Avindha two-time Primary Schools’ Chutney Monarch

Ten-year-old Avindha Singh successfully defended his crown on Wednesday in the primary school category of the Schools’ Intellectual National Carnival Chutney Soca Monarch competition. The event was held at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Savannah.

His song, Parents Take Heed, was written by his father Rishi Singh and Krishna Maharaj.

Young Singh rode onto the stage on a horse and wore a gold hat and navy blue jacket. As he stood on stage, he lifted his hands and pyrotechnics went off.

During his energetic performance he sang about too many children going astray, and urged parents to be good role models.

The standard three student of Tamana Hindu School told the media he felt "ecstatic" about his back-to-back win and planned to celebrate with a party.

His mother Neerala Singh said she is very proud of him, and described her son as very focussed and very sweet. She added that his father, leader of the band Maya, had a great input in his son.

Rishi Singh also thanked everyone for the support.

"Avindha is really a budding artiste and he has shown tremendous improvement and development. And I being his teacher and his father, it is amazing to have this feeling right now."

Singh scored 443 points and second place went to Sekel McIntosh of Arima Boys Government who scored 404 points with Chunkay It. McIntosh, also the defending Junior Soca Monarch, said the education system should be "chunkayed" and spiced up with calypso, pan, chutney and sports. He was a bouncing ball of energy and danced together with his dancers. He capped off his performance with a surprise appearance by four-time junior calypso monarch Aaron Duncan. Third place went to Jada Celestine from St Michael's Anglican who scored 397 points with her song Save the Children.

In the secondary schools category, defending champion Mackhaydon Charles of Miracle Ministries High School wowed the audience with his performance of The Responsibilities of Being King. His act began with him being lowered down the stairs on a litter. He sang that being chutney monarch was not an easy thing and there were responsibilities to the country. Despite a command performance and a score of 416 points he had to settle for second place to St Joseph Secondary student Paris Coutain who scored just five points higher. Coutain sang Sing a Happy Chutney, written by Ramdeen "Falco" Maharaj, and he encouraged chutney artistes not to sing about rum but about positive things like family, women's rights from violence, and religion.

He told the media he was tired of hearing music that was not influencing anything positive.

"So my song was basically informing everyone to stop singing stuff that don't empower the youth of today, and something positive and something that could inspire others to achieve greatness."

He said God is God, he was very happy to win and thanked his mother for the time and energy she put into his performance. Coutain is also the 2019 Mr NGC Sanfest.

Third place in the secondary school category went to Bethany Lightbourne from UWI School of Nursing whose song Chutney Soca is Real Unity, which praised chutney icons, scored her 404 points.

National Chutney Foundation president Dr Vijay Ramlal-Rai told the media the quality of the competition, which is in its ninth year, has been improving. On the prizes, he said that the foundation was awaiting word from the Education Ministry.