‘Voice’ will defend Soca Monarch crown

Reigning Soca Monarch, Aaron “Voice” St Louis will defend his title at Soca Monarch finals on February 9. Peter Scoon, chairman of the Caribbean Prestige Foundation for the Performing Arts confirmed this yesterday, as the preliminaries of the annual Soca competition got on the way. St Louis, it was announced last week, has also entered the Calypso |Monarch and Road March competitions.

St Louis will compete against nine other finalists for the title, and if he wins would have completed his soca monarch hat trick, having won consecutively in 2016 and last year. Approximately 136 artistes registered for the Soca Monarch preliminaries held at the NLCB booth, Queen’s Park Oval yesterday, among them Dexter “Blaxx” Stewart, Trevon “Turner” Tuner, Derek “Dawg E Slaughter” Pereira, Eric “Multi Symptom” Wilson, Akil, “5 Star Akil” Borneo, Orlando Octave, reigning chutney soca monarch, Omardath Maraj and reigning school’s soca monarch, Sergio Camejo.

Josephine Torrel-Brown (chief adjudicator), Steve Sealey, Judy Noel, Denise Pritchard, Christopher Seon and Mark Nottingham judged yesterday’s preliminaries. Registration which began on January 16 was left opened, giving those who wished to enter additional time to do so. Each year, Scoon said, the preliminaries draws around 150 to 200 artistes. Asked whether he felt, the newly rebranded Kaisocarama, which now includes a soca category would compete against soca monarch in any way, Scoon said, “That’s good. The more the merrier. Once it is for the development of the entertainment industry and the soca industry. I have no problem.

“I am not doing this primarily for money. I am doing this for the development of the industry and the more people want to come on board and develop the industry. I am okay for it. I am not here forever anyway. I am here to only facilitate the industry.”

Thirty artistes will be chosen from yesterday’s preliminaries. The semi-finalists will be announced today.