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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Car­ni­val 2012

Battle is on for Junior Monarch

by

20120209

The fi­nal stage of the 2012 Fla­vorite Supreme Ice Cream Na­tion­al Ju­nior So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion takes place to­mor­row morn­ing, at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, at 10 am. Dubbed Awe­some Fri­day, the com­pe­ti­tion promis­es to be fierce, as com­peti­tors seek to de­throne reign­ing champs Ser­jio Came­jo-in the Pri­ma­ry cat­e­go­ry-and Marq Pierre-in the Sec­ondary cat­e­go­ry. Here is a quick look at what some of the com­peti­tors are bring­ing to the ta­ble.

Jeromy Ro­driguez (Pri­ma­ry cat­e­go­ry)

Jeromy Ro­driguez was born on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2001 in Eliz­a­beth, New Jer­sey, USA. His moth­er is Venezue­lan and his fa­ther is Trinida­di­an, which has ex­posed Ro­drigues to the Span­ish lan­guage and the cul­tures of all re­lat­ing coun­tries from a very ten­der age. His keen in­ter­est in singing came as ear­ly as age two, and his love for pan fol­lowed at age four. He plays both the dou­ble tenor and low­er C tenor pan. He is a song writer in his own right, as he has a unique style of pen­ning his com­po­si­tions. Ro­driguez is a stan­dard four "A" stu­dent of the St Mary's Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, and he is con­sid­ered a role mod­el stu­dent that is well bal­anced both in aca­d­e­mics and arts and cul­ture. He is the reign­ing 2011 Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch for the Princes Town/Table­land Com­mit­tee as well as the Moru­ga Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee. He is de­ter­mined to re­tain his ti­tles, and cop the TU­CO Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so and Fla­vorite Supreme Ice Cream Na­tion­al Ju­nior So­ca ti­tles. "I love to sing. I just love to per­form and en­ter­tain peo­ple. I love all types of mu­sic, but so­ca is where my heart is. I sing ca­lyp­so be­cause it gives me the abil­i­ty to ex­press my­self more. "I am armed with the tools to take so­ca to the Gram­my's if those be­fore me are un­suc­cess­ful, be­cause in my opin­ion, what­ev­er Amer­i­ca does the rest of the world fol­lows. So there­fore, so­ca needs to hit the US Gram­my's and the rest will fall in­to place," Rod­griguez said.

Nku Patrick (Sec­ondary cat­e­go­ry)

Nku Patrick was born on Jan­u­ary 16, 1997 to par­ents Ray­mond and Hy­acinth Patrick. He is a fourth form stu­dent of Na­pari­ma Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do and is pur­su­ing Busi­ness Stud­ies, and hopes to be­come an at­tor­ney at law. He is a Na­tion­al and Caribbean Squash cham­pi­on and is a mem­ber of his school's un­der-14 foot­ball team. He start­ed singing at the age of eight, em­u­lat­ing his fa­ther Ray­mond "Patch­es" Patrick, who is a for­mer South Ca­lyp­so Monarch. While at­tend­ing pri­ma­ry school he com­pet­ed and won the San Fer­nan­do Boys Gov­ern­ment School Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion on a few oc­ca­sions. Patrick has won Na­pari­ma's Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch for the past two years, and placed fifth at the 2010 NY­AC Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch and was a se­mi-fi­nal­ist in the 2011 TU­CO Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion. In ad­di­tion to be­ing an avid singer, Patrick al­so plays the pi­ano, gui­tar and the cu­a­tro. He has at­tained Grade 3 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in The­o­ry and Grade 2 in the prac­ti­cal ex­ams from Trin­i­ty Col­lege Lon­don. He de­cid­ed to en­ter the Ju­nior So­ca Monarch this year be­cause of his love for so­ca, which he de­scribed as part of the "Tri­ni" cul­ture. His main in­flu­ence was his old­er broth­er, Os­ei "No­ble Vox" James, who was one of the Syn­er­gy So­ca Star Sea­son 6 fi­nal­ists, and who wrote and pro­duced his song We Mas.

Ste­fan Came­jo (Pri­ma­ry cat­e­go­ry)

Ste­fan Came­jo was born on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2004 in­to an ac­tive­ly mu­si­cal fam­i­ly. He is the third of four chil­dren born of En­ri­co and Akel­la Came­jo. A sec­ond year in­fant stu­dent at Sa­cred Heart Boys' RC in Port-of-Spain, this is the first time he has en­tered any ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion. His ren­di­tion is en­ti­tled A time for every­thing. His hob­bies in­clud­ing singing, rid­ing, skate­board­ing, run­ning, and of course, like every oth­er boy, he loves video games.

Ju­maane Kun­le Cox (Sec­ondary cat­e­go­ry)

Ju­maane Kun­le Cox, who goes by the so­bri­quet "Ju­by," was born on a Car­ni­val Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 23, 1993. There­fore, it should come as no sur­prise, that the his first name, Ju­maane, means born on a Tues­day. From the day he was born he adopt­ed the love for cul­ture, ca­lyp­so and Car­ni­val. A sixth form stu­dent at Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC), his love for foot­ball saw him par­tic­i­pat­ing in QRC's In­ter­col foot­ball team from as ear­ly as third form and con­tin­ued through­out his tenure at the school. His lo­cal foot­ball club is Joe Pub­lic FC. Ju­by jumped in­to the so­ca are­na at QRC's an­nu­al ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion. Suc­cess at this com­pe­ti­tion spurred him on to his first re­lease in 2011, More Girls. Ju­by con­tributes his suc­cess and brav­ery on stage to his love for ex­tem­po, which it was dis­cov­ered he could do from the age of four. In 2012, Ju­by is send­ing a mes­sage to the na­tion, en­ti­tled Doh Over­do It. The song is a mes­sage to the cit­i­zens of T&T to en­joy the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, have fun, but be re­spon­si­ble and don't over­do it.

Marq Pierre (Sec­ondary cat­e­go­ry)

Marq Pierre is a 15-year-old fourth form stu­dent at North East­ern Col­lege in San­gre Grande and the reign­ing Fla­vorite Supreme Ice Cream Na­tion­al Ju­nior So­ca Monarch in the Sec­ondary cat­e­go­ry. Pierre be­gan singing at the age of four, with his first pub­lic per­for­mance be­ing a ren­di­tion of Tan­ty Say at his el­e­men­tary school's grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny in 2000.

Al­though he en­joys oth­er gen­res of mu­sic, nat­u­ral­ly he dis­plays a height­ened love for ca­lyp­so and so­ca. In 2005, at age nine, his moth­er wrote a ca­lyp­so, which he sang at a com­pe­ti­tion. He won and the rest, as they say, is his­to­ry. But his in­ter­ests are not lim­it­ed to mu­sic. He al­so dab­bles in Sci­ence, foot­ball, swim­ming and track and field. His ca­reer goal is to match Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing and In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy to con­tin­ued in­volve­ment in mu­sic. "I have an in­cred­i­ble sup­port sys­tem and a firm re­la­tion­ship with God and so I be­lieve I can achieve every­thing that I set my heart to," Pierre said.


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