DAVID CUFFY

"We are all con­struc­tion work­ers. God put us here to build a bridge be­tween our mu­sic and the world." That was the sen­ti­ment ex­pressed by KI Per­sad (Vee­shal Kris Per­sad), the 2012 Lot­to Plus Chut­ney So­ca Monarch, af­ter col­lect­ing $1 mil­lion at the prize-giv­ing and awards cer­e­mo­ny held at the Hy­att Re­gency, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day evening.

"Our is­land may be small, but we have a big pres­ence in the mu­sic world, and we are cre­at­ing an equa­tion by tak­ing vari­ables from all our mu­sic gen­res to come up with some­thing great for the world," he added, in off-the-cuff thank-you re­marks de­liv­ered with boy­ish charm and youth­ful en­thu­si­asm.

The 25-year-old, the youngest Chut­ney So­ca Monarch in the his­to­ry of the com­pe­ti­tion, said he was ded­i­cat­ing his suc­cess to his fa­ther Veeren­dra Per­sad, founder and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of crossover band JMC 3Veni. KI is key­boardist, drum­mer and front-line singer with the band.

His win­ning se­lec­tion Sin­gle For­ev­er was the most-played chut­ney so­ca se­lec­tion on the road for the two days of Car­ni­val 2012, and won the Song of the Year award at the func­tion. De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress on be­half of the ab­sent Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters, deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Des­dra Bas­combe said, "Chut­ney so­ca adds val­ue to the na­tion's cul­tur­al his­to­ry."

She point­ed out that the genre did not ex­ist 50 years ago, when the coun­try be­came in­de­pen­dent, but was to­day an in­dus­try that pro­vid­ed its prac­ti­tion­ers with lu­cra­tive fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties. George Singh, CEO of Southex Event Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd, pro­duc­er of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, said this year's event was the best pro­duc­tion in the 17-year his­to­ry of the show, and promised that 2013 will be its most ex­cit­ing year.

De­liv­er­ing re­marks on be­half of the spon­sors were: Ever­ald Snag­gs, chair­man of the board of TSTT; Ra­jiv Shandilya, chair­man of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC); and Mi­tra Ma­habir, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB), ti­tle spon­sor of the 2012 edi­tion.

Guardian Me­dia Ltd was al­so part spon­sor of the event. Show hosts were Ser­ala Ram­lo­gan and Sim­ply E, an­nounc­ers of Su­per­sta­tion Sangeet 106.1, sis­ter sta­tion of Guardian Me­dia Ltd.

Awards were pre­sent­ed in eight cat­e­gories

• Best Sup­port­ing Dance Group-bmo­bile Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny

• Most Promis­ing Artiste-Veekash Sa­hadeo

• Best New Artiste-Resh­ma Ram­lal

• Best Lyrics in a Song-Nigel Sal­ick­ram (Blood)

• Most Out­stand­ing Fe­male Per­former-Artie Butkoon

• Most Out­stand­ing Male Per­former-KI Per­sad

• Pro­duc­er of the Year-Rishi Ma­ha­to (Ma­ha Stu­dios)

• Song of the Year-Sin­gle For­ev­er (KI Per­sad).

Al­so col­lect­ing their prizes were sec­ond-place win­ner Rik­ki Jai (Sam­raj Jaimun­gal), $200,000, and third-placed Rick Ra­moutar, $100,000. Re­ceiv­ing $30,000 each for plac­ing fourth to 15th were Nigel Sal­ick­ram, Artie Butkoon, Resh­ma Ram­lal, Ken­neth Su­per­sad, Heer­alal Ram­par­tap, Spread Pal Crew, Hunter (Lalchan Babla), Adesh Sama­roo, So­ca Elvis (Michael Sal­loum), Sal­ly Sagram, Rag­ga (Ian Joseph) and Sassy Ra­moutar.