Kali­fa Clyne

Af­ter a per­for­mance in­fused with pi­cong and freestyle vers­es JMC 3Veni's Kris Per­sad emerged as the clear win­ner and fan favourite at the 2012 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day night. Even be­fore the com­pet­i­tive as­pect of the show be­gan, chut­ney fans erupt­ed in­to loud cheers and screams when host Ser­ala Ram­lo­gan read his text code. The re­sponse for Per­sad, pop­u­lar­ly known as KI, was greater than for any oth­er con­tes­tant. The show, which took place for the first time at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, be­gan with a five-minute fire­work dis­play.

Pa­trons cheered and looked on as dozens of rock­ets paint­ed the sky above the Oval af­ter 9 pm to sig­nal that the show had be­gun. So­ca artiste De­stra Gar­cia opened the show with a high en­er­gy per­for­mance, even per­form­ing a chut­ney remix to one of her songs. The com­pe­ti­tion was said to be judged com­plete­ly by the fans as the hosts of the event an­nounced that the win­ner would be se­lect­ed com­plete­ly by text mes­sage votes. The fans spoke and with 36,737 votes KI came out on top, fol­lowed by Rik­ki Jai (Sam­raj Jaimun­gal) with 32,781 votes and Rick Ra­moutar with 3,982.

The com­pe­ti­tion be­gan with Ra­moutar per­form­ing his 2012 hit I Wish I Was Sin­gle with Ra­moutar bar­ing his chest to pa­trons be­fore ex­it­ing the stage. The show con­tin­ued with per­for­mances from the oth­er con­tes­tants in­clud­ing three Guyanese con­tes­tants, two com­peti­tors from New York and a provoca­tive per­for­mance from chut­ney artiste Sal­ly Sagram. Short­ly af­ter the per­for­mance of the 11th fi­nal­ist Nigel Sal­ick­ram, the chut­ney mu­sic was paused as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was in­tro­duced on­stage.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who al­so made an ap­pear­ance at Chut­ney Brass, told the crowd she had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters that this Car­ni­val was go­ing to be the largest ever as every fete, every band and every ho­tel room had been booked. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­it­ed the stage short­ly af­ter and the com­pe­ti­tion re­sumed with per­for­mances from Ken­neth Su­per­sad and last year's Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rik­ki Jai, who en­tered the stage dressed as a cir­cus ring­mas­ter, in black boots, white pants, a red jack­et and a gold top hat.

The crowd re­sponse rose dur­ing Jai's per­for­mance but peaked con­sid­er­ably when the man of the night, KI, en­tered the stage. The crowd sang the lyrics of KI's Sin­gle For­ev­er loud­ly and when KI asked for the sin­gle peo­ple to show them­selves, al­most every hand shot to the sky. It was when the singer start­ed freestyling, how­ev­er, that the crowd re­al­ly re­act­ed. "Last year they gave it to the wrong guy, this year Chut­ney Monarch is KI," he sang­­­. No one in the au­di­ence showed sur­prise when KI was an­nounced as the win­ner. The singer him­self in­vit­ed his friends and fam­i­ly on­stage to share in his vic­to­ry.