Kevon Felmine

Rik­ki Jai (Sam­raj Jaimun­gal) be­came the first $2 mil­lion monarch of Car­ni­val 2011 when he won the NL­CB Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Sat­ur­day night,

Jai's vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, drew mixed re­ac­tions, with cheers and boos from the packed au­di­ence when he was an­nounced as the win­ner. The so­ca chut­ney star, who has won the ti­tle five times, ran on­to the stage and al­most faint­ed at the sight of the $2 mil­lion cheque held by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters.

Jai amassed a to­tal of 18,285 votes, 7,104 more votes than sec­ond place win­ner Ravi B.

An elat­ed Jai lat­er said he felt ho­n­oured to be the first artiste to win the lu­cra­tive first prize. He said it was no easy bat­tle but he did what he had to do. He said he had not yet de­cid­ed what he would do with the mon­ey, but on­ly good things would be done. He promised that it would not be wast­ed and that he be­lieved in char­i­ty. Rik­ki Jai made a grand en­trance on­to the stage for his per­for­mance of White Oak and Wa­ter, dra­mat­i­cal­ly burst­ing through a large mod­el of a bot­tle of White Oak rum.

Dressed el­e­gant­ly in an all-white suit, he was able to com­mand the crowd with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance. He im­me­di­ate­ly an­nounced his re­tire­ment from the com­pe­ti­tion. "I had al­ways said that if I won this year's Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, I will re­sign from the com­pe­ti­tion and I will be go­ing for the ca­lyp­so ti­tle next," he said. He ex­pressed grat­i­tude to his fam­i­ly, friends, fans and to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. About the mixed crowd re­ac­tions, he said text vot­ing was not as sim­ple as it seemed. Run­ner-up Ravi B, who won the ti­tle last year, came on­to the stage to the open­ing of his song I Am a Play­er, be­fore his tune of choice I Can­not Come when I Drink my Liquor.

The Kar­ma lead singer per­formed with en­er­gy and class, draw­ing wild ap­plause from the crowd when he did a se­ries of pre­ci­sion dance moves. At the end of his per­for­mance, he took on a ro­bot­ic ap­pear­ance as he walked off stage with an em­bla­zoned im­age of the let­ter R on his back. KI Per­sad, of JMC Triveni, placed third. Dressed in a black leather suit and singing I Not Drink­ing No More Rum, he daz­zled the crowd. Rick Ra­moutar al­so had a good per­for­mance and placed fourth. He was sup­port­ed on stage by so­ca artiste Zig­gy Rank­ing and had the crowd singing along to his song, I Should Have Nev­er. Round­ing off the top five was Hunter (Lalchan Bab­wah) who was en­ter­tain­ing with his ren­di­tion, Your Tan­ty's Man. Hunter even brought out his "tan­ty's man" who gy­rat­ed all around the stage to the crowd's amuse­ment.

The show be­gan prompt­ly at 9 pm with a 35-minute open­ing se­quence which fea­tured dance per­for­mances by the Pre­mala Dance Acad­e­my, Nir­vana Dance Group and the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers.

There was al­so a live­ly per­for­mance by ca­lyp­so vet­er­an Black Stal­in with his clas­sic Come Out To Par­ty.

There were al­so a guest ap­pear­ance by Machel Mon­tano HD, fea­tur­ing en­er­getic per­for­mances from Machel, Patrice Roberts, Farmer Nap­py, Zan and 15-year-old Prana­va Ma­haraj. Per­sad Bisses­sar and Pe­ters, along with a con­tin­gent of Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, were warm­ly ap­plaud­ed when they ap­peared on the stage. The Prime Min­is­ter praised Southex CEO George Singh, say­ing that the show was ex­cel­lent­ly done. Pe­ters did an ex­tem­po piece in which he stat­ed that the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch rep­re­sent­ed uni­ty and that he was hap­py to see In­di­an and Africans unit­ed. "When oil and gas runs out, at least we will have our arts to re­ly on," Pe­ters sang.