes how the whole path reads: HollyG bouyon is a family matter before it is a studio matter, music carried by voices that have known each other all their lives and sing together the way people talk at home.

The same biography gives the group address, with the precision this site asks for every artist. HollyG comes from the communes of Trois-Rivières and Vieux-Habitants, in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe. Basse-Terre is not a vague backdrop: it is the mountainous south of the island, facing neighbouring Dominica across the channel. A bouyon group born there is born in the part of Guadeloupe closest, geographically and culturally, to the island where bouyon was created by WCK in Roseau in 1988.

Spellings of the name vary by source, and this profile explains them instead of hiding them. The platform artist page writes HollyG, one word, and that is the spelling kept here and in this page address. Official certification and nomination lists write Holly G, two words, and the biography alternates between the two forms. It is the same group in every case. Keeping HollyG as the main form means following the spelling of its published discography, the one readers will search for on platforms.

The reference biography sums up the path in three sentences this profile now unfolds: a flagship track, “Bandit”, which gathered over 9 million views on YouTube; a collaboration, “Je l’ai vu”, with Arendi and VJ Ben, which passed 10 million views; then, on 16 May 2024, a historic BET Awards nomination, presented as that of the first Guadeloupe bouyon group nominated at that ceremony. Three facts, three sections: the views, the gold and the nomination. The rest of this profile adds the full verified discography and the group place in bouyon gwada.

“Bandit”: the flagship track that installed HollyG and bouyon

The first major track in the record is “Bandit”, also presented in the form “Bandit (Oui Oui Oui)” in the group biography. Qobuz dates its release to 16 September 2021, on the iMD-Voodoo Empire label. The biography calls it the group flagship track and credits it with over 9 million views on YouTube. Those two elements, the platform date and the view count reported by the biography, are the verified facts for this track. This profile adds no lyrics and no video story that do not appear in the sources opened.

“Bandit” arrives one month before “Je l’ai vu”, and that closeness is part of the story. In the autumn of 2021, HollyG chains two tracks that will define its name: first the track in its own name, which installs the trio and its energy, then the collaboration that will travel furthest. For a family group from Basse-Terre, that autumn 2021 sequence is the tipping moment: platform audiences discover a name, an image and a sound, and the second track finds an audience already warm.

The track label also tells a circuit. Voodoo Empire for “Bandit”, Voodoo Studio for the recording of “Je l’ai vu” and for several later tracks: the Voodoo name returns throughout the HollyG record, as a recurring workshop for the group. The rest of the discography, detailed below, confirms that loyalty: most of the group verified tracks between 2022 and 2025 carry the Voodoo Studio mark, alongside SL Prod and Vadore Concept for the 2021 tracks.

Hearing “Bandit” today means hearing the documented starting point. The track is listed in the structured data on this page, with the rest of the verified discography, and it appears in our bouyon playlist. For a reader arriving through the gold record of “Je l’ai vu”, “Bandit” is the essential previous step: it built the audience the 2021 collaboration would speak to, and it is the track the group biography still chooses, in 2025, as its flagship.

“Je l’ai vu”: the collaboration with Arendi and VJ Ben that widened everything

“Je l’ai vu” was released on 22 October 2021. Qobuz lists it under the title “Je l’ai vu (Bouyon Kings Mixtape)”, released by Vadore Concept Groupe, while the SNEP record for the same track ties it to the label Vadore Concept Groupe and the distributor Believe. The official video presents the track as a meeting: HollyG and Arendi as writers, VJ Ben associated with the track and the video, and a composition credited to Dj Flip Tha Boss. Recording is credited to Voodoo Studio, camera work to Mighty Production, video editing to Voodoo Production, and production brings together Vadore Concept, Voodoo Studio, The Best Prod and Dj Raptor Martinique. Filming is placed at Galets Beach, at the Domaine de la Petite Sucrerie.

Every one of those credits matters, because they draw the real geography of bouyon gwada in 2021. A Basse-Terre trio sings with Arendi, a composer named Dj Flip Tha Boss signs the music, a Martinique name, Dj Raptor Martinique, appears in production, and a label named Vadore Concept carries the release. Guadeloupe bouyon was never a closed island affair: it was born of circulation between Dominica, which created the genre, and Guadeloupe, which adopted it, hardened it and sang it in Guadeloupe Creole. “Je l’ai vu” carries that circulation in its own credits.

The ToutGwada site adds a Dominican link to that chain: it presents the group as produced by DJ Flip Tha Boss, originally from Dominica. The composer of the track and the producer of the group would therefore, according to that source, be the same person, from the mother island of bouyon. This profile reports that link with its attribution, because it lights up the collaboration without overloading it: the sound that carried a Guadeloupe trio to French gold was composed by a man from Dominica, the island of WCK and Dada.

The public result of the track is counted by the group biography: “Je l’ai vu”, in collaboration with Arendi and VJ Ben, passed 10 million views, consolidating the group presence on the music scene. Ten million views for a bouyon track sung from Guadeloupe, in 2021, is the sign that the track audience reaches far beyond the archipelago. It is that audience, built over time, which would turn a video success into an official certification, almost four years later. The next section tells that transformation, which is the heart of the HollyG record.

The gold record of “Je l’ai vu”: the full certification story

Here is the fact the rival does not tell in full, and which this profile documents line by line. In the official SNEP certification register, the body that certifies singles in France, the entry reads: “Je l’ai vu”, performed by Holly G and Arendi, Gold certification, release date 22 October 2021, recording date 10 July 2025, time to certification three years and nine months, label Vadore Concept Groupe, distributor Believe. Every word of that line is a verifiable fact in the certifying body public register. The HollyG track is therefore a gold single in France, recorded on 10 July 2025.

The time to certification tells the true story of the track. Three years and nine months separate the October 2021 release from the July 2025 gold recording. “Je l’ai vu” is not a one week hit turned gold by a massive launch. It is a track that worked slowly, through views, through fetes, through shares and through the loyalty of an Antillean and French audience, until it crossed the official threshold. That slowness is information about bouyon itself: in France, the genre often advances by accumulation, track after track, audience after audience, before institutions count it.

The exact place of this gold record in the history of the genre needs the same precision. The French language reference article on bouyon presents “Je l’ai vu” as the first bouyon track by an Antillean artist and as the second bouyon title certified gold single in France. The first, according to the same source, is “Kongolese sous BBL” by Theodora, released on 27 September 2024 and certified in December 2024. There is no contradiction between the two facts, as long as release and certification are kept apart: the HollyG track was released first, in 2021, but it was certified after Theodora track, in July 2025. HollyG therefore holds the oldest Antillean bouyon title in the gold honours list, and the second gold recording in the genre history in France.

An interview published by CCN in 2025, with developer Maïté Berchel-Bordin, places HollyG among the emblematic artists of the moment in Guadeloupe, alongside Lejuh, 1T1, Theomaa, Piscine OSP, Aknose and Shanika, recalling that the Holly G act won a gold record. For Bouyon Shattaz, that record counts twice. It proves a family trio from Basse-Terre can carry bouyon gwada to the level of French national certifications, and it recalls that this bouyon comes from Dominica: the genre created in Roseau continues, through its Guadeloupe children, to write its history in France. Find the context in our history of bouyon.

The 2024 BET Awards: the nomination that put HollyG in another room

On 16 May 2024, according to the group biography, Holly G made history by becoming the first Guadeloupe bouyon group nominated for the BET Awards. Official nominee lists for the 2024 edition confirm the group presence: in the Viewer Choice Best New International Act category, the list reads Holly G, attached to France, alongside Bellah and Cristale for the United Kingdom, Duquesa and Oruam for Brazil, Jungeli for France, Makhadzi and Tyler ICU for South Africa and Seyi Vibez for Nigeria. The ceremony was held on 30 June 2024 in Los Angeles.

That nomination has to be read for what it is, no more and no less. This profile does not say HollyG won: verified sources speak of a nomination, and a nomination only. But a nomination in an international category at a major American ceremony, for a bouyon trio from Trois-Rivières and Vieux-Habitants, is a considerable career fact. It means the group name circulated, in 2024, in the files of programmers for a stage that almost never programs bouyon, and that the genre entered there through a Guadeloupe family group.

The ToutGwada site, which relayed the news for the Guadeloupe audience, presents the nomination as international recognition for Guadeloupe bouyon and stresses the group energy and its ability to fuse traditional and modern influences. It also names, among tracks that became group anthems, “Allo Triple Kay”, a nod in its very title to Triple Kay, the major Dominican band that popularised the bouyon soca started by Dada in 2003 according to Smokiller testimony. Even in its party titles, HollyG cites Dominica. The chain of islands never breaks in this record.

Put in order, the group chronology becomes readable: autumn 2021 for the two founding tracks, “Bandit” in September and “Je l’ai vu” in October; May 2024 for the BET Awards nomination; July 2025 for the SNEP gold recording. Three dates, three different registers: the platform audience, recognition from an American ceremony and the official accounting of the French industry. Few bouyon artists can line up those three registers on the same tracks. It is that accumulation, more than any single feat, that makes the documented stature of HollyG.

The discography after 2021: from “Ma belle” to “Coller la petite”

After the founding autumn of 2021, HollyG verified discography continues track by track on platforms, and this profile gives it in full, with the dates and labels published by Qobuz. In 2022: “Ma belle”, released on 9 July 2022 on Voodoo Studio, then “Kon Jant”, on 26 August 2022, also on Voodoo Studio. In 2023: “23H”, on 22 June 2023 on Voodoo Studio, then an official remix of the flagship track, “Je l’ai vu (Charles V Remix)”, on 21 July 2023 on Happy Music. The remix proves, two years after release, that the 2021 track was still working and still deserved new versions.

In 2024, the BET Awards nomination year, Qobuz lists “Tibilap Tibilap”, on 1 February 2024 on SL Production, “Mood”, on 10 September 2024 on SL Production, and “Chounette Cluny”, on 13 December 2024 on Voodoo Studio. In 2025: “Wa Coco”, on 2 April 2025 on Voodoo Studio. That regularity matters for reading the July 2025 gold record: while “Je l’ai vu” advanced toward its threshold, the group kept releasing tracks every year, keeping its name active on platforms and in the fetes where bouyon gwada is played.

The latest track in the verified record closes the gold loop. Qobuz lists “Coller la petite”, released on 24 December 2025 on Sl Prod. The reference article on bouyon states that, in December 2025, HollyG and Theodora released a track together under that name. The holders of the first two bouyon gold singles in France, the Antillean act of 2021 certified in 2025 and the Franco-Congolese artist certified in 2024, therefore meet on the same end of year 2025 track. This profile reports that meeting with its attribution to the source publishing it, and lists it in this page tracks as the group most recent marker.

In total, the structured data on this page lists eleven verified recordings when the remix is counted: “Bandit”, “Je l’ai vu”, “Ma belle”, “Kon Jant”, “23H”, “Je l’ai vu (Charles V Remix)”, “Tibilap Tibilap”, “Mood”, “Chounette Cluny”, “Wa Coco” and “Coller la petite”. This profile presents them as the group documented catalogue, with no album added and no invented track. To hear the whole set in the context of the current scene, alongside Lejuh, 1T1 and Dominican artists, open our bouyon playlist.

HollyG in bouyon gwada: what the trio says about the whole genre

Bouyon gwada is the Guadeloupe branch of bouyon: the genre created in Dominica, adopted in Guadeloupe, sung in Guadeloupe Creole and worked by producers and audiences of the archipelago until it became, in the 2020s, the commercial engine of bouyon in France. HollyG belongs to that branch, and its path sums up its strengths: a strong communal anchor, in Trois-Rivières and Vieux-Habitants; a loyal studio circuit, around Voodoo Studio; collaborations between islands, from the Dominican composer to the Martinican production associate; and a platform audience that passed the archipelago as early as 2021.

The trio brings to that branch a face carnival bouyon had not put forward in the same way: a family, an aunt and her nieces, three women voices carrying party tracks together. The group biography stresses that family and dynamic character, and the reported counters, over 9 million views for “Bandit” and over 10 million for “Je l’ai vu”, show that face found a wide, young and connected audience. In a gwada scene often told through its producers and DJs, HollyG recalls that bouyon is also a music of voices, choruses and presence.

Comparison with the other branches lights up the group place. Bouyon soca, started in Dominica in 2003 by Dada according to the first-hand testimony of Sean “Smokiller” Francis, travelled through riddims and soca collaborations. Wrecketeng, the official spelling given by DJ Cut himself, travelled through sampling and rap, while reketeng remains the internet misspelling. Fallon RnBouyon travels, in 2026, through platform programs. HollyG bouyon gwada travelled through video, the fete and, at the end of the road, through the official French certification register. Four different routes, one same Dominican origin this site documents page after page.

Why HollyG matters, in short: because its record holds the proof other profiles promise. A named family trio, two named communes, dated tracks, published credits, an international nomination dated 16 May 2024 and a gold record recorded on 10 July 2025 in the SNEP register. Start with “Bandit”, continue with “Je l’ai vu”, then hear the rest, from “Ma belle” to “Coller la petite”, in our bouyon playlist: you will hear how Guadeloupe bouyon, born of a Dominican soup, became one of the Antillean musics France certifies.

Frequently asked questions

How did HollyG “Je l’ai vu” become a gold record in France?

“Je l’ai vu”, performed by Holly G and Arendi, was released on 22 October 2021 on Vadore Concept Groupe, with Believe as distributor. SNEP recorded its gold single certification on 10 July 2025, a time to certification of three years and nine months. It is a gold built over time, through views, fetes and shares, not through a one week launch.

Was “Je l’ai vu” the first bouyon track certified gold in France?

Release and certification have to be kept apart. According to the reference article on bouyon, “Je l’ai vu” is the first bouyon track by an Antillean artist and the second bouyon title certified gold single in France. The first gold recording for the genre belongs to “Kongolese sous BBL” by Theodora, certified in December 2024. The HollyG track, released as early as 2021, is therefore the older of the two, but it was certified after, in July 2025.

Who makes up the HollyG group?

According to the biography published by Qobuz and credited to Music Story, Holly G is a family trio made up of Holly and her nieces, known by the stage names 6 Tresses and Cheveux Rouge. The group comes from the communes of Trois-Rivières and Vieux-Habitants, in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe.

Was HollyG really nominated for the BET Awards?

Yes, as a nominee, and this profile says only that. Nominee lists for the 2024 BET Awards include Holly G, attached to France, in the Viewer Choice Best New International Act category. The group biography dates that nomination to 16 May 2024 and presents it as that of the first Guadeloupe bouyon group nominated at that ceremony.

Who composed “Je l’ai vu” and who sings with HollyG?

The official video credits HollyG and Arendi as writers of the track, Dj Flip Tha Boss as composer, and associates VJ Ben with the track and the video. Recording is credited to Voodoo Studio and production brings together Vadore Concept, Voodoo Studio, The Best Prod and Dj Raptor Martinique. SNEP records the track under the names Holly G and Arendi.

Which HollyG tracks should I hear first?

Start with “Bandit”, released on 16 September 2021 and presented as the group flagship track with over 9 million views according to its biography, then “Je l’ai vu”, released on 22 October 2021, passing 10 million views and certified gold single in 2025. Continue with “Ma belle”, “Kon Jant”, “Mood” and “Coller la petite”, and find the group in our bouyon playlist.

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