Chutney Soca champ confident of hat-trick

MORE than 40 artistes delivered an energetic series of musical and cultural performances at the 2020 Chutney Soca Monarch (CSM) semi-finals at Space La Nouba Nightclub in La Romaine, on Saturday night.

In celebration of the event’s 25th anniversary, the south venue was packed to capacity as hundreds of chanting fans rooted for their favourite singers to advance to the February 15 finals. The progressing crop of artistes however, will be unveiled by CSM promoter, George Singh, on Monday.

Defending CSM, Nishard Mayrhoo, was one of the event’s highlight performers and captivated the crowd with his new hit, Celebration, which was released early last week. Mayrhoo is confident his performance would propel him into the final round of competition and is hoping to bag a hat-trick of CSM titles this time around.

Sangeeta Harripersad received a resounding response after she belted out her latest release, ‘Vene Man’, which challenged local males to get up and work like their male Venezuelan counterparts.

General Imran (GI) was also a crowd pleaser with his piece entitled, Anna, a comical rendition on a woman visiting the market, squeezing bananas, but not purchasing any produce. Similarly, Nisha Ramsook, heated things up with a tassa group during her performance of Roll Up the Tassa.

Local comedian and singer, Kenneth Supersad, brought a different spin to the lyrical content when he sang, One Love, a song inciting unity between TT and Guyana. The chanting fans could not get enough of his famed line, “Curry chicken, chicken curry; it doh matter.”

Several foreign-based performers such as Keith Bishop, Hunter (both of Toronto) and Ravi Robin (New York) flew to TT to contest this year’s CSM and all received a true “Trini” welcome from their local-based supporters.

Hunter credited promoter Singh for his bravery and dedication to the art form and for providing both local and foreign-based chutney singers for a platform to showcase their talents.

Other highlighted performances on this night came from the Mr. Shankar crooner, Hitman, Dubraj Persad, Kavita Ramkissoon, Nigel Gobin, Amit Sookahi, Joel Davis and Vijay Ramkissoon, who were all backed by Avatar the Band.

Following Saturday’s event, Singh posted a message to his Facebook page thanking all artistes and patrons for ensuring the CSM semi-final was a smooth success.

“Last night's CSM25 semi-final event was fantastic to say the least. The crowds came out to support, the event was incident free, the backstage was well organised and the show ran very smoothly! The artistes really put their best foot forward, and I am happy that the semi-final platform still exists for those who may never get an opportunity to perform on a stage, with a 'live' band, in front of a big crowd! There are so many people to thank, and I will do so in another post....for now, let me just say......Results will be out tomorrow during the day, I will advise further. Thanks again!”