If last year’s Carib Soca Monarch competition, that saw the end of a two-year reign preceded by wildly entertaining competitive battles is anything to go by, then this year is shaping up to be just as good or better.
Malo is ‘celebrating’ in advance, Adrian Dutchin is feeling at ‘home’, a Trinidadian is getting ‘naked’ and a string of other performers are fired up and ready to go.
The prize package this year has been bumped up from $600,000 to $750,000 and instead of the customary 15 competitors going head to head in the semi-final round at Linden, this year there are seventeen. Some familiar names are back with brand new material they all believe have staying power in the competition and there are a few new faces as well. Regular contender Shelly G has opted out of competition this year.
The contenders vying to take on Malo this year include Dutchin with “No Place Like Home”; Wilbur ‘Lil Man’ Levans with “Fiah Man”; Melissa ‘Vanilla’ Roberts with “Break Down the Walls” and Orlando ‘Bones Roots’ Johashen with “Warriors”. Carlos ‘Lucky B’ Williams with “Lucky B Flags”; Lois Mosley with “There is a Time for Everything”; Lucretia ‘Shandy’ Oudkerk with “Stop the Carnage” and Clifton ‘Passion’ Adolphus with “Me Alone” also made the semi-final cut. Then there are Trinidadian Edmond ‘Ejo’ Johnson with “Naked”; Barbara ‘Lady B’ Nedd with “Try Soca”; Yannick ‘Nick’ Wade with “Wet Inside de Fete” and Winston ‘Flyer’ Gray with “Man”. Burnelleen ‘Destiny’ Lynch with “My Pledge”; Roger Bowen with “De Air”; Colbert ‘Tweeta’ Mc Cledo with “Mashramani Time Again”; Jamal ‘G’ Money Gittens with “Invasion” and Onika Joseph with “Keep Death Off the Road” round out the list of contenders.
Coordinator of the event Nigel Worrel told reporters yesterday at a press briefing to announce the shortlist that they were impressed with the quality of work that came in and were satisfied with those selected in the line-up. He said the judges were competent and knowledgeable and after a thorough in-house elimination session, arrived at the shortlist to contest the 2008 competition.
Worrel said the organizers have noted very keenly that local producers have stepped it up this year, as many of the songs in the competition are of a high standard. Responding to a question about the majority of contenders sounding more Trinidadian or Barbadian than Guyanese, he said they expect the singers to deliver quality music, adding that if the standard was Trinidad or Barbados then the locals naturally will sound that way.
He said Carib had always intended to do a compilation of the songs in the competition since it first started back in 2004, but for a number of reasons never got around to doing it. According to him, some singers usually want to dominate the compilation believing it was theirs.
“Carib wants to do more than just stage a competition, we want to continue working with local artistes but they never come back to us after everything is over and say help me with this or that