KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Kristi­na James con­tin­ues to rise. The reign­ing Miss Grand Trinidad and To­ba­go 2024 and win­ner of the Miss Grand Voice In­ter­na­tion­al 2024 is a se­mi-fi­nal­ist in the Youth So­ca Cham­pi­on 2025.

“I feel im­mense­ly proud to be part of the com­pe­ti­tion,” she said. “This be­ing my first so­ca sin­gle and be­ing able to place in the com­pe­ti­tion with ex­pe­ri­enced per­form­ers is def­i­nite­ly a feat I’m proud to have come so far. It’s on­ly up from here.

“I’m pre­pared to put on an amaz­ing show. I know the ti­tle could be mine once I set my mind. This com­pe­ti­tion is the first step to a fruit­ful ca­reer in the in­dus­try.”

James wrote the sin­gle Like Dat which was pro­duced by Jabz Mu­sic and mixed/mas­tered by Re­qwest Muz­ic. “It is a song that is re­lat­able to the ladies. It ex­udes con­fi­dence and brings a groovy/R&B vibe to the Car­ni­val sea­son,” she said.

“I had such an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing with such ex­pe­ri­enced in­di­vid­u­als and tru­ly can’t wait to re­lease more mu­sic.” The sin­gle was re­leased in De­cem­ber due to James’ com­mit­ment to the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al pageant.

“Af­ter com­plet­ing the com­pe­ti­tion in Trinidad and ac­quir­ing the ti­tle, I head­ed to the Philip­pines for train­ing. It was such an amaz­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, as the Philip­pines is the pageant cap­i­tal of the world. I worked with the top Pasarel­la train­ers and speech train­ers in pageantry. “Af­ter two weeks, I head­ed to Thai­land. The com­pe­ti­tion was a hec­tic and in­tense month.” Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it was not what James had hoped it would be. “It was es­sen­tial­ly a so­cial me­dia con­test, with the pop­u­lar coun­tries be­ing recog­nised and vy­ing for the ti­tle,” she added.

“It was a strug­gle to be seen, hail­ing from our small is­land of Trinidad and To­ba­go. But, when it came to the Grand Voice as­pect of the com­pe­ti­tion, they couldn’t over­look me. I was in my el­e­ment and came out the un­de­ni­able win­ner. I was ex­treme­ly proud to have made my mark and even more proud to rep­re­sent my coun­try on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage.”

The Miss Grand Voice Award is giv­en to the con­tes­tant with the best singing voice at the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al pageant. The pre­lim­i­nary round for the Miss Grand Voice Award took place in Bangkok, Thai­land. Con­tes­tants per­formed cre­ative mu­si­cal num­bers and demon­strat­ed their vo­cal abil­i­ties. 

James was an­nounced the win­ner of the Miss Grand Voice Award at the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al pageant on Oc­to­ber 25, 2024.

James’ in­tro­duc­tion to the stage be­gan at the age of ten. “Since then I’ve done count­less com­pe­ti­tions, whether it was with my school choir, my parang group, mu­sic fes­ti­val, show pro­duc­tions, or in pageantry,” she said. “Mu­sic has been a pas­sion of mine for as long as I can re­mem­ber. Com­ing from a fam­i­ly that adored mu­sic, I grew up lis­ten­ing to the clas­sics and be­ing in­spired.

“They en­cour­aged me to pur­sue these bud­ding goals, and I’ve done just that. Even though I trained vo­cal­ly in gen­res such as clas­si­cal, jazz, etc, so­ca is my cur­rent ven­ture. As a true lover of so­ca mu­sic and Car­ni­val, it felt like a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion to be­gin work­ing in the so­ca in­dus­try.”

While mod­el­ling and fash­ion are her pas­sions, James al­ways want­ed to be­come a pro­fes­sion­al singer. “I hope to con­tin­ue re­leas­ing qual­i­ty mu­sic, show­ing my tal­ents and skills, pre­sent­ing my craft, and achiev­ing suc­cess in this field,” she said.

“I’m not on­ly fo­cused on so­ca mu­sic but oth­er gen­res. I hope to be­come an in­ter­na­tion­al record­ing artiste while tak­ing the so­ca genre with me.”

James, who grew up in El Do­ra­do and at­tend­ed St Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain, is fo­cus­ing on en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, and de­scribed her­self as cre­ative in all as­pects.

“Yes, I’m a singer, I’m al­so a gui­tarist,” she said. “I’m an artist who en­joys paint­ing por­traits. I al­so love film and video pro­duc­tion. I adore every as­pect with­in the cre­ative in­dus­tries.”

The se­mi-fi­nal round of the Youth So­ca Cham­pi­on and Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on is card­ed to take place at the Na­pari­ma Bowl Am­phithe­atre to­day.