Kenneth wants "Raj" on stage

Comedian and chutney singer Kenneth Supersad is offering a cash incentive for social media sensation “Raj”, his wife and his “outside woman”, to appear with him on stage to perform his new song The Raj Story.

Supersad said he heard that Raj was from South Trinidad and he would like to meet him and offer him money to come on-stage with him. He also extended the offer to Raj’s wife and the outside woman. Supersad said he is doing the song for his fans and hopes the song will, “take me to the 2018 Chutney Soca Monarch finals.”

For this year, Supersead did not make it into the semi-finals of the competition after he and several other chutney singers protested against the use of Bollywood melodies. Supersad said he was hoping to make the finals and win the competition and believes the only song that can beat him is Nermal “Massive” Gosein’s controversial, “Rowlee Mudda Count”.

Raj featured in an almost six-minute video posted to social media where he and his alleged outside woman are confronted by his wife and Raj’s father. The video became hugely popular with more than 260,000 views on Facebook and Raj’s famously stoic expression inspired several memes.

Supersad said his friend and fellow artiste Mario Jitman saw the video and wanted to do a song about it. Supersad, however, said time passed and he thought the topic had died down but his father encouraged him to do the song in a comical way. He decided to write the song and he when sang a line for his wife and daughter they began to laugh.

“I say to myself, ‘if they laugh it might be humorous’,” Supersad said. He wrote The Raj Story with music by Wizzy and it was produced by Big Rich in the Pungalunks Factory. He also did a video for the song where he re-enacted scenes from the video with him as Raj’s wife, his neighbour “Plantain” as Raj’s father and Kerron Ali as the titular Raj.

The video, directed by Supersad and produced by Focus Studios, has more than 50,000 views on YouTube since it was uploaded on December 22. He said the song has been on the radio for just over two weeks but it is bigger on social media. “I don’t know the reason why but the song is not getting the amount of airplay other songs are getting on the radio. Some announcers playing it, some are not.”

He said fair play on radio is an issue for many artistes for a long time and it needs to be addressed. Returning to the song he said anywhere he goes people ask him for Raj and he usually responds: “Don’t worry, Raj okay.” On the message of the song, he urged men to, “bat in allyuh crease and stop eating outside.” Supersad will be performing The Raj Story at the annual Chutney Brass show.